Six-String ($4.99)
Version – 1.0.0
REVIEW – “A creative diversion from the typical music game!”
There are a lot of games that have been able to make the transition from the console to the mobile platform with ease. The “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” style games are a genre that has been ported, but is just not 
quite the same without the instruments that you play them with on other platforms. Universal Music Group has taken the basic concept and applied it in such a way as to make it unique to the touch screen platform of the iPhone OS with their new game Six-String!
When you open Six-String for the first time you’ll be asked if you want to sign into the Plus+ network. If you haven’t done this before I would recommend it. The Plus+ 
network is a free social gaming network that will track and compare your high scores and “achievements” with your friends and people all around the world! This adds a fun competitive edge to the game, and it also allows you to “Challenge” your friends to a competition if you want.
Once you have everything set up it will show you a brief tutorial. There is not really a visual demonstration of how things work and so I would recommend that you either just jump right in or watch 
the video at the end of this review to get an idea of how everything works! There are several different options at the main menu screen. There is a “Music Store” where you can buy new tracks for $0.99 each, a “Challenges” button to challenge your friends to compete, and two different game play options: “Practice” and “Studio”.
In order to play games in “Studio” mode you’ll need to unlock them by completing them with a certain percentage of accuracy in “Practice” mode. In practice play is slightly different. You don’t have the same type of scoring and meters, and it is also impossible to fail in practice. There are three different difficulty levels, and in order to be able to play the songs in “Studio” mode you will have to complete them a high enough accuracy in practice.
Gameplay itself is fairly simple, you have the standard notes like in other games where all you have to do is touch them when they cross the bridge. This game also includes several other types of notes like 
“Note Phrases” which you have to touch and hold for a specified time, “Strum Indicators” which you will have to strum across the specified strings in timing and also chord changes. As you are strumming the chords you have to touch the chord change button in the bottom left corner when you see the chord change bars.
The songs in this game are full-length and not just small demo’s, which is nice. They sound amazing as long as you are hitting all your notes in time. I really like the way that whether you are playing correctly or not has a huge effect
on how everything sounds. The one thing I would say is that it seems that for $4.99 they could have included maybe a few more songs. While the six songs that are included are a blast, they get old pretty fast leaving you wanting more. While there are plenty more songs to download, they all cost $0.99 individual, which is more that I would probably be willing to play for tracks that I can only use within this game.
The other small annoyance with this app is that the strumming is slightly frustrating, especially on higher difficulties. There has been more than one time that the song was sounding great and I was keeping up with all the rhythms and without even thinking I was struggling I would fail. A real guitar is much more forgiving than this game is when it comes to your strumming, with that said though I mainly had issues only when I was on the “Hard” difficulty setting, and it is designed to be difficult!
All in all this game was a pleasant surprise. While many game developers have simply taken the old music format and transposed it as closely as possible, Six-String has managed to come up with much deeper game that truly feels a lot more like actually playing a guitar. While I’d like to see some cheaper downloadable content (maybe packs of 2 or 3 songs for $0.99), I don’t think you’re going to find a better music game in the app store. So while this app is definitely in the “premium” category in the App Store, I think it may be one of the few apps that is worth the money. If you don’t believe me, check out the video in this review to get a taste of how it plays, or check it out in the App Store today!
- David H.
Download Now!
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Developer – Universal Music Group
URL: http://www.facebook.com/SixStringApp
© 2010, Davidh. All rights reserved.