The Police Chat

The big selling point for Jam Sessions 2 is that players will pick up the game, play it, and not realize they are learning guitar as they do. I couldn't disagree more with that, however, as instead Jam Sessions has included a Guitar Hero-inspired single player mode, added all unlocks and editing pieces for your own music creations as unlockables – thus having players go through single player mode in order to gain all the pieces of their music tool – and really lost what the game was all about in the first place; freestyle jamming in a totally open, user-created experience.

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Nobody is going to rip through dozens of cover songs, starting on mandated lower difficulties, replay them over with tougher settings, and then magically come out understanding music theory and chord progression. The final package is a fun experience, and the single player career-inspired "Song Book" mode is an entertaining and superior addition than the play along mode in the first game. As far as Jam Sessions pushing the "music tool" aspect of it's design, however, I don't see much evolution from the first game.

In fact, while single player mode is a fun Guitar Hero-inspired mode, there's no actual musical teaching is going on. You press the d-pad as indicated, and when notes fall you strum on the pad. In fact, while the game's multi-string system is a nice touch for freestyle play – it adds a lot more depth to it all – it's largely ignored during single player gaming, as all other stings are inactive when the game prompts you with a specific chord.

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It's tough to explain on paper, but you can essentially hold the right chord direction, strum across the entire pad, and still hit the right sound even if you were only supposed to be using two or three strings in tandem. After playing through hours of the single player mode, gamers will be better at playing Jam Sessions 2 the game, but they won't magically be absorbing actual knowledge on guitar playing as Ubisoft claims.