Rez

PS2 review by Justin Boot, published on Thursday 14th September 2006

It finally happened. After countless hours of brainstorming on whiteboards, debating with fellow game designers, coming up with half-assed ideas, and going enough pots of coffee to keep an horse awake, the folks at Sega had to face a hard truth: despite their most creative efforts, they could not come up with a game that could be fresh and entertaining. But just as the glimmer of hope began to fade from their tired eyes, inspiration struck them. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or even the stress of their daily work. Or maybe someone just slipped some ecstasy into the coffee. Whatever it was, this haggard band of game designers finally snapped, savagely ripped all their cookie-cutter ideas off the drawing board, and came up with something unlike anything they’d ever conceived.

Instead of introducing some new cool mascot or epic series, Sega decided to use something both simple and completely ridiculous. In their bleak foretelling of the future, mankind has overpopulated the world. In order to keep everything running smoothly, society has begun to rely on Project-K, a computerized system capable of processing enormous amounts of data in the blink of an eye. At the core of this digital behemoth, an artificial intelligence center called Eden. A couple of inevitable moral issues and futuristic science fiction cliches later, and Eden has begun to question its own existence and shut itself down. As some anonymous hacker, it’s your apparent mission to break into the system, zap any viruses that cross your path, bust through the computer’s firewalls, and delve into the consciousness of Eden itself to restore it.

Okay, you know what? Forget about the nonsensical story and whatever philosophical crud that it’s trying to push on the game’s audience. If you don’t have the instruction manual, there’s no way you’ll ever figure out what Rez is supposed to be about. Nor should you really care. The only thing that makes sense about this game is that its gameplay operates as a standard rail shooter. There’s no exploration or plot twists; just a bunch of tiles vaguely shaped into a human body floating throughout the various levels. Using your character’s square targeting mechanism, you’ll be able to fire lasers to shoot down bird-like computer programs, wipe out digitized squids, and snipe spam missiles before they incinerate you. The sheer amount of enemies may seem pretty daunting at first, but the 8-way targeting and upgradeable homing lasers should balance things out. These altercations aren’t very difficult, either; after a minute or so after entering an area, you’ll find yourself looking at the portal to next area. Rinse and repeat nine more times, and you’ll come face to digital face with the level’s challenging boss. With only five levels made up of the various areas, Rezis a horribly short but sweet experience.

That’s assuming, of course, that you don’t bother with any of the game’s extras. Once you’ve played through the game enough times, you can try the Score Attack Mode, a nifty mini-game that can prove just how capable you are with the game’s 8-way laser beams. There’s also the Traveling Mode, which is basically nothing more than a glorified practice session for each of the levels. But if you’ve mastered everything that the various levels and areas have thrown at you, the Boss Rush Mode allows you to relive the game’s relatively brutal battles. Completing these challenges will grant you access to more secret levels, music remixes, and new blends of color for the level.

Normally you wouldn’t think of new color pallets as a very rewarding unlockable feature, but it works well given the game’s presentation. While other rail shooters attempt realism with highly detailed graphics, Rez does the exact opposite. The majority of the levels look like a bunch of neon lines that are shaped to look like certain objects or shapes. You’ll be zooming over curved lines that resemble sand dunes, exploring hallways that go on to infinity, and go drifting down digitized rivers. As the levels progress, you’ll find yourself wandering through the Great Pyramid, Aztec temples, Tibetan monasteries, and a handful of other interesting locales. Just when you’ve gotten your bearings, the area will abruptly end, then fold, crumple, or turn on its side as you enter the next realm. As you blast through polygonal missiles, birds, spiders, fish, and everything else the game throws at you, the screen will light up in brilliant bursts of neon lights. It may not seem quite as epic as blasting space aliens or shooting down fighter jets, but it’s still a treat for the eyes.

But if the flashy lightshows won’t grab your attention, then the game’s superb audio quality will. Each level comes with its own unique blend of techno music, usually with simple and repetitious beats blended with a few sound effects. Meanwhile, every action you make within the game harmonizes with the background music; every time you lock onto an enemy, the sound of a beating drum weaves itself into the music. Your lasers will also emit a wide variety of bleeps, chimes, and dings depending on how far you’ve upgraded them. Whenever any enemy blows up, it’ll leave some kind of guitar twang, piano key, or simple musical note in its wake. Once the game’s difficulty picks up and your foes start crowding around, the tempo of the music will increase as well, driving your forward as you annihilate everything in your path. After a while, you’ll forget that Rez is just a rail shooter, and not some kind of psychedelic musical performance.

When you take a step back and look at it, you’ll realize that Rez doesn’t offer anything that you’d expect from a game these days. There’s a bizarre plot that has little relevance. There is never any attempt to portray realism, either; the endless rows and columns of neon lines and geometric shapes are a far cry from the cloudy skies, fiery wreckage, and incredibly detailed enemies found in many contemporary games. Instead, this game focuses more on the visual and audio experience; the flashing lights, brilliant streaks of color, the pulse-pounding techno music and beautiful symphony of sound effects makes this game quite an experience. Rez may not be the greatest rail shooter of all time, but its brilliance cannot be denied.