Originally released on the Meta Quest, Unplugged: Air Guitar is a rhythm game where you, well, play an air guitar. You strum with one hand and move the other to different parts of the neck according to a note chart similar to games like Rock Band or Guitar Hero.
With a core track list of 20 plus tracks from across the history of rock music and another 20 tracks unlocked along the way, the game provides a nice, varied list of tunes. However, while the campaign mode doles the tracks out slowly, it does so with no sense of cohesion. All of the tracks are grouped into tiers with seemingly no real rhyme or reason, solely serving as an obstacle to unlocking the next admittedly impressive venues. We did encounter some issues with the progression where we'd miss out on crucial tutorials, so things can feels a little slapdash in places.
This tutorials are essential, too, as they're anchored by “Satchel”, the guitarist of Steel Panther, and dish out crucial information at a good pace. The first impression of these is cringe-inducing, ridiculing “nerds” in what feels like a very outdated skit, but as you go along, the videos get progressively cheesier and genuinely funny. Plus, they teach you the game’s robust and precise mechanics.
To play, you hold down different numbers of buttons on your PSVR2 Sense Controllers to approximate notes – you’ll also be tilting the guitar at different angles on higher difficulties – all while the game’s impressive tracking is put to use. Strumming patterns approximate real life in a way even Rock Band doesn’t, and fretting on the neck is great, as it's able to differentiate between very slight differences in hand placement on your guitar. This precision leaves a lot of room for mastery.
As a result, the game subscribes to the “easy to play but difficult to master” cliché, and offers enough replay value thanks to its varied track list that it's worth sticking with over many sessions.
Comments 10
I wasn't going to bother with this one, but sounds like another game I need to add to my wishlist!
Will be picking this up but really wish Harmonix did something with rockband 4 for vr2 as I have a lot of dlc
I don't need to pay 500 quid to play air guitar to Freebird! 😉
I would've preferred an improved Rocksmith with no latency issues.
@gbanas92 **sigh** opens wallet...at least I was kind of prepared for this! Good review!
@JP80 exactly! This would be awesome and no dount get me to buy even more dlc!
@JP80 this would fix all the calls for physical instruments. It would probably be a nightmare to put together though
@ztpayne7 It technically does exist, although I have no idea if Rock Band VR actually uses any of the peripherals. I would assume no? But I'm not sure.
@JP80 I know I've mentioned it to you before, but honestly even just a port of Rock Band VR. At least as a starting point haha.
@Saitama117 That would be awesome!!!
@EnragedGibbon Honestly, I had no expectations on this one! I was kinda expecting to not be too impressed with it, and boy did it do the opposite of that!
This is a game I wish I could get to terms with because the feel is AMAZING. BUT I think I ran a foul of tutorials. I just go to a song, satchel appears and tells me some new technique and then it just starts at full speed and I never even learned what to do with a thing and wind up frantically strumming kind of like the pistol whip fish on floor phenomenon. Maybe i should really go back and try again, maybe deleting my save. Because it really gives such a real feel of holding a guitar and just looks great, which is something if a feat for a rhythm game!
@gbanas92 Glad it's good, hope it sells well enough to get some dlc!
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