Rez

"As a piece of conceptual art second to none, as a game not too bad."

Rez

Here's my review for the uber cool, stylish and sought after game Rez, a game making an appearance on both the Dreamcast and the PS2.

In Rez you take the form of a cyber hacker entering into a sentient computer system known as Eden, in an attempt to reawaken it from the affects of computer virus, or something along those lines, Rez is basically an on the rails shooter so the story isn't of any great importance here. Anyone who has ever played any of the old Star Fox or Panzer Dragoon games will be familiar with what an on the rails shooter entails, you view your character from behind in 3rd person perspective , and travel forwards into the screen, blasting at enemies as they approach and dodging out of the way of various bullets, lasers and projectiles that hurled at you.

Now I wouldn't say that Rez is the very finest example of this particular genre, it doesn't quite live up to the all time classics such as Panzer Dragoon on the Saturn or Space Harrier in the arcades, but none the less it's still a solid, well rounded, and ultimately stylish game.

Since the game takes place within a computer generated environment it takes place in a surrealistic world of grids, cubes, lines and shapes, with an assortment of surreal craft from tiny drones to gigantic battle ships attacking you from all sides. The graphics are simplistic but none the less stylish and impressive to look upon, and the superb techno style sound track forms an integral part of the game. The music is such an important part of Rez that it is stated in the opening screen that speakers must be used or head phones must be worn during gameplay. I would have to agree, If you play Rez on mute you are in fact only experiencing half of the game.

Rez is a pretty short game, composed only of 5 levels divided into a number of short sub levels, getting tougher increasingly more surrealistic as you progress, with gigantic and bafflingly bizarre boss to face at the end of each. Particular mention has to go to the fifth and final level which is by far the most psychedelic and “tripy” one of the lot, taking you on a virtual tour of the evolution of the world evolution from the primordial sea, right up to the age of man. Though short the latter levels of Rez can take some time to unlock, and can provide a fair degree of challenge so it will likely still take you a while to finish through the game to the end, I'm still yet to complete it myself having come tentatively close to defeating the final boss.

Overall however it is best to describe Rez as a work of visual and aural work of art with a certain amount of game-play added, if only as an after thought. Rez certainly isn't all style and no substance, though it could well be a case of style over substance. The graphics and music are second to none, though the game-play is little more than just over average. You move your character around, locking onto targets up to 8 at a time as they appear by moving your cursor over them with the trigger held down, once locked you release the trigger unleashing a series of homing beams upon them. Smaller enemies blow up in a pyrotechnic display of colour in one shot, larger enemies and particularly bosses take a little longer, giving off quite a pyrotechnic show upon their demise. Occasionally an enemy may decide to lob the occasional sluggish missile at you, these are almost always homing missiles so can't be dodged only locked onto and destroyed the usual way, but this isn't too difficult. Things do liven up in the forth and particularly fifth levels where enemies hurls a torrent of fast moving projectiles at you, but it feels as though the game was cut short just as things start getting interesting. On completing a level you are given the option to “trip” i.e. re-play the level being invulnerable to an enemies attack, just playing to enjoy the sights and sounds. A good idea but to be fair for most part you're unlikely to come under that much threat anyway, with exception of the final level and the bosses.

There are two kinds of power ups you can collect in the game, one being the usual smart bomb that destroys or at least damages everything on screen (I use this very rarely myself), and another that allows your character to upgrade himself into a more powerful form. On collecting 10 power ups you're character is taken up one power level, on being shot he is taken back down to the former power level . You begin the game on power level 2, the maximum level you can reach is 5 (though there is a special “sixth” level you can reach right at the very end), should you get taken to 0 it's game over. The advancements are mostly visual in nature since I don't feel as though the attacks really become all that much more powerful, but they do provide with a good buffer against attack, the higher your power level the more hits you can take, so they effectively act as lives.

So all in all Rez is a stunning piece of visual and aural art made into a game, the visuals, style and audio taking precedence over the game-play. Rez is none the less a compelling, stimulating and unique experience that will forever imprint itself in your mind.

One final word for those with the Dreamcast version of Rez, this game when played via a PC monitor through a VGA cable really does look spectacular, it is something I would very strongly recommend.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/04