Ladies and gentlemen, open your senses, prepare for Rez.

Rez is a very interesting title that looks like it could provide one of the best gaming experiences, not only of this year, but ever. The very concept of the game is unique and rather odd when compared to what you would possibly expect of a videogame. It is also not what you would expect from the man behind Sega Rally - Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Rez is not just another videogame, we here at TVG have been getting very, very excited about the prospect of playing this game but it is difficult to convey just exactly how the game will be good. <br /> <br /> To pigeonhole Rez using the genre classification that we use for every other game is rather tricky. Basically the bottom line is that Rez is a shoot 'em up, Space Harrier style. You follow behind your character and with the on screen crosshair aim and take down the bad guys. In today’s climate of ever larger more impressive games it seems somewhat odd to suggest that a shoot ‘em up will be one of the best games of the year. However Rez is no mere shoot ‘em up, it is more than that, but not in the way you will expect. You are not part of an epic plot line that is going to try and make you laugh and cry. No, rather you are going to be completely absorbed in the world of Rez where sound and vision become one and you control the world. <br /> <br /> Before we try to explain Rez it seems important to look at how this game came about, to try and understand the concept of what Tetsuya Mizuguchi is trying to achieve. It seems that the idea of Rez came to him at a festival in Switzerland where there were thousands of people watching a DJ set where the sound and visuals were linked closely together. Seeing that many people completely entranced by this phenomenon led Tetsuya Mizuguchi to want to create a game that will duplicate that synthesis of sound and music. Not only will the player be entranced but also so will any onlookers. The other inspiration for the game was the classic shoot ‘em ups of old, the unrealistic yet fun games such as R-Type. The realism that is becoming all purveying in games there days is something that Tetsuya Mizuguchi feels should not get in the way of fun, and essentially Rez is about pure fun. <br /> <br /> To play Rez is like a shooter in the Space Harrier ilk, however the game levels start off very basic graphically, wire frame and simple shading effects for example. There is also a continuous backing dance music beat. When you shoot enemies they emit fragments of sounds that play over the 4/4 back beat, different enemies will yield different sounds. When you shoot things determines the beat of the music, you get into your own unique rhythm that dictates the music. As you keep going through the levels the sounds build up from little fragments and snippets until the whole of the music has been created and sustained by your actions, this is also linked to the visuals. Starting off with the wire frame graphics as you progress and shoot enemies special effects will occur, beams of light will fly out, in time to the music of course. The wire frame backgrounds will change and morph – again in time to the music. By your actions, as with the music the game world will be linked to your rhythm and what you are shooting. <br /> <br /> This level of involvement and customisation leads you to become very engrossed in the game and once it ‘clicks’ in your head that you don’t have to play this like a traditional shooter and start to get some rhythm in your playing then you start to reach Synaesthesia – a real medical condition where you ‘see’ sounds - which is the aim of the game’s creation. <br /> <br /> Because of the very direct connection the music and visuals have with the player it leads to a great sense of satisfaction when you demonstrate the game in front of others who hopefully will be intrigued by this game, which seems to go beyond mere game or music into something else. The music in the game, from what we understand will feature licensed artists, although who exactly will feature is not known as this is being kept very quiet. <br /> <br /> Whoever appears in the game, and it’s likely to be a worldwide selection, will no doubt fit the bill perfectly and it will, at the very least, be interesting to see how the licensed music fits into the game. Our guess is that there will be some music that is created especially from Rez and a few tracks by licensed artists, unless their involvement is more than just giving the all clear for their songs to be used.