Sensory shooting

by ERIK LEIJON

The best game you’ve never played is finally available in perfect, definitive form. Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez came a few years before Guitar Hero and Rock Band popularized the made-for-home music game, and Rez HD (XBLA/Microsoft, Q)—the high-definition reissue—breathes new life into the trippy trance shooting masterpiece.

It’s a must-play as much for those who plunked down $100 on the import in 2001 as for anyone craving something original. On the XBox Live Arcade download service, Rez HD only costs about $10, so there’s really no excuse to miss out this time.

After being wowed by the hypnotic thumping and elaborate light show of a common 1990’s European rave, Mizuguchi took the Panzer Dragoon rail shooter concept and changed the motif from flying dragons to sleek and minimalist Tron-like gridlines. Rez, named after the Underworld track, was one of the first and only legitimate attempts in gaming to provide a full sensory experience. With the optional trance vibrator peripheral that shook to the beat (often mistaken for a dildo for obvious reasons), the object of the game was to shoot every enemy on the screen eight at a time with the lock-on reticle, the gunfire and enemy explosions essentially remixing the music as you played.

It takes a bit of imagination to really get immersed, but playing in the dark with a trance vibrator firmly lodged on your back or genitals, coupled with the loud and slowly-building rave music, made for a far different gaming experience than anything out there. Seven years later on XBox Live Arcade, these unique qualities not only remain, but are enhanced considerably.

Thanks to the improved hardware, the thin wire frame environments are much sharper and more vibrant. It’s a subtle difference yet it becomes clear Rez was always meant to look this way. Similarly, the music can now be heard in 5.1 surround. Trance vibrators were hard to come by then—and can fetch a tidy sum on eBay today—but ingeniously multiple XBox 360 controllers can get the job done. Instead of one vibrator melting your spinal column, you can now place three oscillating controllers to induce synaptic euphoria.

Rez HD is not a sequel but in fact the same game that was ignored on the Dreamcast and Playstation 2. At five levels, it is possible to beat the game in slightly over an hour, but that was never the point of Rez. Each stage features a different song, 10 warp portals and a ton of bonus items, so repeat plays are essential if you want to see every section and attain high scores.

Actually, the jaw-dropping fifth level (the game’s coup de grace) is not accessible unless you access all 40 portals from the previous stages. Achieving a perfect shoot down score is nearly impossible without carefully memorizing every enemy location and using frequent overdrive weapons (which instantly eliminate every enemy on the screen).

If you find yourself sucked into the unique universe of Rez, it’s not uncommon to play the same level hours on end, first as an explorer and then as a perfectionist. No one really understood Rez in 2001, so hopefully the low price and simplified distribution method will expose a whole new generation to this masterful artistic statement.

Encore

Perhaps you saw me at last Thursday’s Video Games Live show at Théâtre St-Denis—I was the portly white male in his twenties. All kidding aside, the performance was electrifying, especially pianist Martin Leung (search him on YouTube). He played the Super Mario Bros. theme blindfolded and performed a tremendous Final Fantasy medley. Don’t miss them whenever they return.