NOW PLAYING: REZ

Merriam-Webster defines \"synaesthesia\" as \"a concomitant sensation; especially : a subjective sensation or image of a sense other than the one being stimulated.\"

Or if you\'d like to actually understand the definition, Dictionary.com explains it as being \"a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.\" Sounds like that old acid trip cliché, right? \"I can taste the music,\" and all that. Well, while synaesthetic brain patterns are regularly seen in people on LSD or mescaline, the condition occasionally occurs naturally. Russian painter Wasily Kandinsky heard music when he saw certain colors due to synaesthesia, and musician Aphex Twin has composed songs based on what certain colors sound like to him.

But if you\'re not part of the 0.05% of the population to experience it naturally and have no interest in hallucinogenic substances, but still want to \"see\" music and \"feel\" imagery, then you might want to check out Rez. The basic mechanics of the game are pretty straightforward: it\'s an on-rails shooter, like Panzer Dragoon or Star Fox. But the sensations that the game evokes are pretty indescribable; it honestly does blur the lines between what you see, hear, feel (through the modern miracle of vibrating controllers), and do.

You play as a crude representation of a person flying through a surreal wireframe world, firing beams of light from... your chest, maybe? I can\'t tell. Imagine Tron if Jeff Bridges could fly and shoot lasers. A typical level begins plainly enough, with your protagonist floating in almost empty space with a simple rhythmic beat barely audible in the background. You sweep your targeting reticule over enemies as they appear, then let fly with a series of lasers into the locked-onto targets.

But the sounds of your own actions seem to somehow fit into the rhythm of the music. And the song builds in complexity along with the increasingly intricate visuals as you progress, staying in time with the rhythmic pulses of your character and the metronome vibration of the controller, as you sit there wondering just how your commands always seem to coincide perfectly with the soundtrack. After you\'ve made your way fairly deep into a level, you begin to feel the music in your hands, see it on the screen, and sense it in your own actions. At some points, when an arpeggio of your laser blasts serves as a perfectly-timed counterpoint to a measure of the background music, it seriously feels like the game is playing you.

I\'ve been debating in favor of video games as an art form for years now, and it\'s games like Rez that give my argument some weight. The one thing which differentiates games from books, movies, music, and visual art is the audience\'s direct interaction with the game, a fact which is taken for granted by the majority of the gaming industry and barely even acknowledged. To find a game that not only recognizes that fact, but challenges the very nature of the player\'s interactivity, simply blows my mind. Rez is quite possibly the only game to make me realize that my participation is just as essential a component as the disc on which it\'s printed.

Simply put, Rez is inarguably the must-have title for anyone who\'s even remotely interested in video games doing something new. Too bad it was too high-concept to be commercially successful with the general gaming public, becoming almost impossible to find after its initial release. I\'m not advocating software piracy or anything... but as eBay prices on this rare collector\'s item continue to rise, more economic solutions might not be a bad idea.

If all you want is another World War II shooter, please disregard this review. If you\'re the type who spends $50 every year on the exact same football game, go step into traffic. But if you actually give a shit about pushing the boundaries of the very definition of interactive media, hunt this one down right now.

Player Two: Das Bork

How can I follow that? Ummm... oh, yeah! Sausages! So good.