Phenomenal PS2 Game: Rez

[Catalyst]

Rez is a phenomenal game that came out in January for the Playstation 2. To sum it up it's an incredible visual, aural, and mental experience.
The game is Tron meets Missle Command meets Space Harrier meets Lawnmower Man.
I didn't know exactly which forum to put a video game review such as this. But this is not an ordinary video game. You must must must try this game to fully appreciate why I chose V&PA.
There have been many good reviews of the game but I'll post one I picked up from Gamespot.

Rez is, quite simply, a masterpiece.
There have been many times when I've disagreed with Gamespot's reviews, but this time I really have to speak up. I don't think the reviewer "got" this game at all. To give it a 6/10 in gameplay is just... not smart. The 10/10 in Reviewer's Tilt isn't enough. If Rez was a mere shooter, I'd understand. The gameplay is incredibly simple, even for a game of its genre (not that there's anything wrong with a game having simple play mechanics), but Rez is so much more than that. Rez is an experience. In this case, gameplay encompasses not only the action of controlling the character, but the very _feeling_ Rez gives to any player who takes the time to appreciate this game. The music, the graphics, the Dualshock's vibrations, how it's all connected to the control, is what makes this game so special. That, in my opinion, is all part of Rez's gameplay, just like the story and characters in a RPG are part of its gameplay. That's why I gave it a 10/10.
I can't possibly write a better review of this game than _The GIA_ (although I won't link to them out of, um, respect for Gamespot), but I'll try anyway.
First, the vector graphics may not look very good at first glance, but they suit Rez perfectly. Complex, detailed textures would just have taken away from the Rez experience. While your eyes aren't occupied looking at textures, you'll be able to notice how the graphics are intimately tied to the music, vibrations and gameplay. Even though they look a bit unappealing to some, I promise you that after a half hour of playing Rez, you'll understand why Tetsuya Mizuguchi settled on vector graphics. Besides, once you see levels 4 and (especially) 5, I'm sure you'll be amazed by the result.
The music is techno. I know this kind of music isn't for everyone, but I love it. Again, using techno music was the _perfect_ choice for a game like Rez. It will (almost) put you in a trance while playing the game. I strongly suggest you use headphones to fully appreciate it. The game's best song (IMHO), Fear, must be heard to be believed. I could listen to it for days and still want more.
Rez, at its core, is an on-rail shooter like Space Harrier and Panzer Dragoon, and as I said, it's a very simple one. But like the graphics, the gameplay was kept simple so it would not take your attention away from the experience this game provides. Rez isn't about a single aspect of what usually makes a game stand out from the rest; there is no intricate story, high polygon count, or revolutionary control setup. Rez is about the _melding_ of all those aspects. Kandinsky (the artist who inspired Rez) called it "synaesthesia". Rez will leave you spent emotionally once you stop playing it. It's that good.
Although it's a very short game (about two hours to finish if you don't die), Rez has TONS of replay value. This is a shooter, after all, and it's meant to be replayed a lot, not have the lenght of a RPG or adventure game. I've played it for at least 30 hours so far, and I'm not bored. At all.
There are (I think) THIRTY SIX modes to unlock. Yup, 36. And once you've unlocked them all, the game is still very fun to play, if only to get better scores, or just to experience the sheer pleasure of it.
I know some people will think it's ridiculous of me to give Rez a 10 in Value, but I'm sure I'm going to play this game a lot longer than I played Final Fantasy X. Once you finish a RPG, you (usually) don't play it again. Rez, on the other hand, is the kind of game that you play every day for a few hours for a YEAR. _That_ is what I call value.
Rez is a classic that people will still talk about in half a decade, and that will probably fetch 150$ on E-bay in a few years. It's not perfect, but it's so original and..._satisfying_, it definitely deserves a perfect score. If you're a PS2 owner (or if you have a modded DC), you MUST play this game.
By Simon Harris
If you do buy the game, play it enough to unlock the 5th Area. The music in this area is called Fear and it's by Adam Freeland. I play the game over and over again just to hear this track.
And the graphics did seem simple to me at first but I kept playing the game and now I find myself saying the graphics are incredible.
Enjoy!
And here is the Rez website:
http://www.u-ga.com/rez/
[ 23 February 2002: Message edited by: Catalyst ]

 

[ice-9]

i've been playing this on the dreamcast for months. not sure how much better the ps2 improved on the graphics, but it is definitely an amazing game with great music.

 

[Catalyst]

The Gaming Intelligence Agency probably has the best review of the game:
The sourcelink is:
http://www.thegia.com/psx2/rez/rez.html

The modern abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866. His life was filled with music from the start; his parents were pianists, and he himself learned to play the piano, cello, and zither at a very young age. He trained as a lawyer at the University of Moscow and practiced law until the age of thirty, when he began to study painting.
Kandinsky claimed that when he saw color, he heard sounds. The conflation of senses, such as hearing sight or feeling sounds, is a condition known as "synaesthesia." He tried to capture this "visible sound" in his paintings: the color's tone was the sound's timbre; the hue was derived from the pitch, and the saturation came from the volume of the sound. Ultimately, Kandinsky's paintings consisted of nothing more carefully arranged geometric shapes.
Today, Kandinsky is widely credited as one of the earliest and most influential abstract artists. The impact of his work can be seen everyday in the ideograms that mark audio equipment: the solid square "Stop," the interrupted square "Pause," the forward- pointing "Play" and double-pointed "Fast Forward" - these symbols take their meaning from images found in Kandinsky's experimental paintings.
Kandinsky said of art, ``Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.''
So what does this have to do with Rez, the latest project from developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Sega spinoff United Game Artists? Rez's motto is "Go to synaesthesia"; its working title was "K-Project." The "K" stands for Kandinsky.
The "Project" stands for "incredibly ambitious project." Rez is entirely unlike any other game available today; though those words are often tossed about by marketing like so much confetti, in this case, it's true. More than anything else, Rez is an interactive piece of digital art that is true to the synaesthetic spirit of Kandinsky: an interactive experience that melds sight, sound, and even touch into an engrossing whole. It's a great game, too, but it's clear that Rez was designed from the start around its audiovisualtactile experience.
The story, though ultimately unimportant, bears repeating. In the near future, world wide computer networks crisscross the globe, and mankind is dependent on advanced artificial intelligences to keep things running. When a virus attacks the global data network, known as Eden, the system suddenly develops self-awareness and then shuts down. The player takes on the role of a hacker, who must break through Eden's firewall to reawaken the A.I. More than anything else, this setup explains the game's trippy wireframe graphics and pulsing techno soundtrack.
At its core, Rez is a rail-shooter in the vein of Panzer Dragoon. The player is propelled along a set path with limited freedom of movement within that path. Your avatar in Rez can "lock on" from one to eight shots before firing; once a volley is released, all shots are fired simultaneously. Getting hit by an enemy or projectile causes the player to "devolve" a level; the player can (re)evolve to a higher level by picking up neon-blue polyhedrons. Though there are six stages of evolution available during the main game, the benefits are mostly cosmetic - though its appearance may change drastically, your avatar's weapon never develops beyond the starting eight-shot blast. Higher levels of evolution are still worthwhile, however, as they allow the player to take hits and devolve without ending the game in progress. By picking up red Overdrive canisters, the player can store and unleash a temporary Overdrive attack, blazing through a section with temporary invincibility and automatic targeting of foes.
It may sound like an ordinary shooter - and as far as the core gameplay is concerned, it is. What sets Rez apart is the strength and creativity of its design. The main game of Rez contains five levels; each of the first four levels corresponds to a great civilization throughout human history: Mayan, Egyptian, and so forth. The fifth level is a spiritual tour de force that traces the evolution of life from a formless primordial soup to ocean life, land animals, mass extinctions, regrowth, and even transcendence. The stage culminates in a hauntingly emotional final encounter that places the previous five stages in a new light. Though this may sound overbearing, these themes are far from preachy or distracting. Mostly, they are merely suggested by the level's dynamic architecture, color schemes, and musical motifs.
Each of the levels begins in a silent, empty void. As the player progresses throughout the level, prismatic cubes will occasionally appear. Unlocking these cubes sends the player to the stage's next "layer." Each added layer is a hyperspace shift into a more complex space: the music gains new instruments, nuance, and complexity; the graphics explode with extra dimensions; the enemies dissolve into particles, only to regroup and reattack with increased fervor. Every level has a unified visual theme from start to finish, but each layer features small unique architectural elements, movement paths, and instrumentation changes to set them apart. At the end of the stage - ten layers, if the player manages to capture and unlock all of the optional cubes - is an epic boss battle. These encounters all feature stunning design and multiple forms, and might take as long or longer to complete than the preceding stage.
What elevates the title beyond mere eye and ear candy is its interactive nature. The stages' music and visuals are strongly bound together; changes and mutations in one are mirrored or countered in the other. More importantly, everything the player does creates sound and vision - not mere sound effects, but music. Every time the player presses the lock-on button, a snare drum snaps. Each enemy lock-on brings forth a hi-hat click. Firing plays out a musical phrase, different according to the number and type of targets, stage, layer, and avatar. Explosions are hard-hit power chords; layer changes are swelling crescendos. All of this is matched by a frenetic display of cycling colors, rotating perspectives, oscillating boundaries, and non- Euclidean geometries. The Dual Shock's vibrations are also carefully balanced between accenting the music and reinforcing the player's actions. Though not released in the U.S., the optional Trance Vibrator peripheral adds another level of tactile force feedback, utilizing a different vibration signal than the Dual Shock controller.
Though its five main stages may seem short, Rez is packed with replay value. Completing stages unlocks that stage in Score Attack and Traveling mode; completing the game unlocks a secret-packed Beyond mode. Performing well in the Score Attack and Beyond modes unlocks new stages and songs, a boss-bashing gauntlet, a five-stage continuous "direct assault," visual remixes that apply to the entire game, a new evolved form, and the ability to set a number of gameplay flags and options. The difficulty of unlocking new features increases with the player's skill and accomplishments, assuring a steady stream of challenges. The amount of replay value and items to unlock is, for a shooter, staggering. The Traveling mode lets the player experience Rez's stages free from the danger of damage; the stage select screen suggests that it is perfect for "practice or just chilling out." You can probably think of some creative uses for this mode if you stretch your mind a bit.
What is Rez? Rez is not an elaborate WinAmp plugin - an interactive visualizer that changes music into shapes. Neither is it a traditional music game such as Konami's Bemani series or Frequency; though the player's attention weaves around the soundscape, rarely is the music created consciously and directly. Rez is a shooter, but this is as much for emotional reasons - few genres are more visceral or appeal more directly to the emotions - as for gameplay ones.
Rez is synaesthesia: the melding of music, graphics, and gameplay into a unified whole that leaves distinctions difficult, if not entirely meaningless. Mizuguchi and United Game Artists set forth to channel the same creative forces that inspired Kandinsky over a hundred years ago. In doing so, they have done more than make a fun, engaging, and inspiring game. They have established themselves as defining pioneers in the major artistic revolution of the 21st century.
[ 23 February 2002: Message edited by: Catalyst ]

 

[Sugar Ant]

I totally enjoy this game!!
Graphics, music and colors are incredible.
It's just FUN to play!!

 

[Djjapp777]

I was just playing this game thta my friend recommneded to me who works at Funcoland and i didn't stop playing it until i beat the 4 stages that it provided, all in the store lol until the manager got pissed at me for playing too long with the volume up to high. I wasn't even high and it was great

 

[itchi23]

This brings up a topic I'm currently real interested in - gaming as art.
www.selectparks.net has art-games, hacks, and mods for games - but all on an artistic scale.
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Awesome. I just found out my neighborhood mom & pop vid.store rents PS/2 games and systems. I don't have a PS/2 yet, but $15 for 3 days renting is a pretty good way to test out the system @ home to see if I want to plunk down the 300.... So I'm definately goig to pick up Rez when I rent the PS/2 system too.
...

 

[Sweetpea]

He's got great taste