There is no middle ground when you deal with Rubi, the pissed off assassin at the center of Artificial Mind and Movement’s WET, just as there really isn’t likely to be a middle ground of opinions about the game. The developers know it, the game knows it, and there are no apologies made, no attempts to grab a larger audience. The game was made by fans of Grindhouse films, for fans of Grindhouse films. You’ll either love it, or you’ll hate it, but either way, WET is worth a look.
The game kicks off with a bang, the tutorial level essentially being one big cage where you are the panther and all the henchmen swarming around are at your questionable mercy. Right from the start, you know what to expect. From the “film scratch” filter that makes the game look like a damaged film print from the 70s, complete with subtle image flicker and not so subtle scratches all across the screen, to the copious amounts of blood that spews from your foes, there can be no mistaking the intent of this game. That intent? To be a fun, over the top joy ride.
The controls are simple: A jumps, X swings your sword, B causes Rubi to slide on her knees, Y interacts with objects, the Right Trigger shoots and the Left pulls up “Rubi Vision” which highlights objects in the environment that can be used in acrobatics. What the simplicity of the controls masks is the frantic pace of the combat and how unforgiving it can be even on the easiest setting. If you stand still or try to run and gun, you will die, a lot. There is no cover system and enemies are usually far better shots than you; until you dive, or slide, or wall run. Perform one of these moves and you are taken into slow motion. In these acrobatic sections, Rubi is deadly. She dual wields her weapons, can eviscerate an attacker with one strike, and can aim 360 degrees around her. The focus of the action is to look cool while doing crazy slow motion attacks. To help in that, the game gives you full control of one of the guns during slow motion. One auto targets an enemy, while the second is free aim, allowing you to pick and choose your targets.
The Dual wielding allows skilled players to take down two or more enemies during one dive/slide and the ability to chain acrobatic moves together, combined with arenas built purely around giving the player plenty of opportunities to initiate said acrobatics, means that when you are moving full steam, henchmen are dropping like flies. And the result is awesome to watch. Then the game throws a jump puzzle in, and some of that slick, crazy feel gets shed.
And that’s not even touching on the stylistic rage mode. When Rubi gets blood on her face, she goes berserk, and everything goes red. The music gets crazier, enemies turn into black and white, almost abstract art pieces moving to kill you and every explodes in a cloud of white blood. These adrenaline packed sequences are scattered throughout the game, and offer a welcome break from the constant need to perform slow motion kills. In rage mode, Rubi is consistently deadly.
The main issue with the jump puzzles is the nature of Rubi’s jumps. She cannot just jump straight up. She always jumps forward, and the length of the jump is set, regardless of running or from a standstill. By firing, you can stretch her out in a dive to get a few extra inches, but for the most part you will know where you need to jump. The challenge is the timing, which can be very difficult when you are also being shot at, which happens a lot. Luckily, by the time the jumping gets really crazy and the enemies are liberally spread throughout levels, a little sigil on the wall indicates where you need to wall run and jump. These sigils usually set you up for easy kills, but they often feel a little out of place, as do most of the jump puzzles. The game is at its best when you are in the middle of intense action, and the puzzles, however easy, detract from that.
Another aspect of the game that is sure to cause a divide: Quick Time Events. There are a few scattered throughout the game, though most take the form of a single button to jump between speeding cars or quickly kill a tougher enemy. The ones that will cause the most frustration are the boss fights. The combat system in the game is completely designed around killing multiple targets quickly and while looking cool. The system doesn’t work quite as well when you are fighting a single target, largely because it feels like overkill. As a result, the boss fights all occur in QTE format. I, personally, find nothing wrong with that because they are cool to watch and I recognize the fact that boss fights in the context of the game engine wouldn’t work, but a large segment of the gaming population hates QTE’s so will obviously find fault.
While not a graphical powerhouse, the game looks good and Rubi herself is well detailed. The graphics are more or less on par with other “average” games. The audio, however, surpasses most others. The guns should powerful, the enemies actually have different screams depending on how they die, and the music and voice acting are top notch. The voice cast features Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse) as Rubi, and Malcom McDowell (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) as Pelham, and both actors deliver their lines with flair and give the characters real personality, particularly Rubi. The music delivers in the form of frentic, almost chaotic scores that fit the action perfectly. Very few games have music that meshes so perfectly with the action on screen.
Overall, WET is a very fun game that falls firmly into the ‘Love it or Hate it’ category. If you like Grindhouse movies, over the top action and tough as nails heroines, you’ll probably find WET feels like it was made just for you.
Pros:
Knows exactly what it wants to be.
Very fun combat system.
Consistently gives out upgrades for purchase.
Great music.
Cons:
QTEs pop up a lot, most people don’t like them.
The puzzles detract from the game.
Some difficulty spikes.
Overall Score: B
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