Developed by United Game Artists and released simultaneously for the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation 2 in 2001, Rez is a trippy, mind-bendingly-original and visually-stunning ‘Rail Shooter’ (meaning: the path you follow is ‘on rails’, like a rollercoaster), with hacking and music influences.

The gameplay is relatively simple – even it seems quite confusing at first. You control a human-shaped avatar travelling inside a computer network. You can’t control the path the avatar takes, but you can control the viewpoint. The basic aim to shoot the oncoming enemies (using an on-screen reticule), and to collect power-ups that ‘evolve’ the avatar to higher levels and change its form. As the avatar evolves levels it slowly works its way towards level ten, and a boss battle. Of the five levels available, the first four follow this pattern, with the fifth being considerably larger, and crowned with a ‘boss rush’ of variations of all the other previous bosses.

What is interesting about Rez is that it also contains a musical ‘Rhythm Game’ element to the gameplay, meaning: events coincide with the soundtrack, and each press of the fire button triggers certain sound effects, in synchronisation with the music. Graphical elements, such as the avatar’s animation, also move in time with the music. The developers of Rez apparently studied the Famicom Disk System game, Otocky, before making this game, and they do share some similarities.

Completing stages – or completing the game itself – unlocks new features, play modes, and colour schemes.

While Rez may not be for everyone, it has to be applauded for its originality – at least in terms of structure and audio/visuals. Rail shooters have never been known for their depth of gameplay, although Rez is one that bravely tries to break the mould.

Rez has also been remade a number of times. A HD remake was released on the XBox 360 in 2008, and Rez Infinite has been available for PS4, Windows, and Android since 2016.

More Rez on Wikipedia