Wet stands for wet-works, which is CIA code for a particular job that involves an agent getting wet from spilling the guts of some enemies, which fits the game like a thong on Rosie O'Donnell. Instead of a subtle CIA assassination mission, Wet is more like an extremely loud rock concert in the wee hours of the night.
The star of this blood-spraying and bullet-wizzing show is Rubi, a stone-cold killing machine, or you might know her as Black Mamba from Kill Bill but with black hair. Rubi is your average action hero—super agile, sexy, and deadly. It's all about style and flare in this Tarantino-esque game; she can't even take a proper drink without shooting the empty bottle afterwards.
So the demo for this action packed Stranglehold-on-crack starts with the problems. Immediately, you realize that the story will most likely suck. It's one of those ordinary, done to death, Asian mafia versus American crime boss scenario that is more predictable than having Mario reach the tower only to find “the Princess is in another castle.” But if Tarantino could pull of that cheesy '70s kung fu flick by injecting an overdose of style, I don't see why Wet can't do the same.
The inevitable fight breaks out, and the action begins. But wait. The demo decides that the player needs to be walked through with the most mentally-challenged friendly tutorial ever. That's not Tarantino at all, but it's understandable since this is just a demo. The game wants to make sure that it's being played properly. Sort of a buzz-kill, but fair enough.
The problem, however, is that the idea of a gun slinging, sword-wielding, bad-ass works only in theory. But when the action starts to heat up, accurate aiming is immediately usurped for a more efficient spray-and-pray tactic, which makes the encounters more laborious than it needs to be. Rubi would be falling down the stairs backwards with her guns a-blazing, sparkling the environments around her with bullets, and maybe actually hit flesh, if you're lucky or just that good with the analog sticks.
Nevertheless, assuming that aim bot is on, this game is a cold blooded Kill Bill roller coaster. The demo starts slow, almost assuming the exact mechanics of Stranglehold, namely jumping over tables while shooting, running on environment while shooting, etc, etc. Boring. But the demo, as if it knows that I'm pressing the PS button to turn it off and switch on Killzone 2, immediately became much more interesting.
There's an arena style shootout where enemies auto-spawn from different areas of the map, which you have to disable to complete the arena. This is interesting because Rubi really shows off her acrobatics here almost like Tony Hawks with guns and swords. You'll find ramps to jump off of, walls to scale, and platforms to climb, all the meantime shooting bad guys. It's all very cool stuff.
But that stuff and the first part before it are both bull feces when you've reached the part where Rubi has splattered a bit of blood on her face, and rampaged a killing-spree in god mode. This is Madworld a hundred times faster and with bullets. The entire screen becomes filtered with a palate of red and black, making the overall visuals reek with just pure style. It's kind of hard to have precise control of Rubi, but this is supposed to be a rampage, so it's supposed to be uncontrollable, and the entire presentation really sells this feeling convincingly. And it's this imprecise, uncontrollable rampage that makes you only want to move forward, slicing in half whoever is standing in your way.
And it's over. The cool part is gone, and the colors are back, and Rubi has cleaned herself up. The next scene rolls up, and she is in a highway chase. There's something about jumping from cars to cars, in traffic where cars are going at suicidal speeds, maneuvering in a multiple cars pileup accident that really sold us on this game. In retrospect, however, how can a car still be traveling straight when Rubi has shot its driver and its passenger and jumped on its roof, shooting other cars? Well, who cares about technicalities, this is a massacre during a car crash with the music pumping cool rock and roll, which seems to be a recurring signature to this game. It's a real bang to end the demo to really sell to those doubters and haters.
However, this game doesn't seem to warrant the full retail price. The beginning sequence is a bit too stale and the environments are a bit too non-destructible. Even the most bloody stylish part is a bit too adrenaline-pumping and fast. Then there's the car sequence, which is fantastic, but it's hard to recommend playing it more than once, which is to say that the game will probably only have a few of these set pieces. Not to mention, this is a game that's designed to be a cheesy over-the-top gunslinging action flick, like Kill Bill. So, no matter how great it is, it's still not academy award-worthy. Give this game a couple of price drops, and we're looking at a classic hidden gem.
Ultimately, Wet is a bad ass game for bad ass gamers. It's a game that you play with a Samuel Adams in one hand and a Corona in the other, and you play with your feet because you're bad ass like that. And for a game that you play with your feet, Wet desperately needs a more functional aim assist.
