Much like a real band – breaking into the music scene in the video game genre can be just as difficult.  Power Gig: Rise of the SixString from Seven45Studios thrusts itself into the mix alongside some heavy competitors already established in the game space.  We had a chance to play the game hands-on the Xbox 360 and walked away still scratching our heads.

Power Gig offers video game fans the chance to play a music/rhythm game with a real authentic guitar – something they’ve been asking for, right?  The guitar/game bundle comes with a nice heavy-duty guitar that can be hooked up to an amp and played like any other ‘real’ guitar or on your gaming console to play the game.  ‘The AirStrike Drums’ do not offer the same realistic feeling as the guitar – think more like ‘air drums’ in your living room.

Power Gig tries to pioneer itself as the next evolution in music based games and the developers have gone out of their way to prove it by making video viral campaigns that show them smashing plastic guitars and their logo even vaguely resembles ‘the middle finger’ but the gameplay experience does not shine.  Playing the game with the real guitar on anything higher then medium difficulty is extremely tough to master.  We were able to do well playing on easy and strumming away to the songs in an enjoyable fashion but once you take it up a notch you will find yourself frustrated.

The interface of the game is very confusing – the notes scroll vertically on the highway much like Rock Revolution but they do not keep the colors of the notes consistent. Having the notes change colors during gameplay made it difficult for us to master anything beyond the easy levels on the ‘real’ guitar.  Luckily, Power Gig is compatible with most of the ‘plastic’ guitars on the market and when we switched over to a fake guitar we were able to play through songs easier on the harder difficulties.

On a positive side – Power Gig: Rise of the SixString offers an interesting ‘set list’ of songs that haven’t been recycled over and over again on Guitar Hero or Rock Band.  Someone who is extremely dedicated to mastering the art of ‘real guitar’ on a video game might find this one a rewarding challenge.  But at the heart of everything – we found it difficult to give Power Gig anything more then the attention an ‘opening act’ might receive and wonder if their fancy ‘real’ guitar might be compatible with future games much like the fake ‘plastic’ guitars (and drums) were compatible with theirs.

For more info on Power Gig: Rise of the SixString visit: http://www.powergig.com