In one of the corners of the PAX East show floor lie Fez, a game I've been salivating over for some months now, and what could end up being one of 2011's best platformers. You who are not concerned with ingenuity and thoughtful gaming can stop reading right now. Though for those brave enough to explore the tenets of "reality is perception," and "perception is subjective," please read on.
The lovely world of Fez is composed primarily of trixels; 3D pixels which lend a decidedly 8-bit feel to the old 3D model formula that has been the norm since the mid to late 90s. Fans of the PS3 exclusive 3D Dot Game Heroes will feel right at home in Fez's town of Villageville.
The real beauty however, comes after the protagonist, Gomez, speaks to his village elder to discover this is a day of great importance. Gomez receives a Fez in a dream sequence of sorts, and when he wakes on what appears to the the same day, something is different. He can now traverse Villageville in a way which he can rotate the world on an Y-axis, allowing new platforming opportunities to be discovered in the most creative of ways. The mechanic is not the easiest for my non-trixel brain to put to words, but the included PAX East gameplay video should allow you a greater comprehension. The mechanic is quite brilliant.
Once I got the hang of the perspective-altering power of the Fez I tried speed-running. That might not have been the best idea, as I missed a bunch of jumps and fell to my death on multiple occasions. Speed-running may require some experience -- AKA failed jumps -- but I'm sure once your mind is calibrated for world-turning and once you've learned the world itself, it can be done effectively. Perhaps speedruns in Fez are unnecessary, as the beauty of the trixels as well as the gravity of what exactly you're doing (twisting the freaking world) should be enough to keep you entertained for hours. The difficulty isn't as steep as something like Super Meat Boy, but Fez is still a joy to play.
If you don't have your frequency set for Fez already, you should get on that. Polytron Corporation's mind-bending game-changer will release sometime this year, and honestly, I don't think that's soon enough.