An instant masterpiece (Rez (PS2))

Member Name: adidadi_young

Product:	Rez (PS2)
Date:	19/03/02 (250 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Whooooaaa!

Disadvantages: Bit short

Now, with Sega developing this game would make a lot of people be thankful that Sega had gone onto developing games for other consoles. Okay, so this game is on Dreamcast. But the fact that it’s much more likely to be more popular on the good ol’ PS2, what with the more powerful graphics engine. But… there you go.

Now you know that Sega has developed this game. The more you know!

Yeah. Okay, first off. I’m very glad Sega has gone onto developing for other consoles. Like the PS2. Because otherwise I wouldn’t be playing this game and enjoying it so much. So, you should be more appreciative too. Heh.

Now to start off, I’d like to say that this hasn’t been the most mainstream of releases. Amazon.co.uk have the game for £30, and gameplay.com have the game for £35 if you’re interested (and so you should be – read on for more information), but so far I haven’t seen this epic release in any shops yet. You could try Electronics Boutique or Virgin. Or HMV.

Okay, now some information about the game. What kind of game is this, you say? Well, this is the hard part. Saying ‘it’s a shooting game’ would be too vague. It’s more of a…

Psychedelic shooting game, creating sounds as you see colours on screen. And how do you create these colours? Destroy enemies, of course. Eheh…

Okay, okay. The game puts you in a position where you control a computer virus killer, it seems. I’d better go through the plot with you all: Project Eden is a computer program (yes, the computing kind, I’m not American), set up in the year 2105. As it/she was given the gift of AI, the program managed to grow and grow, until the whole world’s resources relied on the program. Eventually, it got so big; so complex; so intelligent that it/she began to query the whole origin, and reason of its/her existence.

Project Eden eventually turned int
o one big paradox, and unable to keep up with what’s going into it’s/her mind. So it/she was only left with one option: to shut its/herself down.

The whole entity became full of these viruses, shaped in what seems to be like alien-like ships, in different areas of the whole Project Eden’s living space. These areas seemed to imitate different major historical landmarks, including the Pyramids and The Great Wall of China.

Years later, the Earth began to collapse; in a way that Eden was essential for everyone’s sake. So this little fella you control is going to go in and destroy each and every one and wake up Project Eden. Ouch.

After choosing Area One from the game menu, you are put in a level, which seems to be a quiet, wireframe place. There’s this wireframe person in the middle, and you are controlling a target which moves across the screen. As the enemies come up, you (obviously) shoot them, and this creates a nice, big colour to come up. Now, here’s an interesting note: This game was originally entitled “Project-K”, because the whole game was inspired by that artist, who’s name began with K. Oh, you know who. Krustovsky or something. Anyway, this artist made a very famous painting. He said that when he saw colours, he heard sounds. Yeah, so… when you shoot a different kind of enemy, a different sound will play. It’s much nicer when you play on it.

Soon enough, you’ll come across an interesting wireframe cube, pink-coloured. Shoot this 8 times, and you’ll go through a nice, trippy ‘layer skip’ and advance to the next layer. Here’s where it gets interesting (In other words, read on from here). Each layer you advance adds an additional layer to the background music. Or foreground music. Hence the reason that the start of the level is almost silent. After advancing about 5 or 6 layers, the music really starts to kick in, and you’ll
be ‘jamming’ along with this music easily. I think that’s the term, anyway. Note the fact that at this stage, the nice Dual Shock on the controller starts rumbling to the beat. This really adds effect and helps you get into the music more easily. Not that it’s easy enough anyway.

The music that you’ll be given is of techno genre. Now, this goes against all my music tastes, but the fact that the music fits in so well (Unreal Tournament?) it just given an amazing effect. By layer 10, you’ll be guaranteed to be fixed into the game.

Now then, here’s the part on lastability. The game is only 5 levels, or areas, and anyone who rushes the game could complete it in… an hour? Thing is, that’s for the people who rush it. And besides, you haven't done half of the options brought to you. In other words, the bonuses you unlock are longer than the game itself.

Areas 1 to 4 are based on ancient civilisations, and each provides and equally trippy and challenging (well, it kind of ascends in difficulty, but the range isn’t too great) routine, which will have you easily hooked. The end of each area is provided with a boss, which makes each area more challenging.

Area 5 is what comes up next. Whew. This level is really…. indescribable. Of course, if you are in the right conditions, that is a big TV, LOUD sound with Pro Logic or Dolby Digital 5.1 (optional, but very highly recommended) or headphones which have very high quality and a very high maximum volume. In those conditions. Anyway…

This area starts off with a plain, white space with a few enemies to kill. But with each area that you need to advance (this level has about 25 layers, compared to the 10 on the other areas) each gives you a piece of the theory of evolution. Of course, towards the end it heard towards the story of Rez. The song then builds up to and amazingly head-banging (kinda), trippy, challengin
g, and very emotional stage. The last boss of the game is even more emotional. I shan’t go into such detail, but you have to trust me on this. I give it a very high opinionated rating. Yeah!

Okay, here’s more of how the game plays.

As I said before, this game aims you to get enemy viruses in the Project Eden computer system. The one thing that is a higher priority though is to get all the layer advancers (or “analysers”… I think) to get yourself 100% analysation and therefore ‘fully’ complete the area. Holding down X will target yourself an enemy, but holding it down means you can target multiple enemies and bring down many viruses down at once.

You can also get ‘overdrives’, but it would make more sense to call them ‘Smart Bombs’, as I have read about that particular name elsewhere. Anyway, this would give you about 10 seconds of everything destroyed on-screen. You can only carry 4 at once, though. And they aren’t too common either.

I know, the game seems to be a bit vague, but it’s kind of a ‘you’ll see when you play’ game. My mates didn’t think much of it when I told them how amazing it was, but when they played it… whoo.

There are… I think over 120 things to unlock in this game. Yes, it takes a while. This can include getting 100% shot down, 100% support items obtained and even beating the bonuses several times. And then beating them bonuses to unlock more. It’s not as easy as you think.

Sure to take you a while. If you still aren’t convinced, then you can rent it. And see for yourself. HAH!

So, if I were to finish off opinionating my review, I would need to say that this is an epic title for the PS2 and Dreamcast, and is a game everyone should own yesterday, if not before.

An absolute essential.


Well, that one over and done with. That took me… 15
minutes. And I really enjoyed writing this for all of you. I hope you enjoy playing this masterpiece, “Rez”, and I hope you enjoyed reading.

~Dav

Summary: