7C Rez Guide

Ah, the glory of Rez: a work of art that every gamer who knows how
to pronounce the word aesthetic should experience. Unfortunately,
this isn't as easy as it should be.

In addition to the normal provocations encountered when importing a
videogame, Rez comes with extra restrictions to make the task even
more complicated. That is, for the European PAL version at least,
which is the version this guide will focus on since it has been
confirmed that the Japenese NTSC version does not suffer from the
same loading problems that the PAL version does.

For those who are unfamiliar with importing games read my Import
Gaming Guide to get caught up on what you need to know to import
games in general. In reading it you will see that some games are
more difficult to import than other games. Rez is one of those games
and this guide is here to clarify how to overcome those difficulties
and enjoy one of Sega's finest games.

When I imported Rez I discovered one major problem: it wouldn't load
on my Dreamcast even though it was brand new and every other
import game that I owned loaded flawlessly. I was using a modded
Dreamcast from the 9.9.99 launch. Being a Segaholic, however, I
owned more than one Dreamcast. So I tested Rez out on my second
Dreamcast (which was purchased in January 2001) with a boot disc
and the game loaded approximately 20% of the time.

So I investigated the matter and discovered a rumor stating that
copies of Rez sold during the last phase of its production run were
modified by Sega to prevent its importation to the U.S. market. For
those of you who never knew, Sega redesigned the Dreamcast later
in its production cycle to combat piracy after the GD-Rom format was
cracked. If you want to know what version you have just look on the
lower-right portion of the label found on the bottom of your
Dreamcast. If you have a later model there will be a circled 2 right
next to the NTSC label. With that in mind, my launch Dreamcast would
have been version 1 and my second Dreamcast would have been
version 2.

While Sega's decision to do modify copies of Rez in order to prevent
importing of it may seem like a ridiculous rumor it is actually quite
plausible. You see, after Shenmue 2 was cancelled for the U.S.
Dreamcast market it quickly became one of the most imported
videogames in the history of the industry. Out of fear that this would
hurt potential sales of Shenmue 2's American release on the Xbox
(which it did) and that a similar fate might become of Rez's planned
PS2 release if not prevented, Sega of America most likely altered the
later production run of Rez in order to make the game more difficult
to import.

So I emailed Sega of Europe with my theory of the Rez loading
problem. Unfortunately, they were not very helpful on the matter as
you can read for yourself in their quoted response:

"About Rez, what you say is a possibility but we cannot confirm it.
Anyway, we cannot give you support for import gaming. I'm afraid
there is nothing we can do for you."

I then emailed import specialist NCS to hear their thoughts on the
matter. They confirmed my speculations:

"We currently only have the latest production of Rez which will not
work properly on some Dreamcast consoles using the boot disc or
mod-chip. It is not necessarily a problem with the game but the ability
of older console GD-Rom drives to read the game."

So, I bought another system off of ebay solely to discover the truth
behind the Rez mystery. Thus, I came to own my third Dreamcast. The
seller assured me that the system was purchased in the summer of
2001 (which was the final days of the Dreamcast's shelf-life, and
therefore, a version 2 Dreamcast) and I have had only a few
instances where my copy of Rez would not load with a boot disc.

Lik-Sang further commented on the issue by referring to Dreamcasts
manufactured in the last three months of production as "Non-MIL
Dreamcasts" and all Dreamcasts manufactured before that as "MIL
Dreamcasts." They also stated that Non-Mil Dreamcasts are
incompatible with music CDs. They mention that the game Feet of
Fury is compatible with MIL Dreamcasts, but not Non-MIL---which
seems to be the opposite of Rez. While at first I thought that they
were just referring to the two versions of the Dreamcast, but I don't
know for certain because I know all music CDs work on my version 2
Dreamcast.

So, it seems that earlier copies of Rez should be compatible on all
Dreamcast systems whereas older copies of Rez are only compatible
with version 2 Dreamcasts. But, to make a long feature short: Rez is a
great game and everyone should play it (on your Dreamcast of
course, not a PS2). So if you end up with a copy of Rez and it works on
your Dreamcast do yourself a favor and keep both forever, because
Rez is a game you will want to pop in every now and then and enjoy. I
hope you don't have to go through as much trouble as I did to enjoy
it, but its only fair if you do.

If you don't want to deal with the loading problems present in the
European release, importing the Japanese version is a valid option
given that the game is not text-heavy and given that the gameplay is
so simple that translating the instruction manual isn't even
necessary. But, of course, nothing is ever as easy as it should be and
the Japanese version is quite a bit more rare than the European one.