10 Critically-Acclaimed Video Games NO ONE Played

While other entries on this list are critically acclaimed games played by few, Rez is a critically acclaimed game few gamers have even heard of.

Combining the rail-shooter genre with the music game genre, Rez sees players shooting down viruses as they navigate levels best described as a Winamp visualizer meets the imaginings of M.C. Escher gone cyber psychadelic, all while an EDM backing track dynamically responds to the action.

It is a game that blurs the line between a video game and a piece of interactive art, and critics loved it, lauding the music, which appealed even to those not fans of the EDM genre, and stylized graphics that, as of the HD release, still hold up brilliantly.

Though it won numerous awards for innovation, and continued to be nominated for, and winning, awards as recently as 2016, the original, released in 2001, sold a mere 100 000 copies by 2003 in the US, with critics taking issue with the game’s lack of content (it’s about 2.5 hours) and concluding that it was perhaps too niche for its own good. With the HD upgrade Rez found its definitive version, scoring an 89 on Metacritic, but sadly the damage was done and it remains an under-appreciated title.

Rez Infinite, with VR support, is available on Steam.