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intro
Rez is the game that gave United Game Artists their reputation for the truly obscure; a trippy "on-rails" shooter with the focus on audio visuals. Released originally on Sega's Dreamcast, in only Japan and Europe, the game got amazing critical acclaim, but failed to sell, mainly due to its abstract nature, being more of an experience, rather than a full blown game. Due to the numerous bad pressings of the game, it has retained its original value over the years since its 2001 release, with the rarer PAL version selling for between £30 and £40 on internet auction site eBay. The game was sub-sequentially released on Sony's Playstation 2 where it still didn't get the attention it deserved.
story
A enormous rise in the human population. A computer network so large that nothing can control it. A system overloaded with network crimes floating in the blink of corruption With the introduction of the new central processor "Project-K", and the birth of "Eden", the system finally seemed to start moving toward completion. But during procession of the almost eternal amount of information lying within the network, Eden starts to doubt the very existence of itself and it's purpose, finally dropping into a unwakable sleeping state because of the many paradoxes that exist within the human world. The player sets out on a journey to find "Eden" hiding somewhere in the visualized cyberworld created by the network. The cyberworld continually changes its form as it is hacked over and over again by outside forces. Will you be able to destroy all firewalls infected by the computer viruses and wake "Eden" from its long sleep?
Taken from the official Rez website
dance
The thing, apart from the graphics, that makes Rez stand out against the other on rails shooters, is the reliance on sound. A pumping drum beat is the base, which is then added to as the player progresses through the level; until it becomes a full blown track. Its a feature that truly sets it apart from the crowd.
synaesthesia
synaesthesia: Perceiving sensory data of one sense with another, eg, seeing sounds or hearing colours.
Synaesthesia is one of the things said to occur from taking drugs such as LSD, yet it is said to occur within Rez, and if you play it in the right conditions, with a good sound system and in the dark, you really begin to feel the colours and sound pulsate though your body. Its a strange experience, yet the pleasure that stems from it is almost boundless.
trance
One of the reasons Synaesthesia occurs is the use of the rumble feature of either the Dreamcast rumble pack or the Dual Shock 2's build in rumble feature. You literally feel everything that happens on screen, every shot, every hit, every lockon. To further enhance this, SEGA released a Trance Vibrator pack, which plugged in to the respective console and gave stronger vibrations. Unsurprisingly, this has been used as a sexual aid, due to its vibration.
play
Playing Rez is incredibly simple, requiring just directions and a single button. The player controls an onscreen cursor which can be moved all over the screen. Hitting the fire button shoots, while holding it allows you to lock on to multiple enemies, or focus more than one hit on a single enemy, each shot is accompanied by a digital clap sound. The onscreen avatar is not at all controllable, apart from the odd branching path taken by shooting certain targets. As you progress through a level you will find "network operators" which can be destroyed to allow access to the next part of the level, while also stepping up the music. Once you have done this 10 times, so that your "layer level" is 10, you will be taken fight the "firewall" which is basically an enemy that requires alot of hits, while also hitting projectiles fired at you. From the description, it may not sound much, but in motion, it is wonderful.
forms
As you go through the levels, you will inevitably pick up the powerups, which either give you boosted overdrive, so you can wipe out the surrounding area with it, or up your health/form. When enough have been totalled up, you will evolve into a new form, as shown below
levels
The game features 5 main levels, each with its own musical and graphical style. The first 4 are all presented in the same structure, with 10 network operators and then a boss, but the final is alot longer, with many mini-bosses. After completing this, you unlock beyond mode, and the lost area, which I will leave for you to experience yourself. After this there is various other things to unlock, which improve the length of what seems a short game.
k-project
k-project was the prototype name for Rez, called so because of the russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, who's art made a bold
graphical impression on Rez. Not that much is known about the differences between k-project and rez, apart from the obvious
visual ones. Fortunatly, we have 3 videos of it, one of which is incrediably rare and virtually unseen on the internet.
download video_01
download video_02
download video_03
movie
Movies from the official Rez website.
download video_01
download video_01
download video_01
screen
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image gallery area_02
image gallery area_03
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conclude
Rez is an experience not to be missed, quite plainly.