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You can play through United Game Artists' Rez from beginning to end in less than an hour, which, in an age where size depressingly does matter to so many, could be seen as a slight against this music-infused rail shooter. That hour, though, comes closer to perfection than any other video game I know.What wonders that 60 minutes holds: the vector-lit void that slowly fills with dancing detail, the first ripple cascade of beats that builds towards anthemic euphoria, the running man. The sweet skunk thud of Joujouka's track that builds up to Rez's most iconic boss at the climax of level four, or the desolation of the level that follows, moodily soundtracked by Adam Freeland's Fear is the Mind Killer. The moment when you MDMA rush out of the sea, towards a sky squirming with cannon fodder as a suite of stuttering, swirling strings giddily charts your ascent.
Or the end of the third level, as you dance alongside a swarm of bots, the firewalls that protect the boss tumbling dramatically down. It's true that, with a bleakly reductionist view, Rez is simply a successor to more earnest fare such as Panzer Dragoon, only in which your arsenal is transmuted to drum machines and synthesisers, where cannon fire is switched out for 808 thumps and missiles are swapped for high energy 303 stabs.
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