Two Rail - Shooters - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 46

Moving on to Rez, let's start with the way the media categorize the game in
terms of genre. Many reviewers categorize it as a shooter , pure and simple. Some
of the more conscientious reviewers categorize it as a rail - shooter for the reason
that, although we have a 3D viewpoint, the path we take through that 3D world is
preset. The player can adjust his or her position in that viewpoint or, as is the case
with Rez, adjust his or her gun sight within the view offered at any one time, but
our paths through the various levels are out of our control.
Now let ' s consider Rez ' s activity profi le, which should be very different. The
top scoring activity is music, a very non-twitchy activity and the only one to get the
maximum score. This is closely followed by use of weapons, which is what you
mostly do in Rez. Following this we have three lower scoring activities: targeting
(6), attacking (5) and unlocking items (3). Finally there are just two activities scoring
2: confronting and story. All in all, only seven activities score 2 or more. This is a
very focused game, where you listen to music and watch the visuals as a result of
targeting and using your weapons.
So although the highest scoring activity is one of the three least twitchy
ones possible, you might call it a fairly twitchy music making game. It actually
gets a twitch factor of 0.8, which is very non-twitchy for a shooter . Rez is not a
typical shooter but follows on in its own way from games such as Parappa the
Rapper and Gitaroo Man. Rez helped to set the continuing trend that is the rhythm
action genre.
The way you make the music more interesting and intricate is by locking onto
as many incoming missiles as possible and destroying them all in one go. This
enables you to build your own trance music track over the underlying beat. Along-
side music we could add the activity of simply losing ourselves in the beauty of the
visual display of explosions and wire frame backgrounds, but GIL doesn' t actually
measure this yet.
Notice that Star Wing had confronting as one of its two top activities whereas
Rez has it as one of its seven low scoring activities. Apart from the level bosses,
there is not very much in the way of actually fi ghting, as in one - on - one combat, in
Rez so this explains the big difference in this respect.
Unlike Star Wing, story scores very low in Rez. There is a back-story but we
don't think anyone takes much notice of it. However, it is discussed toward the end
of this chapter in the context of the making of Rez and the complex aesthetics the
author used as a driving force in the game's development. To us, Rez works as a
sort of interactive, animated abstract painting and music machine. You don' t think
too much about rationalizing it; it is best just to experience it. Conversely, Star Wing
clearly works within the genre of the shooter , but because of the on-rails activity it
is possible to concentrate on shooting and targeting specifi cally rather than piloting
your star ship as such; although you do spend quite a lot of time positioning it within
the view you have.
Once again this emphasizes the usefulness of activity profi ling and twitch
factors in bringing out the subtle differences between games which apparently
belong to the same traditional genre. Rez and Star Fox are similar but different. They
have very different twitch factors and their activity profi les show them to be quite