Games for Lunch: Rez HD
In a nutshell: Panzer Dragoon + an art project + a rave = Rez HD
4/16/2008 2:52 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3
0:22 I've destroyed the Earth! Er, in a good way. I get some stats for the level: "96.84% shot down, 88.89% support item." So I guess I was hitting most of the enemies after all.
0:25 Level two features more camera pans and more multi-hit, tanker-type enemies, but seems pretty much the same as level 1. I'm getting into the flow of the music a little more, though. I'm trying really hard to treat the game as a "synaesthetic" experience and to not get hung up on how basic and hard-to-decipher the actual gameplay is.
0:27 Despite my best efforts to get power-ups, I am still a mere floating sphere. This is incredibly demoralizing.
0:29 I take back my comment of this being a warmed-over level 1. The enemies are showing some good variety, morphing into varied and freaky forms that I can't even begin to describe.
0:31 I finally level-up to a humanoid again! I wish I knew what triggered these power-ups' appearance.
0:33 Up next, the imaginatively named "Mars[Giga]." Earth, Mars -- what is this, Sailor Moon?
0:34 Mr. Mars Man alternates between a series of missile-launching tentacles and a series of encroaching walls with targets. Again, my descriptions feel incredibly lame for such an original, imaginative sight.
0:36 Spindly pink tubes launching orange kamikaze ships. A good name for a rock band AND a good description of the boss' latest form.
0:37 I'm a sphere again! Waaaah!
0:38 The boss' last form is a rather unimpressive orange thing that launches unthreatening orange balloons. Oh, well, the boss fight is still the highlight of the level. Only 56.25 percent of the support items this time. No wonder I was so sphere-y for so long.
0:40 Interesting: Apparently if I just ignore the layer-advancing items, I can stay on the easier, lower layers indefinitely, racking up the power-ups and becoming un-sphered! I feel like I'm in a
Mega Man game, constantly killing the same enemy until he gives me a health item.
0:44 My "stay on the lower layers" plan backfires as a massive snake-like thing eventually appears and knocks me down a peg. I can take a hint. I know when I've overstayed my welcome.
0:47 The Venus[Giga] boss is preceded by an amazing sequence of cubes bounding along a virtual plain, like something out of "Tron" but much cooler. It's like a horde of locusts, or a buffalo stampede. Very stirring.
0:48 Yikes. Before I know it, I'm hit by Venus' lasers and I explode in a small "poof." What an anti-climactic death.
0:52 Replaying level 3, I encounter the snake again, but this time I'm ready with a rapid-fire attack. Booyah!
0:57 Back at the Venus boss. Now that I know what's coming, I focus my shots on taking out the lasers in front of me and make short work of them. The cascading and rearranging tiles that the lasers sit on are quite beautiful.
0:59 Just finished a thrilling section involving retreating from encroaching missiles. My head is swimming.
1:01 Venus A-SPLODE. The ending section was again a bit anticlimactic -- shoot open the outer shell, then shoot the static core. I feel like these bosses should end just a tad earlier than they actually do.
Would I play this game for more than an hour? Yes.
