A few years ago when Rock Band and Guitar Hero were at the peak of their popularity, I said to my son, “If you spent half as much time playing a real guitar as you spend pushing colored buttons on that plastic Xbox control, you’d play like Stevie Ray Vaughan or Eric Johnson by now.”
His reply was classic teenager: “Yeah…” followed by a lengthy pause, then, “But Rock Band is FUN.”
That was the first time I remember thinking how cool it would be if Rock Band or Guitar Hero let you play notes on a real guitar instead of pushing colored buttons on a cheap plastic guitar-shaped Xbox controller.
And that, in a nutshell, is Rock Prodigy: Guitar — Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band with your favorite guitar. If you’ve ever played any of the myriad versions of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, or any of the iOS clones (i.e. Tap Tap Revenge, Guitar Rock Tour, etc.), this is the same but with a real guitar.
What I liked
Playing the game is just like playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band. And, like the console games upon which Rock Prodigy: Guitar is so obviously based, its songs are licensed original recordings by the original artists. Rock Prodigy: Guitar is available for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
You play on a simulated on-screen fretboard, as shown in Figure 1 (which is actually one of the game’s help screens):
Figure 1: How to play Rock Prodigy: Guitar.
Here’s a blow-by-blow (using Figure 1 as an example):
When a fret number (9, 12, and 0) crosses the playline (as the 9 is), you have to pluck that string at that fret at that moment. The blue glow after each number indicates the duration for that note. A 0 means “pluck this open string and don’t press any fret.”
Points are scored for playing the right note at the right time with additional points for holding the note for the correct duration. The more notes in a row you play correctly, the higher the point multiplier (8x).
Figure 2: I nailed the open “A” but flubbed the open “D.”
Now here’s what happens during an actual game (using Figure 2 as an example):
So when you flub a note, the guitar part drops out of the mix and the note you missed lights up in red, like the O (for open) B string (second from top). Conversely, when you play the right note at the right time the note is displayed, like the 0 (for open) A string (second from bottom) 2.
The app is free and it includes a few guitar lessons and songs at no additional cost. That said, I predict this app will be anything but free if you like it.
Let’s start with the free part:
- Polyphonic Pitch Detection
- Authentic Master Recordings
- Immediate Performance Feedback
Figure 3: Performance feedback (aka beating your high score).
- 4 Levels of Difficulty for Each Song
Figure 4: Easy is fairly easy (even for me); Prodigy level, on the other hand, is completely insane.
- Tuning Lessons
- Online Profile Management
- Save Scores
- Performance Tracking And History
- Share with Facebook
- Share with Twitter
If you like the free stuff you’ll almost certainly want the Premium Feature Pack (US$9.99), which adds desirable features including:
- Practice Mode
- Scrubbing
- Fast-Forward Swipe
- Rewind Swipe
- Auto-Pause
- Auto-Play
- Adjust Backing Track Volume
- Adjust Guitar Track Volume
- Note Names
- Chord Names
- In-App Chromatic Guitar Tuner With Alternative Tunings