Come the rezolution

I love games. There, I've said it. Now, I realise that this makes me sound like a bed-wetting, partnerless geek, but gaming isn't just about controlling a large-chested woman with a nice line in weaponry.

Oh, no. The shoot-'em-up is just one genre. There's also racing, puzzle-solving... well, that's about it, actually. Or it was. There's something new in town that could change what people - even non-gamers - think about gaming. It's a whole different ball game.

It's called Rez and this sensory assault is the closest you're going to get to having a techno knees-up in the privacy of your own home. And it's a game. Stupidly simple to play, but trying to describe it makes you sound plain stupid. As a wire-frame figure flying through a landscape that can only be described as sci-fi psychedelia, you shoot at strange, abstract shapes. But that's not really telling the whole story, because the most revolutionary aspect of the game is the use of music.

You move to a trance-techno beat, with everything you shoot adding to it - even the control pad vibrates along to it. The longer you play, the faster and more intense the music becomes. In Japan, you can even buy a special Trance Vibrator to go with the game - a vibrating block the size of a mobile phone that you put in your pocket to 'enhance' the experience. That particularly odd piece of kit is, sadly, unlikely to get a look-in in Europe.

Rez is the brainchild of genius (and more than a little hippie) games designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who was at a massive rave in Switzerland when the inspiration came to him. 'All these people were dancing like fiends to house and techno, and I had no idea that this culture that could get 400,000 people to act as one even existed, so I was really surprised. These people were into their lighting, too. I saw all these light effects swaying along with the music and I felt like this jibed exactly with the game I was imagining. I thought it'd be great if I could control all this music and light by myself.'

What he ended up creating is a game that is closer to - dare I say this without sounding a ponce - art. Which is why it's unsurprising that Mizuguchi is also a keen fan of early abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky, especially the artist's philosophy about the relationship between colour and sound. 'Every sound has its own colour, shape and movement,' Kandinsky wrote. 'It's true,' says Mizuguchi. 'Kandinsky's work did inspire me in terms of the audio/visual experience. I wanted to do something that was completely different from the direction games are going. Games today just don't get you as excited as older ones did.'

To show the link between the game and the techno scene, Mizuguchi likes showing his creation at clubs, where he'll sit up in the DJ booth and play the game, projecting the visuals on a wall or big screen. And the music pumping out will be that of the game. We're talking serious dance music, too, with the likes of Adam Freeland and Coldcut with Tim Bran contributing, along with Japanese talent like Ken Ishii and Joujouka.

This fusion of dance and games culture doesn't rely on over-realistic graphics the way most games do (often, ironically, at the expense of enjoyment), it's easy to play and it's a mesmerising sensation. So get ready for the revolution because, after Rez, everything else is going to seem a little tuneless.

Rez is out now on PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast.