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Rock out to the beat that you create in Rez, a unique hybrid video game that blends together elements of rail shooters and music rhythm games. The original Rez is based on a concept created by the Japanese developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and United Game Artists, a division of Sega. This Japanese version was released in 2001 for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console.Rez is set inside a futuristic computer network called Project K. The Project K AI, known as Eden, has become overwhelmed by all of the infinite knowledge that exists on the network. Players must take on the role of a hacker and reboot the entire network to save it from a catastrophic shutdown. Firewalls and viruses impede your progress. Enemies lurk around every turn, waiting to pounce and stop your heroic deed.Rez is a shooting game that combines psychedelic visuals inspired by the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky with pounding electronic music. Every time the player locks on or fires a shot, the game produces a sound that is closely aligned with the beat, allowing you to alter and influence the music as you progress. The goal of this combination for the game's designers is to allow you to psychologically achieve synesthesia. This is an unusual blending of the senses in which one type of stimulation leads you to experience others. There is very little dialogue or sound outside of the music, so you can sit back and simply enjoy the strange futuristic experience.Rez is primarily a rail shooter. It follows the familiar conventions and gameplay of the genre. You travel along a predetermined path and blast the enemies along the way by locking onto them with a reticule. Collecting certain items on the path will improve your evolutionary level and enhance your abilities. Collision with the enemy, on the other hand, will reduce your evolutionary level and may cause a game over. Rez is very similar to most rail shooting games in that it tests your timing and reflexes.The game is broken down into five different areas. A boss controls each of the five sections of the network. To survive a boss fight and move swiftly to the next area, destroy the boss's core to make him explode. The difficulty of the boss will scale naturally with your skill level, so the game can be beaten by both novices and experts. Completing each area will unlock alternate color schemes that you can utilize in your next play through. Once you are finished with the main game, you can also experience bonus gaming modes.Rez can be played on both the PlayStation 2 system and later PlayStation consoles that are backward compatible. This is the Japanese version of the game, so it will play on any console that is appropriately formatted to the correct region. From acclaimed developer Mizuguchi, Rez offers the experience of synesthesia as different senses and stimuli are combined. Don’t be surprised if you end up seeing sounds or hearing colors, as it is one of the surprise bonuses that has given this game an enthusiastic following.