WET

Excited to get WET (See what I did there?), I rushed to XBL Marketplace to give company “Artifical Mind and Movement” my time of day. I hadn’t read too much about WET, but I knew it was backed by a few Hollywood renowned such as Eliza Dushku, Alan Cumming, and the man McDowell himself. Besides, I usually enjoy demo hunting for future titles because I enjoy wetting my palette with desirability. I want to be “WOWed” without ogling the whole package. Much like everyone beckoned, I was supposedly expected to feel slightly amused, disgusted, and in awe—the way Tarantino would have me feel and initially, WET looked promising because it looked different yet familiar. In short, I was hardly impressed if not slightly embarrassed and a wee-bit confused.

Don’t get me wrong, WET has all the ingredients for a game well-worth a play through but I’m thoroughly questioning the preparation method. Don’t forget, while I do regard a demo as still in a meager “kiddie” stage, I can’t envision myself saying anything different in full.

If we were to discuss technicalities, we could go into how our angry, foul-mouthed heroine, Rubi Malone, is who I assume we’re supposed to put-up with for the majority of WET and let me tell you, Ms. Malone is hardly the next “Black Mamba”.  She’s ferocious, she’s mildly sexy, and blood is her biggest turn-on, apparently. I assume our protagonist is supposed to scream HBIC, but Dushku manages to deliver little more than a flat, “I’m so burdened, grr” exterior, often times sounding like a panda being poked by a pointy stick instead of a girl getting a bullet blown through her brains. With a few, necessary weapons in-hand, I found myself flailing through the air in slo-mo, accompanied by bad camera angles, and stiff, jumpy movement. The would-be cool, magical ability to run-up poorly textured walls with no velocity, glide, and go into crazy, fast, cool “frenzy” mode seem like a less-fluid, mediocre toss-up between Bloodrayne and OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad if not a cheap-shot at making the gameplay more complicated. On a positive note, Ms. Malone’s flashy ladder technique is a good use of otherwise pointless equipment; her ability to bend-backwards, gun, and slide down metal are effective ways to increase the body count while keeping your hot, little feet off the ground. Not to mention, as classy a broad as Rubi is, it’s quite entertaining to watch her replenish her life by taking “swigs” while hearing her bloated-panda self murmur, “I am going to kill you, F****” ORLY? For a second, I thought she had a burning desire to play billiards.

While it’s clear that WET attempts to deliver a variety of “stylish” combat to prevent boredom and repetition in murder, I can’t help but feel my own bitterness slowly seeping through the cracks of this wannabe “Kung-Fu” film. There really is no question that wall-running and rope-gliding get old level after level and chase after chase. I suppose my heightened criticism stems from the fact that WET destroys itself; the stylistic approach feels too overbearing, adversely causing itself to lose any real character it could’ve salvaged. I probably wouldn’t be such a meanie if it didn’t try so hard to be something it just isn’t, nor would I be if other aspects of this title were a little less flawed. I mean, this is next-generation, so if you’re going to make the gameplay scream mediocrity, AT LEAST grope my butt really hard with stunning visuals. WET didn’t feel or look exceptional to me; it just looked flat. I felt drowned in catchy and loud music. Yes, I suppose I have this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that the peak of excitement in WET is the action-button sequence. I’ve already seen our charming protagonist, Rubi Malone, leap-off moving, exploding vehicles in crowded streets—what more is there, yokes?! In any case, I haven’t excused myself from picking-up this game sometimes in the future, I just want to know what WET will really contribute to the realm of third-person-shooters, yellow jumpsuit style, or not.