Enhance Games

















When you see the phrases "classic Dreamcast game Rez" and "author Sam Machkovech" near each other, you can probably fill in the blanks yourself. I've raved. I've cried. I've covered myself in vibrators. I love the game, and I previously thought the classic game had reached its peak via a 4K- and VR-friendly re-release on PlayStation 4 last year.

Turns out Enhance Studios had a surprise up its retro-polygon sleeves: a PC version. With mouse support!

Rez Infinite surprise-lands on Steam and the Oculus Store today, and anybody who simply wanted a version outside the PlayStation 4 ecosystem will luck out by default with the same game—with welcome PC-specific customizations, at that. The classic game runs efficiently on lower-specced machines, owing to its low-poly aesthetic, while the game's newer "Area X" zone will run fine at 1080p with some settings turned down on weaker systems. Should you have CPU and GPU overhead to work with, you can turn on updated 4K-friendly textures (yes, this game has some), full-blast anti-aliasing, and some serious super-sampling. As in, up to 250 percent. In the original game, I cranked this all the way up to a 9,600 x 5,400 resolution without a single stutter on my 1080 Ti rig!





You may recall me saying that Rez Infinite's VR support transformed the game's controls. Instead of having to manage an annoying joystick system, you could just look at the game's myriad creatures and then trigger them to explode in lights and sounds, synced to the game's rave-heavy music and aesthetic. This continues to look and feel awesome when using either the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive VR systems, but if you haven't bought into those pricier hardware bundles, you now have an alternate, nearly-as-good option: control your aim with a mouse.

It's not exactly as immersive and intuitive as moving your head around (since Rez's synesthesia makes sense for gaze-matched control), but mouse control delivers a nearly identical sensation... if you pump up Rez's tunes, anyway. Combine mouselook with a nice pair of headphones, and you can rest easy in playing a much more ideal version of the Tetsuya Mizuguchi classic than the one that landed on Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 more than 15 years ago. (Plus, the PC version's $25/£20 cost includes a free set of rave-tastic MP3s derived from the new Area X zone.)

Just be warned: for mouse users, that new Area X zone is an exception. Its free-roam nature simply doesn't lend itself as well to neat mouselook aim, since players automatically move forward at all times, as opposed to getting full, Descent-style precision. It's still cool, however, and its ramped-up particle effects look incredible on a 4K screen, should you have enough PC power for Area X at max settings.

Listing image by Enhance Games