Move over Lara Croft there is a new badass gun slinging chick in town. With a foul mouth and a thirst for action and hard liquor, Rubi Malone is one chick you don’t want to piss off. Rubi is your character in the latest Bethesda masterpiece, Wet. Wet is an action packed spaghetti western style game, with plenty of blood, guts and sword fighting to make any Kill Bill or Grindhouse fans happy.

Sword Play

The first thing gamers will notice about Wet is it’s very unique and interesting art direction. Firstly the graphics do not take a photo realistic approach. The game has a some what 70’s stylistic look to it. Also the camera has a rough film grain filter that adds to the games overall cinematic feel. Another artistic approach that is used is in the games “rage” mode. Besides the regular look and play of the game Rubi will enter into a Rage mode at various points. While in rage mode the game takes a on an entire different look, made up of Reds, Blacks and Whites. Most of the environments and their object are destructible, but at times you will come across objects that aren’t, such as tables that should be able to break apart. Granted these items make good launching points for jumps there should be some level of destruction to them. And its not only the environments that break apart, the enemies do as well. Many times you’ll finish off a bad guy with a slice of your sword leaving him without an arm, or take an enemy out with a headshot causing some amazing blood spray. The graphics aren’t the only part of the game that are stylistic, the audio and music of the game matches the feel. WIth high energy punk/rock music blasting at the most energetic parts of the levels. Other great sound goodies come from Rubi herself, many times she’ll finish off a kill with a nice “F*ck you” or other comical lines while laying waste to groups of enemies.

Rage Mode

The gameplay is also quite fun, and very action packed. As a gun for hire Rubi (voiced by the lovely Eliza Dushku) is expected to finish off her marks at all costs. She has a wide range of skills. From her dual wielding of weapons, to her amazing over-the top acrobatic moves. There is no situation Rubi can’t get out of. As you play you need to use both her fighting and acrobatics together. To gain more abilities and increase her skills you need to collect “style points”. The more stylistic your fighting the more points you get. You have quite a few ways to gain “style points”. From performing kills while sliding to performing 360 degree kills while jumping through the air just to name name two. And all this acrobatic killing action is played in the games slo-motion. Once in the air and you pull the trigger the game will slow down allowing you to target the multitude of enemies trying to get you. Since Rubi is also a dual weapon wielding badass once the slo-motion kicks in your secondary weapon will auto target while you control your main weapon. This split shooting system is rather easy and effective and really leads to some amazing kill chains. Again since the gameplay is all about scoring “style points” you want to try to link jumps and slide together to rack in as many kills as you can. Rubi has the ability to use 5 weapons total, her sword, her pistols, shot guns, sub machine guns, and her explosive crossbow. Each weapon has various effective distances and can be upgraded through the “style point system as you progress through the game.
As you make your way through the levels, you will find yourself running and gunning down the games pre-set path, with climbing and jumping puzzles in your way. There is no type of map, instead you can use the left trigger to activate “Rubi Vision”. ”Rubi Vision” will cause points of intrest in the environment to glow red. The levels play basically the same, run and gun, figure out how to get through to the next part, enter into an “arena” area, and continue chasing your mark. The “arenas” are areas loaded with enemies and your goal is to close off their entrance spots and kill them all. Now this might sound rather repetitive, but some levels have other button combination fights and puzzles as well, and the arena’s get progressively harder with some later ones including electrified floors that you can’t touch. The opening level for one ends with Rubi caught up in a high speed car chase. She needs to jump from car to car all the while shooting at enemies. These parts of the levels really show off the games cinematic play as the camera will move and shift to other view points as she’s making her death defying moves.
Rage mode is another part of the game that also helps make the overall game less repetitive. At times Rubi will go into Rage mode, and this always ends with a high kill count. Rage mode as I said early really goes stylistic, with the walls all red, and enemies in black and white. Rage mode plays similar to the arenas or the rest of the game. You either need to fight through a section of the level or cut off the enemies entrance points. All the while chaining together as many kills as possible, so far my highest chain is 78 kills.

Once you complete story mode you will unlock challenge mode. Where you’l be able to put your acquired skills to the test. Challenge mode is similar to other games mini-games. And will give gamers hours of extra fun.

Car Chase

Overall Wet is an amazing looking and fun game to play. The artistic approach really makes this game stand out from the crowd. For the most part graphically the the game performs well, however there are a handful of times where the camera will run into walls and Rubi will disappear making it hard to time a jump until the camera resets. Also the game does suffer from a decent amount of clipping, and some other random graphical hiccups. However Wet is by far one of the best artistic looking games made, and the look and feel is carried out throughout the entire game. The 70’s movie approach really looks great and fits the story and gameplay nicely. Unfortunately there is no type of online play, or even stat rankings. It would have been nice to see leaderboards at least for kills, points or other trackable stats. Any fans of third person action adventure games will definitely be interested in checking out Wet.