Rez

If I ever hear one more person call Rez a "shooting" or "space shooter" game, I'm going to scream. That simple label isn't worthy of licking at Rez's vector-graphic boots, let alone even look at them.

Rez is not like any game you'll ever play. It's so much more involved, and yet maintains a simplicity very rarely found in videogames since the age of Mario. For instance, you use all of two buttons to play Rez: a shot button and a bomb button. That and one control, be it the D-Pad or Analog Stick, the same on the PS2 and Sega Dreamcast. That's it.

I've heard other people say this, and I don't mean to steal the expression that's most commonly used, but there's really no other way to say it: Rez is an experience. It's an everyday "shoot whatever appears in front of you" game on the surface, but when you play it, you start to see what a beautiful gem this game is. Every shot, every bomb, every hit, every action produces a sound that flows along with the music in the stage. It's like playing a 3-D Space Invaders where you create the music.

You start off in a sparse area, shooting down the occasional baddie, until an enemy (?) carrying a cube flies by. Shoot the enemy and the cube drops, allowing you to fire at it until it opens up. When it does, it adds another layer onto the stage, both visually and sonically, and you flow further into the groove with each successive layer (10 per stage). Even the boss fights are a audiovisual treat.

Rez, in more ways than one, is kind of like The Matrix. No one can tell you what it is, you just have to see it for yourself. No amount of words can describe the use of three senses to play a video game, and the only ones not accounted for is smell and taste. Sight, sound and touch collide in an explosive symphony that you'll miss out on, unless you can still find a copy of this groundbreaking, inventive and throughly fun game. If there were Oscars for video games, Rez on its depth of merit alone would have won the award for Best Game of 2001, or at the very least the award for Outstanding Technical Achievement.

It's a shame that it didn't sell when it was initially around. Nothing would make me happier than to see a sequel. And that's something I never say, with the industry being as sequel-happy as it is.

The first time I saw Rez it was in a store and I like many people before me dismissed it because of a less than stellar box art and lack of reviews and popularity. I wish I hadn't. This game is the hardest to find. It's based on the premise that you are a computer hacker and must go through a revolutionary computer mainframe and eradicate viruses. It looks amazing as the graphics resemble a wire-frame based paradise that look as crisp as it sounds. You move on set tracks and fire on the aforementioned viruses and release an evolution in your form and discover the game is set at a syncopated beat and quickly becomes like your entranced. It's a truly organic experience. It's like listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with headphones on and watching a strobe light flash different colors. I have don't that and the experiences are similar.

This game should not be passed up by anybody. It's is a rare game that you don't so much as play it, but experience it.