Games Nest

WET

For PS3, XBOX360 From Bethesda

Hot women, blood, limitless bodycount and a concert of bullets. We know that this formula is successful at most times. And Bethesda’s action shooter “Wet” tries to be one of those cinematic games who combine these elements. But this time there are some drawbacks which make the game not as good as other titles of this category.

We are on the 70’s and Rubi Malone is “fixer”, an assassin for hire. Blubber mouthed, ruthless, extremely flexible and cold she is perfect for the job! And that’s what Ackers thinks, who hires Rubi to do a “special job” for him. Years later, after the job is done, Acker’s father returns to hire Rubi for a new job. This time, after the job is done, things go wrong and Rubi sets off to avenge Mr. Ackers for his betrayal. From London to Hong Kong Rubi has connections everywhere, so along with her skills her task would not be so hard. But Ackers has at his disposal millions of “bad guys” (smugglers, gangers etc) not to mention his 2 favorite personal bodyguards who will stop at nothing to kill Rubi.

As every action shooter which respects itself, Wet main gameplay element is “bullet time”. For those who don’t know what “bullet time” is, it’s an ability to wall run, slide, dive, swing from a surface to another, and more, while shooting in slow motion. Luckily Rubi can use her 4 weapons (pistols, shotguns, SMGs and explosive- arrow crossbows) wielding two of each kind. So while two pistols are not anything special, two shotguns are powerful not to mention a pair of crossbows. During “bullet time” Rubi automatically aims with the one weapon leaving the player aim with the other at another target. Rubi also carries with her a katana which is extremely powerful and can be relied on quite often. Now, during story mode, based on how stylish are the kills you make, you earn points to spend to either upgrade Rubi’s abilities or her weapons stats. Speaking of abilities, the game features countless platforming moments so that superhuman Rubi will be able to make huge jumps, swing from poles/railings, jump from wall to wall and many more. The game also features the rage mode and the arenas. In rage mode Rubi fires quicker and enemies drop dead faster. The arenas are -as the title says- arenas (courts, markets etc) in which the enemies will spawn forever until you block their access to the arena. Of course QTEs are used often to either kill an enemy or open a door or anything. A nice addition is that during the loading screens you will see nice commercial from the 70’s which along with the graphics and the soundtrack will represent the 70’s in a beautiful stylized way. Finally, numerous "Boneyard challenges" in which you‘ll have to destroy wooden targets within the time limit are present, but only as bonuses after you finish the game, along with the point count mode. This mode makes you replay the story levels, only this time through the bodycount, you‘ll have to gain a certain amount of points. The control are simple (either they involve aiming or platforming) but they are not very convenient.

The graphics are acceptable. While they are not detailed or polished the are stylized. Grind is present in every second and the characters and environments are animated like they are taken from an adult comic book. Especially when Rubi is on rage mode, everything switches to red, black and whit like “Sin City” but with far less atmosphere and far more action. The soundtrack makes the difference! Unlike the other elements of the game, it is amazing. Funk rock songs consist it. Believe me, you will play through certain parts only to hear specific songs. The voice acting on the other hand is nothing important and apart from the repetitive bang-bang (gunfire) there aren’t other sound effects. In fear of getting repetitive myself, I will once more add that the technological sector provides us with a humoristic and beautiful approach of the life of a hired gun during the 70’s.

Wet has many drawbacks. First of all it’s repetitive. Killing enemies in slow mo is cool but doing it 60 times in a row gets boring. The loading screens are extremely long and while during most of them we watch some nice advertisements during other we just watch Rubi in an elevator doing nothing. Also the game realism is unnatural low making times like the ones in which enemies require over 50 bullets to die extremely unrealistic and boring as mentioned above. Even the QTEs are a bit tiring at times. The levels are linear. While there are plenty of locations, you finish an arena, run around a bit, finish another arena and end the level. There are 2 levels in which you fight in highway jumping from car to car and another one in which you fall from the sky as an airplane crashes but none from the 9 other levels is interesting. Plus, rage mode -which breaks the game repetitiveness- cannot be manually activated, which means that you will wait till the game decides to activate it. Finally, the story is silly which could be forgiven (considering that the game is an action shooter) only if the plot was ok. But it is not. The plot is neither attractive nor addictive and during the game ending many questions are raised (just pray that a possible sequel will fix the above)

Unfortunately Wet great atmosphere is held back from its drawbacks. It could be a good game but it needed more time. And let’s not forget that “Bloodrayne” or “Max Payne” are titles you hardly put down to start another action shooter.

DLC(s); -

A trailer;