Rez is one of the most amazing games to be brought over to America. Originally made for the Dreamcast Rez seemed to make it to the States. 3 years after it was originally created Sega decided to make a port due to a die-hard fan base in Japan. Somehow the game crawled overseas, and it’s a treasure.
First of all I want to say that Rez is an EXACT port of the Dreamcast version. If you have the Dreamcast version it is not worth buying unless you plan to import the transvibrator too. (The transvibrator is a device that you plug in to the USB port acts like a subwoofer) Rez is also not an easy game to find, I've seen few video game stores have a copy of the game since it isn't highly publicized.
Gameplay
In Rez you play as a hacker who is breaking through a computer system. Your job is to shoot through different enemies using your missiles that lock on to enemies. Here's where it gets interesting, each shot creates a beat, a bop, a zonk or other little sound. These beats when shot in order play the other half of the background music. You can choose to follow the beats or even make your own song. It sounds a little strange, but it is executed perfectly. After playing a stage once or twice you'll be bopping to your own beats. After beating a stage another one unlocks, as well as a "score attack" mode. Sega brings huge bosses at the end of the game's five levels. The bosses are cool, but at times extremely frustrating because they can shoot so many more shots than you can possibly dodge. This forces a lot of people to put the controller down and give up. The only other complaint about this game is that it is only five stages. Sega should have spent more time in making extra stages from the Dreamcast version. Thankfully, the game plays sort of like a puzzle rhythm game so the number of stages doesn't hurt the game too much.
Graphics
One look at this game and you'll have a flashback of Atari's tempest. The game has a wire frame design, but not like archaic video games. Its design is so unique and so artistic you can't stop to say "whoa". Rez is eye candy by the nanosecond. Every background and enemy looks amazing following the "in the computer" graphic style. The avatar you control even gets cooler and bigger as you level it up by collecting little power ups scattered throughout the stage. If you get hit the character shrinks making it appear to vanish out of cyberspace. This game proves that you don't need to have some 1-gigahertz processor to make amazing graphics, style counts more than photorealism.
Sound
As a fan of electronic music, I loved it. The songs are all originally created and blend with the little blips and bops from shooting enemies perfectly. Be warned though if pounding bass gives you a headache this game isn't for you. It was designed with techno lovers in mind so if you don't like that style of music you won't like this game very much.
Rez is a completely original game that mixes shooting with rhythm gameplay. Everyone should try it; it's a lot of fun to play. If you can find this game I urge a purchase, it's soon to be a hot commodity due to its limited supply. What’s the worse if you end up not liking it sell it on ebay there’s bound to be someone looking for it there.
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