Rez Infinite

Here’s another one of those games where you try to explain it to someone and they go “meh”. So you show them a YouTube clip of it, and they still go “meh”.

Much like Polybius, nothing does the game any justice, unless you actually stick a headset on and play it!

My brain hurts…

Also much like Polybius, the game is a thing of absolute beauty. I suspect you may be reading this because you’ve played the demo, but you’re not sure about that £24.99 price tag. I was the same. I really enjoyed the demo, but it doesn’t give you nearly enough insight to the true depth of this game. Fortunately, there’s a VR sale on right now – so I took the plunge…

Now, I can’t actually work out how to describe this game, so here’s the blurb from the developer’s site:

Experience 360 degrees of mind-blowing synesthesia as you blast your way through waves of enemies and massive transforming bosses, with your every move triggering colors and sounds that sync and blend to the beat of the legendary techno soundtrack of Rez.

Yeah, what they said.

Best thing to do is get that headset on and dive straight in there. Grab your weapon of choice (Dualshock or Move Controllers) and wave goodbye to the real world.

Come at me brah!

I plumped for the Dualshock Controller, purely because I’d used that in the demo. What I didn’t realise from the demo is that the controls are a damn site easier than I was making them. Just turn your head to look at your targets, hold down the X button, and once you’ve got a lock on those bad guys, release the button. Boom! Missiles fire in all directions and blow your enemies out of the sky – in a very pleasing brightly coloured pixelated way of course. You can lock on to 8 targets at any one time.

Rez is a very much on-the-rails experience (with the degree of movement configurable for VR if you want added motion sickness), with various power-ups and end of level bosses to defeat.

Like an end-of-level boss!

And it’s fantastic fun. Fantastic graphics, sound, and top-notch gameplay. But wait, there’s more…

Something not even hinted at in the demo version, and sitting humbly on the title screen is another game called Area X. And this is very much off-the-rails! Total freedom of movement, with a handy little radar to help you track down things to destroy. And the visuals! Wow. Super bright sumptuous exploding pixels everywhere. Entire cities made of little individual pixels. It really is a thing to behold – especially those pyramids, I’m a sucker for all things Ancient Egyptian don’t you know?

Take a look:

Area X – looks like I know what I’m doing here

Pretty Pyramids

This was definitely worth buying the game for. You could while away several hours blowing things up and then staring at the wonderful explosions. The sense of scale is amazing (ditto for the main Rez game). And I do like a sense of scale in my VR games!

I don’t do ratings, yet, probably ‘cos I love VR far too much and love everything I play. So, in summary, I can see myself returning to this game time and time again, but I’m not sure about that price tag for a digital download. Great graphics and sound, solid gameplay. I got it for half price in the latest VR sale and I’m happy with that.

Developer’s Site: http://rezinfinite.com/