"You shoot, you get sound effects, sound effects become the music, and you feel a trance. You feel good."
Rez is a classic of its type but what that type is can be a hard thing to pin down. Made by Tetsuya Mizuguchi in 2001, it has the slightly strange distinction of being the first game on Sony's PlayStation 2 from Sega and so it could be seen as either the end or the beginning of a brave new chapter. When working on the concept, he felt the aim would be the initial quote[1]:
"I wanted to make a shooter. But not a shooting shooter game. You shoot, you get sound effects, sound effects become the music, and you feel a trance. You feel good. Many people love shooting games. Many people love music. They love going to clubs, screaming, getting high. The power of music is very strong. Maybe this is too abstract, but we want to change something. So we needed a big shock. Anyway, let's start to make this. It's an experiment. I had then a small team, three to four people, some designers and programmers."
And simplistically, this is the case. That is the skeleton of the game but there is some classic Sega arcade-style gameplay to get there too.
The germination process for Rez is interesting and the game itself is supposedly about synaesthesia and is a partial attempt to recreate the effects for people that do not have it. The director, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, has also stated that it is inspired by the work of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky which brought forward the idea of synaesthesia.
The basic genre at the gameplay level is that it is a corridor shooter - your avatar travels along and must get to the end of the stage whilst being attacked by all and sundry. Shooting is achieved by pressing and releasing the shoot button after targeting and locking on to the enemy. As you can lock on to a maximum of 8 different targets, you can float the target around until you have 8 lock-ons for more destruction. The subtleties of the scoring mechanic means that each shot is worth more points when it is part of a chain of up to eight so it is preferable to shoot 8 things down in one go than separately. This is relatively similar to a number of other on-rail shooters such as Panzer Dragoon and Sin & Punishment. The difference is that the shooting is to the beat of the music so the enemies will all be shot down on the beat (emitting different sounds as they do so), of whichever track is playing - creating a different interpretation of the music. As you progress through a particular stage, you enter different levels by shooting down particular elements in the level which will take you up a level and each level is progressively more complex in both visual and sonic terms. The start of a particular stage will usually be quite sparse until you add on the levels by the end so that it is a more detailed soundtrack and visage by the end of the stage and the boss sections.
It is a simple game that is more about enjoyment than mastery but at this, it is superb. The game itself is neither too difficult nor, with 5 main stages, too long and the market for these kinds of games was not big.
I have a lot of fondness for Rez on the PS2[2] yet it did not sell so well for the fact that it was kind of niche. As this was in the era of Sega simultaneously dying yet putting out some of their very best games, it was entirely in keeping with their plight and why gaming was about to get both bigger and more boring in the next few years.
Rez Infinite is a remaster of this old game which has been upgraded in a simple sense by moving to the PS4 with higher resolution presentation. If the models have been altered, it is not noticeably so but the art direction of Rez is not about higher polygon counts and greater detail. As the story is about hacking into a computer system, it is styled in that hacker aesthetic of the late 90's and it holds up today. Mainly because that hacker aesthetic is married with the kind of electronica[3] look that was also prevalent at the time. Rez had already had remastering on the Xbox 360 so what stops this being a waste of time?
The release of Rez Infinite just happens to coincide with the release of PlayStation VR and that headset lets you go into the world of Rez in an immersive sense as never before. Rez encouraged immersion from the very start with the suggestion of using headphones or surround sound at the beginning and even the release of a "Trance Vibrator"[4] that replicated the vibration from the controller. PlayStation VR takes that immersion on a few layers and is a truly excellent recreation of what must have been in Mizuguchi's mind at the time. The synchronous nature of everything happening is captured beautifully within the headset and this idea of being the music is really wonderfully realised. It is as clear and clean a demonstration of "games as art" as I have seen. And really, that should have said "had seen" because it has been bettered now. Time waits for no man and Rez in VR is bettered within moments by Rez Infinite's endgame - an additional stage called Area X.
Area X is an adjunct to Rez with a subtly different outlook leading to a vastly and fundamentally different experience. Where Rez presents an on-rails experience par excellence, Area X takes those rails away and gives you a freedom to swim through the ether. It is a freedom that is difficult to put into words but the way that it is managed is by simply allowing you to thrust forward or float backwards in space at will with direction handled by your head direction. Where Rez allowed one dimension of movement - along the corridor, Area X adds the next two yet retains the atmosphere and feels entirely natural. The feeling of swimming through space is quite beautifully achieved and is exhilarating with its ease and visuals. And this brings us to the second subtle, yet fundamental change - the visuals. Wireframe graphics in Rez became more detailed as layers were added but were made up of clean, clear polygons but Area X switches these out for particle-based models and in many cases, the particles stay as dots floating space allowing you to join the dots. This makes a huge difference to the ethereal sense of the whole of Area X. Again, I am not convinced that words or even pure visuals can do justice to the sense of swimming in that world.
Of course, Rez is about the music as much as anything else and the soundtrack for Area X manages to be different to the main body of the game providing the sense of an epilogue and of the night ending with a trance and vocals combination that works so well that it becomes quite an emotional and even spiritual time in there. The use of sound, visuals and tying that in seamlessly to your own movements is a truly intoxicating and otherworldly experience.
Rez Infinite is an incredible experience and game and I am not honestly sure that anything will be the same again.
It has, however, made me feel a slight sadness[5] when playing this particular game and that was the thought that this frankly brain altering experience was one that barely anyone I knew would also have. And it would be through choice as this kind of thing, so they have always been encouraged to think, was not for them. It really should be - it is hugely accessible and short. Search it out.
It can be played with or without VR and bought on the PlayStation Store here [link].
1. This is from a very interesting interview with Eurogamer. Mizuguchi has an amazing career, and it is he who gave Sega driving game dominance in the arcades with Sega Rally.↩
2. It was not quite good/big enough to be my "R" in my A-Z games blog series but was very much thought of and added as another "R" [link]. Ironically, I think Rez Infinite may be the third glimpse of the future where 1 and 2 were from Ridge Racer. I also referenced it as a very pure form of game in my post about Tokyo Jungle [link].↩
3. The game itself is also apparently named after the Underworld track Rez which has a great video that formed some inspiration.↩4. This was a separate item that plugged into the USB on the PS2 and could be strapped to your person to allow the music to vibrate over you in the way that the controller already did. I have one and found that strapping to my back gave a very cohesive experience. It was not a high unit seller but there is a lot of talk about it as a result [link].↩
5. This is on top of the normal annoying sense of sadness that I get and have just termed as Newtonian happiness (due to the equal and opposite reaction) - each moment of joy in life is tempered by the fact and knowledge that it is merely a fleeting respite.↩
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