Reader Reviews

Rez (DC)

by Cliff Cardona

In many ways, UGA's Rez asks a lot of questions about you as a player and the types of games you enjoy. It is at once a beautifully accessible game - finishing all five levels shouldn't take more than a couple of hours for the average player, and that may be enough for some - but it is also immensely deep if the gamer is committed enough to obtain high scores and unlock its many bonus features.

There's not much of a story when it comes to Rez - it's the future, and one of the core mainframe computers (Eden) assigned to maintain humanity is growing apathetic, ultimately dropping into an "unwakeable" sleeping state. Naturally, it's your job to infiltrate the system Eden inhabits in order to wake her from the slumber.

Understanding how the game works is simple - your avatar is viewed through a third-person perspective, though you only have control over a square-shaped target, which is used to lock on and destroy up to eight enemies at once. The sheer variety of foes you encounter is quite staggering; from huge alien ships traditionally associated with Japanese shooters, to more organic beings in the last, epic level - they're all eager to foil your attempts at rescuing Eden.

So far, so videogame. What makes Rez so remarkably original is the effective way Tetsuya Mizuguchi's team has married the game's audio and visual components in order to create a quite stunning assault on the senses. Graphics primarily consist of simple wireframe tunnels, which you travel through on your way to a level boss, and progress results in these tunnels slowly evolving into breathtaking landscapes, artistically above and beyond anything this reviewer has experienced before in a videogame. The music then complements the visuals perfectly, with UGA employing a club/trance soundtrack, and every defeated enemy resulting in a glorious drum beat or synth.