Back in 2001, Rez was released for the Playstation 2 and Dreamcast. A year later it came to the States. This game, developed by Sega, is extremely unique and was one of the first of its kind. It’s a rail shooter that plays musical notes as you take down enemies, and along with great beats in the background, the player really begins to get into a groove. The game has no plot…basically you play as a flying avatar that must take down this crazy A.I., Eden.

Jump ahead several years, and we have Rez HD hitting the Xbox Live Arcade. Main difference with this release is new High-Definition graphics (not much of a leap really) and online leader boards (just like any other XBLA game). The game itself is extremely short, only lasting five levels. Each level has a unique song and beat in the background that the player adds music to by taking down all of the enemies, grabbing power-ups, and leveling up their avatar. The avatar you play as starts out as nothing but a shape, and as you obtain certain power-ups, you evolve into a human-esque character with much better ammo/missles.

Aside from the five levels, there are score attack and boss battle modes. The bosses are were the real difficulty lies. I am surprised I never got carpal tunnel while fighting the boss on the fourth level. The difficulty before bosses is really pretty easy, since the game focuses more on the experience of the music rather than being some uptight, insanely hard “Shoot-Em Up” game. I recommend trying out some of the new sound and visual additions thrown in with this HD release. There are little add-on effects that will make everything look like you are pretty much trippin’ on acid, without that light-headed guilty feeling in the morning. None of them really help you play better (may actually hinder your gameplay in most cases), but they are rather cool to check out or keep your stoner friends busy for hours.

Overall, it was a great game seven years ago, and it’s a great game to this day. I really recommend it if you have a surround sound setup…you will really start to feel the beat. If you happen to have three extra controllers laying around, you can use the “Trance Vibrator” feature. This feature was a little USB vibrator that was sold only in Japan, and the play would sit on it and it would vibrate MUCH stronger than the Dualshock controller. It is kind of a neat and odd addition that they added this on the HD release, but from what I hear it is rather interesting and actually helps you feel the beat a bit more. A pretty good investment for 800 MS points for those of you who have never played the game, or want to relive it in all its High-Definition glory.

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