Review: Wet

I admit that I’ve been staying away from all the press and articles about Wet, even foregoing watching early gameplay footage, because I wanted to go into this title without anything clouding my review. Now that Wet is out and on store shelves, I wish someone had warned me about what I’d be spending my money on. It’s not that Wet is a horrible game by any stretch of the imagination…it’s just that Wet didn’t really try all that hard to impress and definitely comes off as rough around the edges.

The Story

The story’s quite basic. You play as Rubi, a tough-as-nails assassin-for-hire badass chick. She’s contracted to return a wealthy millionaire’s son back from Hong Kong (the term ‘designer-drug market’ is only mentioned twice but is still overused), and when that plan goes south, she runs through the next 6 hours of the game looking to bitch-slap the double-crosser and his henchmen.

There’s a supporting cast of characters that somehow involves someone of every nationality. An Englishmen, American, Chinese, Australian, a Scot, you name it. The developer must have been going for a global appeal, but somehow the game only takes place in Hong Kong and London. Weird.

Rubi is voiced by Eliza Dushku and supported by Malcolm McDowell as the bad dude and Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler from X2) in a role so transparent I didn’t even realize he was in it. Dushku completely phones in her dialogue to the point where her death scream sounds like a pregnant horse being slammed into a wall. McDowell’s resident smarm is intact but isn’t given enough dialogue to really make it worth the money the developer paid him for the work. The only time that Dushku ever puts any feeling into her words is when she’s swearing a blue streak up and down the lane. And that’s ALL the time. Jamming swear words into dialogue is one thing, but when she’s swearing at a locked door… every locked door… it just becomes too much.

The Gameplay

Rubi is a wall-running/jumping/sliding death machine. Whenever you initiate one of these acrobatic moves and pull the triggers of your dual pistols, you initiate bullet-time where the slo-mo kicks in, allowing you to target your foes with a fair amount of ease. One of your pistols automatically targets a random baddie, and it’s your job to find a second one to take out for ultimate multitasking mayhem. You’ll eventually pick up dual shotguns, submachine guns and crossbows as the story progresses. Ammo is fairly limited for these weapons so you’ll want to hang on to it until the time is right. You also come equipped with a death-dealing sword for those close-encounters.

You'll be spending most of this game on your knees

Wet’s gameplay style is a mix of sorts. There are Arena-type shoot-em-ups where the objective is to take out all the bad guys while trying to cut off their spawn points. Other sections have on-rails car chase scenes where you jump car-to-car Matrix-style, a dodge-the-debris style fall from an airplane, and Rage Mode, where everything goes red (and looks kind of like Madworld) and you’re supposed to get your kill-count as high a possible.

These sections mix up the action a bit, including some Price Of Persia-style sections of pure platforming, but it’s all ultimately too shallow. You’ll find yourself constantly jumping, then diving, then sliding, all while pulling the triggers on any surrounding bad guys (which come in, count them, 3 different flavors). You can mix it up a tad by using the environment (swinging from poles, wall-running) but most of the time, you’ll be relying on a very simple formula to move on to the next stage.

Go all Rage-y in Rage Mode

You’re awarded bonus points based on your skills (consecutive kills, headshots, BALL shots, etc…) and you can spend those points to upgrade Rubi’s skill set and weapon proficiency in-between levels. I would recommend upgrading the pistol fire-rate first and move on from there, as the pistols are always your go-to weapon of choice.

The Graphics

Prettiest PS2 game I ever saw. Overlayed with a grainy filter to give it a grindhouse appeal, the graphics sure ain’t nothing to write about. Done.

The Audio

You already know how I feel about the voice acting, but one part that stands out is the great punkabilly/rockabilly/psychobilly soundtrack that comes with the game. The songs all have a great twangy vibe from many noted (although still indie/underground) bands that can really pump up your adrenaline for more gun-happy kill-sprees.

Run... then gun. Not the other way around.

The Bottom Line

Wet is a full-on action game with slight platforming elements that goes for a grindhouse/exploitation aesthetic. It probably succeeds best at creating this atmosphere than anything else it does. While mixing quicktime events, run-and-gun action, on-rails car chases and roof-jumping, Wet is trying to be a lot of things but doesn’t really succeed at any of them. In this package you’ll get between 6 and 8 hours of gameplay, with no real reason to come back after the ride is over; there is no multiplayer and no downloadable content planned for the game. Couple that with sub-par graphics, under-the-top voice acting and shallow gameplay, you’ll wonder why you paid full price for a title that won’t even last the weekend. A rental at best.

The Good: rocking uptempo soundtrack; simple gameplay mechanics once you get used to them; cool, original old-school Drive In “Let’s All Go To The Lobby” vignettes, grindhouse esthetic

The Bad: Lazy, uninspired gameplay that never truly feels original; mediocre graphics; crappy voicework; swearing for swearing’s sake