STAY ALERT – STAY ALERT - STAY ALERT – STAY ALERT - STAY ALERT – STAY ALERT –
BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS -
When I was a teenager, I used to see this game on the shelves of game shops and think to myself, 'Who would want to play that? It looks like an old, ugly arcade game.' How foolish I was.
Rez has so much style. It's actually quite difficult to describe because it's both a geometric and rhythmic experience. This game encapsulates a certain idea of 2000s techno music. Musically, it falls between trance, synthetic acid house, and hard tech. It's important to note that the artists who created the music for this game (Ken Ishii and Joujouka, at least) are recognized electronic music producers who were important in the 1990s and still are today. One wonders if the game was created from the music or vice versa.
The level design remains a mystery to me: it feels like constantly diving into a neon fractal in a world that defies all physics. Level 4 is particularly epic. The game operates solely on its flow, linking a certain form of visual abstraction that perfectly syncs with the electronic music played as a mix, not track by track. The game can truly take you to an 'out-of-body' state that only a nightclub with lasers, strobe lights, and smoke machines can evoke.
You can still feel Sega's total mastery over the arcade game genre.
BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS - BOOM TSSSS -
When I was a teenager, I used to see this game on the shelves of game shops and think to myself, 'Who would want to play that? It looks like an old, ugly arcade game.' How foolish I was.
Rez has so much style. It's actually quite difficult to describe because it's both a geometric and rhythmic experience. This game encapsulates a certain idea of 2000s techno music. Musically, it falls between trance, synthetic acid house, and hard tech. It's important to note that the artists who created the music for this game (Ken Ishii and Joujouka, at least) are recognized electronic music producers who were important in the 1990s and still are today. One wonders if the game was created from the music or vice versa.
The level design remains a mystery to me: it feels like constantly diving into a neon fractal in a world that defies all physics. Level 4 is particularly epic. The game operates solely on its flow, linking a certain form of visual abstraction that perfectly syncs with the electronic music played as a mix, not track by track. The game can truly take you to an 'out-of-body' state that only a nightclub with lasers, strobe lights, and smoke machines can evoke.
You can still feel Sega's total mastery over the arcade game genre.