Bandfuse

[Cagliostro]

Yep, another guitar game like Rocksmith to try to help you learn the guitar.
I wasn't very excited about it, but had put it on my wish list for Amazon and was actually surprised when I opened it Christmas morning. So like my Rock Band and Rocksmith threads, I felt this deserved its own.

I just gave it a try now that the embarrasment of playing in front of family is a non-issue, and I have to say that my first impressions are particularly good. The note recognition is very good, and the tuning is MUCH more forgiving than Rocksmith.
It's funny because I feel like someone was listening to me and compiled what I have liked about prior music games into one great release. First off, they included what was best about the Singstar series of games - music videos from the artist, which is really just a small thing I could do without, but it kinda cool all the same, especially during breaks in the music.
The second thing I really like about it is that it takes several cues from Rock Band. Namely the difficulty type of system - 5 types of difficulty from very easy to the actual playing of the game. And they say that they use the actual pegs from the musicians instead of the final mix, which supposedly is more accurate (although I admittedly don't know what they are talking about). Also, the scoring system of 1-5 stars also takes from Rock Band, which is what I like to use as my system is to play the song on the difficulty until I get 5 stars, and then I move on to the next difficulty. And it has a vocal option that works exactly the same as Rock Band, which apparently is because they were given Harmonix's permission and help with.
And as far as Rocksmith, it does a lot of training video courses and seems to explain the different techniques as well and lets you practice them.

What is different about it is that it uses 2-D tablature instead of the 3D "jewel highway" or whatever. To be honest, I find it works just fine for me, and kinda gives a better idea than Rocksmith and Rock Band of how long to let the sound ring and when to mute the string. Plus, and one of the best features to me so far is that instead of colored strings that you get used to looking at, it gives fingering information; in other words, green means to use your index finger, red is middle finger, yellow is ring finger and blue is pinky. And apparently orange is your thumb at higher difficulties. I think this will help me more than anything, as I pretty much use whatever finger feels more comfortable, which is usually the index or middle that I shift around on the fretboard. I can already tell this is going to improve my playing all the more, as I know I should be using all my fingers more often.
Anyway, I'm thinking this the learning tool I really wanted Rocksmith to be, but failed to make it fun with the constantly shifting difficulty, and bad tuning issues.
Here's a review from Riff Repeater, a website for guitar music games such as this.

The biggest con going for this in my opinion is the great lack of songs, most of which are already on Rock Band 3 or Rocksmith, but that's to be expected from any new kid on the block. And honestly, I don't mind crossover here and there, especially when it works better on one system over another.

[Zarathustra]

Is there anything like this for drums? We just purchased an Alesis electronic drum kit. I'd like to take the Band Hero drum experience to the next level.

[Cagliostro]

I wish. I know there was a drumming game several years back, but it was air drumming somehow, and looked stupid.

[Cagliostro]

I have completed all the songs on the easiest of the 5 difficulties with 5 stars (which is the top amount). I have been working on the second difficulty and pretty much have 4 or 5 stars on each song. I peeked ahead expecting to get my ass kicked on some of the songs I like on the 3rd difficulty level, and was surprised that I was able to pull off a 4 star first attempt. This "game" has really been a confidence builder. And if you've been following my Rock Band/Rocksmith/Bandfuse progression toward learning the guitar, I've really come a long way with it, but it seems I have gotten a lot better since picking up Bandfuse. I've been finishing more songs on pro-guitar in Rock Band 3 using some of the tricks I've been picking up from the Bandfuse learning system, and I feel like so much is coming together that I never really picked up on from how frustrating I have found Rocksmith.