 |
| Source // PlayStation |
How do you describe an experience like Rez HD? Because that's what it is, mostly. There's a game in here for sure, one about shooting things before they shoot you, but Rez isn't a shooter, really. There's a story, too, but it's not a game about that story either.
In short, Rez is a strange little oddity that sticks out like so little else, and has to be seen - and played, ideally - to be believed.
Let's see if playing it will give me the words I'm looking for.
 |
| Source // PlayStation |
Fun Times
Rez is, on paper, technically, a musical rail shooter. You fly through the scenery on a set path, looking around your field of view for things to shoot, and can lock in up to 8 shots before unleashing them all at once and watching the fireworks that come from your actions.
The musical side of things comes in the form of the soundtrack being enhanced and improved by your rhythm and your success at dispatching targets. There's a flow to each level, and once you're in the groove, you'll be targeting exactly what you need to hit and hitting them when it feels right to hit them, on the beat, filling your ears with more trance music.
 |
| Source // PlayStation |
Rez was originally developed for the Sega Dreamcast in 2001 before a more successful PlayStation 2 port took all the sales away. Several years later, an HD re-release was given to the Xbox 360, and it is that version that the 1001 list would have us play to fully experience these wireframe, vector graphics in all their glory.
I've played a demo of the PS2 game, and possibly Rez HD as well, but I am certain that I read somewhere that the designer of this game declared the ultimate version of Rez to be one that existed in virtual reality.
So he made another version, Rez Infinite, and it gives me an excellent excuse to dust off the PSVR.
You're going to have to put up with a fisheye view of the world for this blog post, but find yourself a VR version of Rez and you will be immersed inside a computer network of some weird future, on a quest to eliminate viruses and reboot the system so that it may function again.
What is the computer's function? Why are we hacking it? There is absolutely no need to know nor worry about it. Just sit back and glide through these minimal environments making sweet music.
The controls are incredibly simple. Hold the X button to charge up a shot and let the button go to fire that shot. Move your aim over multiple targets and you can lock-on to multiple targets at once, finally unleashing up to eight shots their way.
Enemies go down very easily in Rez, and if you're an expert it'll be a case of making sure you don't miss any shots and dispatching your foes quickly, but for the rest of us, the game is all about the style and the senses.
Rez already looked pretty unique, but Rez in VR is spectacular. While I had the VR-safe blinders on to limit my view a little, you're able to target things using your own head, and from time to time you do need to swing the camera around to target something from a new angle.
The end of the area throws up a few stats for the completionists before putting you back in the menus to tackle to next area. It's a bit weird to be thrown into a menu to be asked which area we'd like to fly through next, but then Rez is a bit of weird game anyway.
From here on in, I'm going into Rez blind, seeing things I'd never seen before - apart from screenshots of Rez being shown off, obviously. You know what I mean.
Periodically, enemies will drop a blue or red power-up. The blue things increase your health, sort of, and allow you to evolve into newer beings, I guess, going from a stick-man to the Silver Surfer here, for example.
I'd never seen what lay beyond this level of health progression, so I was a bit surprised to see it getting all philosophical and metaphysical and, well, weird after that.
Yeah, I'm just a ball now. It's cool. I can still do exactly what I could do before. The only thing that changes are the way my attacks look. They were once rocket-like, then laser-like, and now it seems I just think of my targets being attacked and they get cut in two. Marvellous.
Nothing about Rez is coming across as incredibly difficult, though some bosses unleash an awful lot of attacks at once that challenge you to eliminate all the incoming threats quickly. If you've collected any of those red power-ups, you can press the circle button to trigger an override attack that acts as a sort of screen-clearing auto-fire attack that gives you a few seconds to assess the situation while enemies pop out of existence.
Rez ends with an area that whisks us through the history of life on Earth, and probably asks us to think about what it all means to be human, but I think this is either lost in translation or doesn't exist in the first place, because all I'm seeing is a little bit of a waffle and more enemies to shoot - maybe I'm too uncultured to appreciate Rez fully.
What I do know is that I'm about to see the final boss, and destroying it will reveal and reboot Eden, the computer program we're here to cheer up so that she can manage the overwhelming amount of useless, conflicting data there is in cyberspace.
I told you it wasn't a plot to worry about.
Oh no! We won but didn't win? Must we do better? Must we do more? After just under an hour of PSVR, I know I can't do much more right now, but I leave Rez Infinite knowing there are more modes to explore and perfection to strive for.
Final Word
Rez is one of those games that is so different you can't help but have at least a little bit of interest in what it's all about. While the plot is completely forgettable, the view and the gameplay are not, and you ought to seek it out in some form to see what it's about first hand - because explaining it in print just isn't going to cut it.
Rez Infinite was titled as such so that it was the one stop you need for Rez. It's not the original, it's not just an HD version, it is Rez, all of it, you need nothing else. That it has VR support isn't just an added bonus, but a damn good way to play a game that is about mood much more than it is about massive scores.
Now, the 1001 list couldn't see 8 years into the future to know about Rez Infinite, so at the time Rez HD was the best way to play Rez. It already looked good, now it looked great. If it's the only version you have access to, it'll still be a great way to play what is a game that has to be played.
Now I've just got to get more comfortable with VR sickness and dive back in.
Fun Facts
A limited-edition of the PS2 version was released with a USB Trance Vibrator that could be put anywhere to enhance the sensation of the world of Rez. That the controller had rumble wasn't enough, apparently, and yes, you could put the Trance Vibrator anywhere. You know what it is.
Rez HD, developed by United Game Artists, first released in 2008.
Version played: Rez Infinite, PlayStation 4, 2016.