WET (Xbox 360) review - PAGE 1

WET (Wetwork) - a euphemism alluding to hands literally wet with blood

Rarely are we faced with a video game heroine who is confident in her own abilities without having to flaunt her curves in our faces.  In WET, we are introduced to Rubi Malone, whom developer Artificial Mind and Movement has fashioned into such a woman; she doesn't do mercy, only mercy killings.

Originally to be published under Activision Blizzard, WET wound up one of many games dropped in 2008.  Lucky for A2M, Bethesda stepped in to pick up the pieces, bringing us a brutal action title heavily inspired by grindhouse cinema.  Complete with catchy soundtrack, tons of violence, and a mild storyline, this game tries hard to impress.  Does it succeed?  Not perfectly, no.  Although WET carries its share of exciting play and general amusement, it stumbles terribly and barely manages to reach the finish line.

As with most games, WET starts out feeling fresh and exciting.  The heroine is sexy with a killer attitude, dual wields any type of firearm within reason, chops people up with an ornate sabre.  She is a mercenary, in occupation and mentality, with an axe to grind against some very powerful crime lords.  Players are ensured plenty of action from the very start as we drop in on Rubi during one of her odd jobs, and once in the fray there is very little downtime.  The acrobatics and Slow-Mo effect might take some getting used to, but combat does pick up once you get the hang of shooting in the middle of performing gravity-defying stunts.  Yet the non-stop action gets old pretty quick unless you play the game with sequence breaks to rest that trigger finger and your patience.

Let's talk about tutorials.  In the beginning, cinematic snippets tucked between actual play will show you certain objectives and cannot be skipped.  This can get annoying very quickly, given that the beginning is usually where people can die most often as they get a feel for the controls.  So for every death is another replay of the introductory cutscene.  Brilliant.  Normal cutscenes can be skipped, so the rest of game doesn't repeat itself in this manner except here and there.  It's just how A2M tries to ease players into the game, but their methods border on excessive.  Each time a new weapon is unlocked, you'll be sent back to the Boneyard, Rubi's home in Texas, to undergo mandatory tutorial challenges in the form of timed obstacle courses.  During these timed challenges, the game encourages the player to test a new weapon by shoot at small targets while running.  Since any half-brained player can figure out aiming and shooting within a minute of starting the game, these tutorials are totally unnecessary, and the mandatory aspect really sucks the fun out of things.  Then again, WET can get pretty repetitive, and every challenge the game throws eventually feels overdone at some point or another.

Bad guys are scattered around the stages, though now and then you'll come upon enclosed areas called "Arenas," like a town plaza or parking garage.  Here, Rubi must face off against countless enemies until the marked spawn points are deactivated -- break the elevator controls, block off a doorway, so on.  Sure, there is some strategy involved, like attempting to deactivate spawn points in different orders following each failure / death, searching for the most efficient (least dangerous) order. 

Another way A2M tries to keep things interesting is with Rubi's Rage Mode.  Whenever she makes a kill at close range, the blood splashing her face will trigger her Rage Mode, at which point the game is reduced to shades of red with enemies standing out as black and white.  It's an attractive effect, but you still fight the exact same way.  Rubi simply becomes slightly stronger and is rendered temporarily color blind.

Arenas effectively remedy the monotony of running down hallway after hallway, yet some Arenas are placed immediately after another, which kills the point honestly.  A2M is obviously one of those developers who haven't realized how easily promising action games can fall into boring repetition.  Cookie cutter foes don't exactly help the situation either.  They mostly threaten Rubi in broken or accented English (Whose idea was it to include horrid FOB accents?), flooding from spawn points in Arena zones.  There is some effort to diversify, as some enemies carry blades or miniguns instead of standard firearms.

While WET does offer a variety of settings -- mostly in Hong Kong and the UK -- the approach never changes; every puzzle uses the same solution.  Even the way Rubi opens doors gets monotonous: wedge her sword in and button mash.  Yes, you'll have to do this every time a closed door is in her path.