Rubi Malone will make you wet... with blood!
You play as Rubi Malone, a contract killer femme fetale, who packs a pair of guns and a razor-sharp katana when she fells like getting up close and personal. The game starts you out on a mission to recover a case, and when a deal goes wrong and a party flees with it, you then set off to track them down, leaving a trail of bullet-riddled bodies in your wake.
Rubi is an agile angel of death, and she has all sorts of acrobatic combat maneuvers in her arsenal. Whenever she jumps, runs along a wall, swings from a pole, or slides on her knees and starts shooting, time slows to a crawl, while her aiming remains in real time. What makes her even more deadly is her focus isn't exclusive on just one enemy. When she has two hands free, she'll always have one gun automatically trained on a foe, while you aim at whoever else you'd like to fire on.
The sword can come in pretty handy as well. You can slash at everything in your way, or you can slide on your knees and rise up with a swipe to your opponent's mid-section. Later on, you can also unlock such abilities as running up an enemy's chest and dropping down on him with your sword, or doing a jumping slash from a wallrun. Unfortunately, the gunplay is so much more preferred, you'll find yourself forgetting about the swordplay on more than one occassion.
There is a point-based system that provides an incentive to the player to be swift with their killing. You can earn style points by killing in acrobatic slow motion, and you earn more points based on where you hit them, such as head shots, or even crotch shots. You earn more when you take out two at the same time, and even more for varying up your moves. When you dispatch a thug, your chain meter will fill, and when you fill it up enough, it goes up a level, thus multiplying the points on each successive kill. There are also a couple of unique modes that let you earn more bonus points depending on how well you perform.
The first mode is called Arenas. Arenas are special stages that have enemy spawn doors, and your objective is to locate markers and attack them with your sword to close the doors. You can then end the arena by finishing off the last remaining bad guys. You'll need to quickly figure out how to reach each marker, and you'll come across many multiplier rings you can move through to increase your kill chain. It's very imporant that you get your multiplier up, as this is how Rubi gets her health back. The higher the multiplier, the faster the regeneration.
The second mode is called Rage. There are moments in the game where Rubi will fire on a charging enemy in a cutscene at point blank range and her face will get splattered by their blood. She then enters "Rage", and the graphics change to depict more of a graphic novel style, consisting soley of a red, black and white pallet. In Rage, every enemy she kills instantly progresses the multiplier by one level, meaning you can see multipliers in upwards of 50 if you're fast enough. The enemies also get wiped clean when taken out. They're very thrilling segments.
There are also a couple of levels where Rubi needs to pursue someone during a car chase. She'll be riding atop a car, firing at her foes in their own vehicles. There will be moments where accidents occur, and then the player is presented with QTEs (quick-time events, similiar to Shenmue and God of War) that will have Rubi jumping from car to car, or chopping off arms with guns still attached. There are also QTEs in normal levels, as well as in a couple of boss encounters. One such common QTE is after you kill a mini-gun wielder, and Rubi delivers her sword in painful places; it's very cringe-worthy.
The game isn't just straight running and gunning, though. There are moments when she has to climb walls, and jump from ledges and it feels more like Prince of Persia. There are a couple of moments when you have to make your away across a bridge as it's collapsing, and one particular scene where you have to dodge crumbling airplane debris, as you make your way to a plumetting parachute. There's even an incentive to explore, as there are five monkey toys that you can collect in many of the levels.
The presentation of Wet is very slick. Throughout the game, it never lets up on its 70's grindhouse film visual style. There's a nice film grain and frame jump filter on the graphics, but it also seems to hide some of the graphical flaws of the game. Some of the textures could have been much more refined, and the models could have benefited from a higher polygon count. The animation for the most part is smooth, but it gets clunky when Rubi has to change direction on a dime, or when the camera really gets in close.
The audio serves to compliment the visuals extremely well. The soundtrack is perhaps the star of the show. The rock-ish music you'd expect in those grindhouse movies really deliver an ample amount of energy for the game. The sound effects are also wonderful, and this is a really loud game when all guns are blazing. The only downside in the audio department is Eliza Dushku. It kinda makes you wonder why she was considered, as she's clearly not cut out for voice acting. Her dialogue is tolerable, but what isn't is her grunts. They're pulled off so horribly, they get annoying rather quickly.
If only the rest of the game could have been as impressive as its presentation, Wet would be an outstanding winner, but as it stands, it's a diamond in the rough. The game's plagued by an aiming reticule that will not stand still. The camera's at a constant tug of war with the player to keep the thing dead-center. It makes the car chase scenes a nightmare when you're trying to line them up and take them out but can't because it's always moving, so they end up taking a bar and a half of your life away before you finally kill them.
The platforming controls could have also used some fine-tuning. Don't be surprised when you completely miss a jump, because you weren't at the very last centimeter of a ledge. Ledge running is a pain, because Rubi loves to go the wrong direction a lot, and just when you think you have it down, she changes up again when you turn a corner. Wall running also is too picky, as a lot of times, you'll end up running straight up the wall instead of along it or vice versa.
All complaints aside, Wet is an action game definitely worth playing at least once. It's a thrill ride all the way through, just a bit too bumpy at times. It's also a fairly short game, probably no more than six or seven hours, but there are a slew of difficulty modes that will entice the hardcore or completionist gamers to return for more playthroughs. Challenge modes will also unlock after you beat the game to let you replay levels for the best possible scores. Content, such as character bios and music tracks, will also unlock during story mode, so you can explore those as well. Although a lengthier and more varied story mode would have been appreciated, Wet still offers plenty for the gamer, provided they are of the more forgiveable variety.