Rez
From Freepedia
- This article is about Rez, the video game, and not Rez Band (Resurrection Band).
| Rez | |
| Image:Rezbox.jpg | |
| Developer(s) | United Game Artists |
| Publisher(s) | SEGA |
| Release date(s) | January 8, 2002 |
| Genre | Music, Rail Shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, Dreamcast |
Image:Rez title.jpg Image:Rez ingame.jpg Rez, formerly known as K-Project, is a video game released by SEGA in 2002 for the Sony PlayStation 2. It was originally released on the Sega Dreamcast, but only in Japan and European markets, and is a fairly rare and very sought after game on the Dreamcast, mainly due to the many defective pressings of the game. The game was developed by SEGA's United Game Artists division, produced and conceptualized by Tetsuya Mizuguchi. It was very critically acclaimed, but did not get much commercial attention in the United States, partly due to its very esoteric gameplay experience. The game is set in a vast computer network where a female AI program named Eden begins to doubt her very existence and purpose, dropping into a state of unconsciousness and must be found and awakened by the player by navigating through a series of levels. The plot is really not the focus of this game however. The K-Project name and much of the game's visual and synaesthesia inspiration comes from the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.
Marketing information for the game at the time of its release focused on its qualities of "synaesthesia," the association of different senses and stimuli with each other, which is a sensation experienced naturally by some people, and reported by many users of LSD and other hallucinogens. In Rez, one's character soars over psychedelic, abstract, futuristic vistas to the hypnotic beats of trance techno. The game is very integrated with sight and sound; a thumping vibration in the Dual Shock 2 controller or Dreamcast rumble packs keeps time with the music, and literally every onscreen action, from missile locking, firing, and exploding to the pulsing of the landscape and the player's avatar themselves, synchronizes with the beat. As the player progresses further into a level, the music becomes more layered and intense, as do the visuals.
Although the original Dreamcast version now reaches inflated prices on eBay, the differences between it and the PlayStation 2 version are very slight. It is thought that the Dreamcast version offers cleaner visuals, free from the "jaggies" that are present in the Playstation 2 version. Meanwhile Rez on the PS2 benefits from a framerate increase (30 to 60), although it has times of slowdown. It must be noted that the core game experience remains the same and that the actual tangible difference between the two is quite small.
Rez should not be played by anyone suffering from epilepsy, as it contains many flashing lights and images, and could trigger a seizure.
Gameplay
Rez is a rail shooter, with the player portayed as an onscreen avatar travelling along a predetermined path through the levels. The controls are very simple, with the analog/directional pads controlling an on-screen target. The player can either tap the shoot button to fire, or hold the button while moving the cursor over enemies to "lock-on". A maximum of 8 missiles can be locked, and many enemies require multiple hits to destroy, usually requiring 1, 2, 4, or 8 shots to take down. The player cannot affect his movement at all, aside from choosing a few minor branching paths by shooting specific targets in one level.
In Rez, the number of player lives is expressed through player forms; players can gain increments to their evolution bar, and every 8 increments results in the player upgrading to a higher form, while getting hit by an enemy downgrades the player to a lower form. The various forms have no difference in gameplay, but have wildly different graphical and audio effects. Getting hit at the lowest form ends the game.
There are three types of power-ups in Rez. The first is an overdrive, which, when triggered, releases a drone which fires continously at all enemies on screen for a short period of time. The second is a health/evolution power-up, which adds 1 or 3 increments to the evolution bar. The third is a score bonus, which only appears in Beyond or Score Attack modes.
The game features five main levels, each of which has a unique musical track and visual style. The first four main levels have similar structures, each with 10 completion sub-points and a boss at the end, and must be completed to unlock the fifth. Level five has many more sub-points, several mini-bosses, and story themes. Upon completion of the levels in the main mode, you unlock other modes such as Score Attack and Beyond Mode. Beyond Mode is similar to Panzer Dragoon's "Pandora's Box", where it is like a special stage select of sorts. If the features are unlocked, the player can play levels with different graphical themes, different beam types, and different character levels. Beyond Mode also contains two sub-stages, the Lost Area (unlocked by beating level 5 in main mode), and TranceMission (unlocked by getting more than 150,000 points in Lost Area). Lost Area is essentially a new stage, but TranceMission is a repeating series of patterns with visuals and sound conducive to being experienced under the influence of certain substances. Also, you unlock new graphical game themes by beating Direct Assault in Beyond with the themes on. Once you beat the game with all of the new themes, you unlock Immortality Mode. Score Attack is self-explanatory, and must be played up to 30 times to unlock different beam types. Also, you unlock different views by getting 1st in each stage. Boss Rush mode is unlocked by getting 95% shootdown in main levels 1-5. Placing first in Boss Mode unlocks infinite overdrives.
Trance vibrator
A "Special Package" version of the game was sold in Japan only, including a USB device called a trance vibrator, [1] which pulses in time with the music. While not explicitly marketed as a sex toy or masturbatory aid, it has enjoyed considerable success in that area; the devices are available from various aftermarket retailers for (as of 2004) approximately $25 USD. In contrast, any USB-controlled sex toys on the market are currently being retailed for over a hundred.
Reverse-engineering efforts to allow the trance vibrator to attach to - and be controlled by - a PC have been successfully executed in Japan, and Microsoft Windows XP now officially recognizes the Trance Vibrator when it's plugged into a computer.
External links
- Official Web site
- Sex in Games: Rez+Vibrator
- PC control software for the trance vibrator (in Japanese)
- IOverFlow : An open-source project aiming to create a Rez clone for the PC.
