Surfing through petabytes of information, a storm of myriad colors clouds my vision, a harmony of sound and visual stimuli overclocking my senses. There's a rhythm to be found in the chaos, a flow to the motion, a song that's built upon a cacophony of sounds, bullets and explosions creating an orchestra in my mind.

Rez is less of a game and more of a transcendent audiovisual experience. The gameplay is hypnotic, putting you into that trance state as you take aim and shoot before your brain can process what you've done, but the real point of Rez is it's aesthetic, a style so thick and permeating it becomes the substance. Shots that fall in time with the music, the soundtrack that gradually builds and builds as you progress through the level, it feels less like a rail-shooter and more like an improv jam session: everyone's feeling out the tempo, the rhythm, the harmony, working out the kinks as you go along until it all falls into place and everything starts to harmonize, the song in your soul finally coming out in full force, an iridescent moment in time where the instruments sing and everything is perfect. Rez is a reminder: Take in the sounds, witness the lights, let it wash over you like the waves of the ocean lapping the coast. That's what it means to be alive.