Rez. Play this game, damnit

Rez is a game with a shaky history. In its first appearance, it was one of the last games for the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast, it never even made it to the States, though it did come out in Japan and a European version presumably existed, yet I never saw it. Not in a legal form, anyway. *cough*

Suffice to say, by the time Rez came out on the Dreamcast, November '01, people had already moved on to the Playstation 2 so sales were terrible.

At that time, Sega had already begun developing titles, though quite a lot of them were little more than half-assed ports of existing Dreamcast games, which were already showing their age. Not so with Rez, as the game was a perfect port and it was never the most technically advanced game as far as pushing polygons is concerned.

However, due to the bad reputation of said Dreamcast ports but mostly to the fact that as a game, Rez is completely bonkers, critical and commercial reception was mediocre at best, so its sales suffered on the PS2 as well.

I'm especially bitter at the critics it received, because the amount of bullshit I read from reviewers of the time that just did not get it was staggering. I recall one review from a British PS2 mag concerning the music, inarguably the most important feature of the game, saying, and I quote, "The music is nice, but samey - 7 out of 10."

What the fuck does that even mean? "Samey music" - as if music has any obligations to change tempo every two seconds. Hell, if anything, a continuous, even monotonous tempo often adds to the appeal of a certain theme. The fact that the music in Rez is anything but "samey" isn't even worth mentioning against such a terrible argument. On a side note, I harbor an irrational hatred of the word samey.

It's also worth noting that it was a trend amongst PS2 mags at the time to give ports of Dreamcast games less-than-stellar reviews, for no other reason than being games that originally came from an "inferior" console. Good times indeed.

Now that the game has been re-released as part of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade network, however, critics are all of a sudden acknowledging Rez as a "modern classic" and "worthy of its cult hit status" and giving it one "10 out of 10" review after another. Quite funny to see, if a bit embarassing.

So what's the big deal about Rez anyway? After several paragraphs of incoherent ranting, it's about time I get to that. The problem is, Rez is one of those things you can't really describe with words. Hell, the first time you see it you still probably won't understand what's going on.

Jeff Minter said it best when he described the game as "Panzer Dragoon with its rave pants on." Because that's what Rez is, basically. The gameplay itself is pretty simple and formulaic, you're constantly moving forward in a typical "on rails" fashion, you shoot at enemies, collect power-ups you use to shoot at even more enemies, and you kill bosses that take up half the screen.

There's also a storyline somewhere in the game, and it deals with... something, but it's far too trippy and abstract for me to ever make heads or tails of it.

But this is one of those games where it's not about the gameplay nor the story, not on their own at least. It's all about the aesthetics of the game. Or rather, how each one ties with the other seamlessly. It has to do with the way everything around you vibrates to the tune of the trance music in the background and its beat. A beat you control by shooting at the enemies on your screen. Furthermore, deciding which enemy to target and kill first is also a nearly-subconscious decision based on the way it moves and the sound triggered when you first target it.

What's that last sentence even about, you're asking? It's all about synesthesia. I could try to explain what's going on, but I think I'll just leave it to the game's creator, Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his recent 1up interview. You may have to scroll down a bit to find the interview, but the whole article is worth reading, actually.

I understand that the above might not be making much sense, trust me when it's damn hard to explain Rez with words. I believe the best way to describe the game is the following: Rez is one trippy experience. Because it's an experience, first and foremost.

Now that the game has at last managed to convince reviewers about its uniqueness and its incredible quality, hopefully so will the players finally realize that Rez is worth buying and playing. You can buy it from the Xbox Live Marketplace for a mere 800 Microsoft Points. Even though I already own a PS2 copy, I'm probably buying it again once I'm able to actually buy MS points (long story, has to do with Greece sucking and being a Banana republic.) Partly as a statement and partly because I've retired my PS2.

In closing, seeing as describing the game can be hard with words, and since a picture is more or less worth a thousand words, here's a collection of pictures in the form of a video. Do keep in mind that actually playing Rez is far more different than simply seeing it.