Video Games I Enjoy - Rez Infinite
Something about me — I love rhythm-based video games! Rez (and most recently, Rez Infinite) is one of my all-time favorites. I first played it on the Xbox 360, and I replayed it dozens of times. I always loved the music and how unique each level’s soundtrack is, the visuals (based on the concept of a computer system), how synchronized everything is to the music, and how each level progresses as you move through the layers. Each time you move to the next layer in a level, more layers are added to the song, there are new enemies and enemy patterns, and more and more visual elements are added to the environment.
Despite the game being a rail shooter (the path through the level and the speed at which you’re moving is predetermined), and targeting being a lock-on system as opposed to free form firing, I still find there’s a lot of expression in what you can do with how you control your avatar character. Although it’s primarily for flavor, if you’re not targeting an enemy, you can still press the fire button and it’s in-sync with the music! It’s fun to make beats with it!
Each round of firing has 8 shots, and each enemy has its own health pool. With some experience, you can learn how many shots each enemy takes, and you can learn to be more efficient with your avatar’s weapon. Something else I love about the game, since it makes it more accessible — the boss’s difficulty scales to how many enemies you successfully kill through the level. So if you’re new to the game, the bosses will not be as difficult as you won’t be shooting as many enemies down. The enemies can’t damage you directly, but some do fire homing missiles at you that you need to shoot down before they hit your avatar (and, to make it easier, it’s best to target the enemy that’s firing the missiles).
Although I’ve played Rez many times and I always found a lot of meaning in it without really being able to put it into words. I’ve tried many times to write this blog, to no avail, as I couldn’t quite capture in words what the game meant to me. I always found the last level (and its accompanying song) to be my favorite, and one I would always return to as an affirmation of sorts!
From playing the game many times to thinking about the meaning within it extensively, here are my ideas from what I gathered from it.
Some central themes I found in Rez:
Synchronization to the forward movement of music, how it keeps one moving forward in time, maintaining presence and awareness across time
Buddhist ideas, concepts, and numbers (the number 8 is prevalent throughout, and area 4 is heavily inspired by Buddhism)
Enemies and bosses representing harmful/maladaptive thought patterns and behaviors (and in going with the story of the game, are structures created while in fear) and firing at them represents maintaining presence while being aware of them
In deconstructing these thought patterns through awareness, one can improve their capability to do so without losing concentration (each level up in essence gives the avatar more health against enemy missile attacks)
With these themes in mind, I thought about the overarching metaphors in the game. Since it’s clear this game represents maintaining awareness through harmful structures existing within the mind, utilizing this awareness to “hack through” firewalls, to eventually be in touch with one’s joyful, authentic core. It’s a representation of an inner journey through one’s own psychic elements. One of the pitfalls I found in thinking about the specific meaning in Rez was that “firing” was something that was adversarial or aggressive, which I thought was contradictory to the philosophy it represented. Eventually, I realized it was the exact opposite — it just means to simply be aware of, in a kind and caring way, of oneself while recognizing maladaptive thinking patterns. This makes them quite obviously unhelpful or harmful. In that recognition, they lose their meaning/structure.
Bosses specifically represent defense mechanisms and barriers (initially placed for self-preservation, but from a reactive place, so they’re not well-adapted over time) that in essence prevent us from the vulnerability we need to have to be able to see and receive love and care from ourselves and in turn others.
The final level (I recorded some in-game footage of myself playing it) has a song that mirrors the famous line from Dune: “Fear is the mind killer” (and the song itself, in my opinion, expresses it really well). It encapsulates the idea that fear not only destroys structure within the mind, but it reinforces those very barriers that separate us from ourselves and others who care a lot about us.
If you’d like to watch me do a playthrough of the final level in the game, here’s a recording of me playing it! If you end up viewing it, I hope you enjoy it!