A synesthetic experience on the border of shooter and music. You fly through abstract cyberspace, targeting and destroying objectives, with every hit creating a tone that merges with the pulsing electronic soundtrack. Visuals inspired by Kandinsky and a hypnotic rhythm make Rez a meditative, almost trance-like work. The gradual layering of music with your action is a brilliant idea. The fusion of sound, image and movement has no equal in the gaming world. A short but unforgettable ride and an artistic experiment that still has no rival.
Game 60 of 269 for Sony PlayStation 2
The same title elsewhere (2)
The Japanese SEGA Dreamcast version from 2001 is the original release, made famous partly through the Trance Vibrator, a special peripheral that pulsed in time with the music and carried the game's synesthetic experience into the player's hands. The Sony PlayStation 2 release followed shortly after and brought Rez to a much wider audience worldwide; it benefited from the PS2's somewhat more powerful hardware, so it preserved the same vision of the game without compromise, just on a more popular console. Content and gameplay remain the same core experience — the main difference is that the Dreamcast version is the rarer Japanese original, while the PS2 version is the one that actually brought Rez to the world.
