WET
A much overlooked and underappreciated genre taken to the height of it's form.



  In an industry so densely populated with cookie cutter sequels, and series "rebooting" taking place every other installment, it is a wonderful change of pace to see a new intellectual property with the guts to color so far outside the lines as to make a different picture entirely. WET does this in spades with it's drive-in movie aesthetic, balls to the wall soundtrack and merciless adherence to what it is.

What it is, is a week in the life of a hard drinking, foul-mouthed, über-agile mercenary recluse with a complete disregard for the well-being of anyone intending her bodily harm, and a love of money that would shame the devil himself.
  Enter Rubi Malone- the aforementioned mercenary- on a(well financed, I'm sure) mission of mercy, though no mercy will be provided to the poor saps who cross her.
  The beginning of the first mission will provide you with a quick run through of Rubi's basic abilities and then it's all up to you. The game itself is not a graphical marvel, and the controls exhibit less than pinpoint accuracy at times, but by the end of the prologue, you should be well on your way to putting the hurt on anyone who opposes you.
  Your primary aim is killing these thugs with flair, which raises a multiplier that not only multiplies the points earned- which are used as currency in the upgrade shop- but also increases the speed at which Rubi's health regenerates. To accomplish this aim, Rubi is endowed with the ability to run up and along walls, leap through the air, swing on poles, and slide across the floor in order to bust a cap in as many goons as the heads of two drug empires can throw at her, all without disturbing one feathered hair on her head. Add to that the unlimited slowmo that comes with any of these actions, and the unique ability to autoaim on one target while taking out a second manually, and WET has taken the acrobatic action genre pioneered by Max Payne to the next level.
  The amount of fun to be had from this game increases directly proportionate to the percentage of Rubi's abilities and weapon upgrades you have unlocked. But also the fun factor can be adversely affected by the game's insistence on running you through a timed obstacle course every time you unlock a new pair of weapons(there are three besides Rubi's default pistols). This can be a pain, but it can also teach you new ways to combine Rubi's moveset, so take notes.
  The flow of the game waxes and wanes throughout; a small group of enemies here and there while you platform your way through the level and then you hit gold- the arena areas. Acrobatic playgrounds where you can flip, slip, slide, slash, blast and kaBOOM your way to massive multipliers while shutting down enemy spawn doors and clearing the areas of all enemies. These areas may even suck you into the trap of playing over and over in order to get a better score.
  One of the points on which this experience turns is the total dedication to it's grindhouse/drive-in movie theme- the film-scratch effect,  the freeze frames that introduce important characters on screen, and the absence of any screens marked "Loading" when the game is loading- more often than not instead of a load screen, you'll see an advertisement for the theatre's snack bar, or if the level ended with an elevator, you might be monitoring Rubi via a security camera mounted in the corner of the elevator car. All of these and other details big and small combine to make WET the most immersive 3rd person action title I have ever played.
  The voice acting was also a big surprise- even though the in game dialogue consists mainly of four-letter words that would enflame a sailor's cheeks, during the cutscenes you'll find a delivery that does more to ground the game in reality than some of the AAA titles I won't be reviewing here. There is a quality that Eliza Dushku exhibits in her acting that makes Rubi Malone come off as an actor in a movie instead of an overblown cartoon character with a voice actor.
The campaign was relatively short at six to nine hours, but the game is so much fun to play that I have no doubt it will end up being a campaign you will play several times over, or if not the whole campaign, you will at least find a level or two that you will come back to even years later..

At the end of the day, this game, who's fate was on the brink of oblivion at least once during development, ended up being one of the games most worth your time since it's launch in September 2009. It's such a shame therefore that the professional reviews were so focused on the visual and control hiccups that they talked the game out of it's rightful place as one of the best cinematic action games ever made.
+++++
In summary-
Game under review: WET (Xbox 360)
Metascore: 69

Fun: 7->9 /10 - It may seem odd that a game could have a fun rating that rises from a seven to a nine, but this one is definately worth the trip.

Excitement: 7/10 - Inconsistant, but when it goes up, it goes way, way up.

Immersion: 10/10 - From the ground up, this title was built to remove the player from this nonsense called "reality".

Personality: 9/10 - This title has more personality on it's soundtrack than most games could muster across 3 discs.

The Hook: When dual wielding, Rubi Malone auto aims with one hand while you aim with the other, enabling you to kill twice as many enemies at once.

Over-the-top-itude:  (EXTREME) Between the cutscenes, in-game finisher animations and the moving setpiece levels, this game is so over the top it makes an Olympic pole vaulter look like a hobbit with a hobby horse.