WET [PS3]: All Style and No Control
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 7:18AM 
WET's style of low-budget b-movie tongue and cheek cheesiness, unfortunately mimics its technical gameplay design. It's cool that Artificial Mind and Movement went back to the drawing boards after some development issues with Sierra and a luke-warm trailer reception in 2007. Personally, I have been in favor of publishers giving developers all the time they need to make the product they want to make [even though I know this is usually not the luxury most games suffer from]. After playing WET this weekend, I had a hard time believing, publisher Bethesda and developer Artificial Mind and Movement, were one hundred percent behind this game at the time of its release. The voice acting, although star studded, is absolutely laughable. The setting is beautiful and visually appealing, but the 'cheap, Grindhouse-look' comes off as just plain cheap at times. I rented WET and I am debating if this game was worth the rental. The games challenges are not fun, much like the plot, you will fight with the poorly conceived controls only for the key events of the game to rely on quick time events.
In this pale interpretation of a Quentin Tarantino film meeting an early Tomb Raider game, you play as Rubi Malone. The creative minds [no pun/sarcasm] at Artificial Mind and Movement have managed to don Rubi in the tightest pants and leather jacket which naturally reveals Rubi's amply sized breasts. I guess this is a means to cater to the ever-growing crowd of gamers, who have grown tired of a scantily clad female avatars who need to be as naked as possible before setting sail for adventure. Though Rubi has no real personality throughout the first half of the game, it is only when the stereotypical Chinese caricatures strike a deal with some English sounding foe [played by Malcolm McDowell] that you realize ... Eliza Dusku [the voice of Rubi] cannot act in real life or in voice over form. And as much as I love Alan Cumming, let's just pretend this did not happen. Seeing as I am not a fan of 24, I can totally see how script writer of the show, Duppy Demetrius, came to the conclusion of how awesome WET was 'supposed' to be.
After you plod through your first couple chapters of WET, the average gamer has to make a couple decisions. *Realizing the story is not the "Citizen Cane" you were hoping for, the constructs of all things non-story related are fairly tuned. The rewards and weapons upgrade system, after slashing through a room full of trigger-happy woman beaters, is quite nice. Though you will probably die in said room time and time again if you do not adhere to the most important aspect of WET: Everything is cooler in slow motion. You get more points and unlock trophies by killing as many foul mouthed foes as stylishly idiotic as possible. Want to kill a basketball court filled with Chinese men? WET is for you! Want to die several times before actually progressing pass a single level? WET has your name all over it. It is not that you will have fun playing WET, there are just conventions of this game you will have to roll an eye to in order to bypass its issues.
The biggest bonus of WET is the soundtrack. The music is phenomenal and helps a great deal with drawing the player in this well designed environment. Given the environment reveals WET was on a tight budget, the game still looks appealing given the Grindhouse veneer. Rubi's "Rage Vision" is a nod to Tarantino's Kill Bill scene where the character 'B' had to fight the Crazy 88 Samurai. There are small little cool pockets of this game, such as the collecting of the monkeys and shooting the scorpions in Rubi's Boneyard. This is were the fun stops.
The biggest drawback of WET are the controls and the game's somewhat bugginess. There will be times where you want to stomp on your joystick because Rubi could not find a ledge [or could not stick to one]. This is were my earlier point comes into play. I know WET has been in development for several years. Even after all the issues I have had with this game, there were aspects I really liked [Sidenote: Max Payne devs please 'borrow' the shooting mechanics from WET]. There are a ton of excuses that could be made for WET, but the finished product is not going to change [barring some really awesome downloadible patch]. The controls in conjunction with the buggy camera kept this game from being worth buying. The story and haphazard platforming elements make this game a questionable rental.
*Sorry, I hate the "Citizen Cane-to-videogame" comparison...i had to jokingly use it.
I give WET Pre-Natal Cold Shower
Reader Comments (1)
you know since god of war, games of this style has explode, Bayonetta, Heavenly Sword, Dante's Inferno, all this game with a similar gameplay system, when some producers discover they saw the potential in mass produce of these kind of games, and now finally god of war 3 is in the market.