Rez is one of those games that comes out of nowhere to dazzle the senses and prove once again to the videogame masses that interactive entertainment can be artistic. The game is difficult to break down into a traditional review since its style and interaction has to be seen first hand to truly comprehend what I am about to talk about. At the heart of the game is an old-school shooter with a number of modern twists.

I recall Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the brains behind Rez, once discussing his dream to fuse techno music into a videogame environment like nothing that had been done before. His dream has been five years in the making and thanks to the power of the PS2, the dream is now a glorified reality. The game takes place inside some sort of cyberspace that is best described as a Tron-like environment. As a player, you must break through a series of firewalls and save the central CPU, Eden, from a virus.

Gameplay is realized over five large stages and involves a targeting system that enables you to lock onto multiple targets, as well as an overdrive counter measure that acts like a smart bomb resulting in total destruction of everything on the screen. Rez is different from typical shooters in that lives are replaced by seven specific phases of evolution. Each mutation is activated by collecting power-ups. Get tagged by an enemy, however, and you drop a step back on the evolutionary scale. Each of the five main stages are broken up into 10 smaller sub-stages. Each area boasts varied attack patterns, a diverse variety of enemies and some incredible end bosses. The end-level bosses magnificently metamorphosize into various forms as you attempt to take them out. In a late stage in the game, the boss transforms into a jaw dropping running man. You really have to see this transformation to experience the intensity I am trying to convey. At the conclusion of each stage, you are scored on your performance under three categories: Analyzation - the percentage of layer levels accessed, Shot Down - the percentage of Viruses successfully destroyed and Support Item - the percentage of support items you collected.

The real joy in Rez is how Mizuguchi-san and his team have managed to amalgamate sound, vision and action into one comprehensive package, not to mention a viable storyline that makes sense for a change. Everything you do in the game corresponds directly to the soundtrack. Everything on the screen throbs to the bass sounds of one of the best trance soundtracks ever conceived for a videogame. As you fly through this 3D world, you shoot streams of energy at computer adversaries which in turn add electronic beats and rhythms to the soundscape. Additional rhythms are mixed throughout each stage to ensure things never sound alike. The thought of how the developers put all of this together and made it work is just staggering.

Thanks to a wonderfully balanced menu of unlockable extras, Rez rewards repeated and varied play. Unlockable Trance modes allow you to roam levels freely and enjoy the experience without the stress of clearing objectives. Unlocking the Score Attack mode lets you earn points for destroying viruses in areas cleared in the regular Play mode. In addition to the extra modes that can be found, fans of UGA will be happy to find some hidden evolutionary forms from their previous hit game Space Channel 5 on the Dreamcast.

Rez is yet another example of why Sega is the innovation leader in the industry. Just when you have had about enough of the same old worn out franchise titles representing tired genres, Sega's development teams spring something totally different that does not have to rely on fancy graphics. The opposite is true here, a game that has solid playability from the ground up. Metamorphosing end of level bosses, evolving soundscapes, and increasingly solid environments result in a staggeringly enjoyable experience. This game may not be for everyone, but if you even have a tad of interest in what can be achieved with a vivid imagination then you owe yourself to experience the virtual world of Rez.