Rez PS2 Review

Rez is a fast moving, wire-frame, action shooter backed by industrial beats. All you DJs and music lovers out there will definitely get into the fact that your player’s actions actually change the music and backgrounds on the fly. With Tetsuya Mizuguchi as the brains behind this one-of-a-kind adventure it’s bound to be good; the question is … just how good?

Gameplay

Simply put, Rez is just an on the rails shooter and this is a genre that has been in existence for a long time with some good results. But it’s far from being a genre that people rush out to spend their hard earned cash on. Rez is a game that changes all that. It makes lovers of all other genres look up and take notice. No matter what game you love to play there is a great chance that you will love playing Rez. While playing the game your avatar floats around at a predetermined speed through the level as you target oncoming objects. You hold down the fire button to lock on and let go to fire. This system means you can target multiple targets at a time and hit a high-tempo inducing combo. As you progress you will find evolution spears which you have to hit a number of times to level up to your next form. The enemies can also hit you, and if they do, you drop a level, having to start the stage again if you lose all of your levels. Once you get to the end of a stage you fight a boss and each of the bosses in the game is spectacular, leading to a great gaming experience. Speaking about gameplay, Rez is weird, and most of the game revolves around its presentation of graphics and audio so let’s hop over there instead.

Graphics

By just looking at the screen you wouldn’t be shot down for saying the game looks very basic, but you would, in fact, be very wrong. The game is extremely detailed and I believe it must have been a damn right pain to develop, as every part of the game is synced with another part of the game. The game looks like, well it looks like an unfinished game. You know those wire frames you see when companies have not yet put textures on their creation? Well, that’s the way the game starts off, but it develops into a much more beautiful thing as it continues. Once you get a few minutes into a level the game begins to add new features and starts to build the details, depending on how well you are playing. How the game develops is hard to explain, if you really want to know how good it is (and it is good) then grab a copy as soon as you can!

Sound

Music is a huge part of what makes Rez great, without the music it would be just another run of the mill shooter. As you would expect, from a title that relies heavily on audio, the music in Rez is top notch. Although the music is not performed, or composed, by mainstream artists (no one I have heard of anyway) it is still first class in quality. As mentioned above, the music basically reacts to how you play (meaning everything you do while playing the game results in an audio response), so you can easily go from a low beat tune with only a few layers of acoustics to something far more developed and detailed, and this can be a satisfying experience. The title also supports surround sound systems, which is great to help you become immersed in the game.

Lifespan

The main game can be completed quite easily in about three hours, so longevity is one aspect where Rez kind of falls flat on its wire meshed face. To progress to the fifth level, the first four levels must be completed at 100%, and after that there are a few extras to be unlocked which add a bit more replayability to the game. Once you have the game completely opened up it is up to you how long it really lasts you. Personally, this title has been in my collection a long, long time and I head back to it every few months, just to play through it again as it is a fun and lively experience. Even after the PS3 is released I can see this spending a small bit of time in my disc tray, unless some kind of next gen update or sequel is released (which I cant really see happening).

Overall

There are lots of different people that will enjoy Rez and there are lots of different people that will like it more than others. It is the type of game everyone should play at least once. As I said at the start of this review, it is nearly impossible to hate the title; everyone I know that has played it has had nothing bad to say about it. It is a memorable and unique title that people will talk about for years to come.