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Being a student of the grindhouse experience in the late 70’s, I was thrilled to set WET on my doorstep.  The idea of playing through a game that makes you feel like you are in an over-the-top, ultraviolent movie, complete with grainy cinema screen had me drooling.  After spending about a week with WET and the main protagonist, Rubi, I am still enjoying the title, even with its cumbersome faults.

WET puts you in the shoes of a fixer by the name of Rubi.  If you think Mr. Wolfe from Pulp Fiction, you are half way to knowing what she does.  Basically, she is called in to situations to fix them, regardless of what needs to be done.  Her specialty is Wetworks, which basically means that she will normally complete her assignment, wet with the blood of her enemies.  We find Rubi taking up missions for several, less than reputable characters, and along the way, she is double-crossed and has to seek out revenge.  The story is not overly complex, and it can be a bit clichéd at times, but it is really only here to facilitate the action sequences in the game.

As an arcade type action game, you are normally looking to string together combos to build up your scores, and earn upgrade points for Rubi.  You go about performing all kinds of stunt moves, like running up walls, jumps, slides, ladder slides and even swinging on poles while you are shooting your enemies.  You can dual wield weapons, with one weapon auto firing on an enemy, while you control the second weapon’s targeting.  It is a nice system, but occasionally the auto target system is a little off, selecting the less than obvious target.  This results in you pointing both weapons at the same person.  You do have a melee weapon that can be used in close quarter attacks.

Certain elements like arena events and Rubi Rage will break up the somewhat repetitive action sequences.  The arena events put you in an area of the map, where you are attacked by an endless stream of enemies.  The only way to stop the enemies is to close off the entrances that they are using to enter the arena.  The more interesting of these events has to be the Rubi Rage sequences.  Normally occurring after someone is shot at point blank in the face, Rubi is splattered with blood, which affects her vision.  The next sequence of events will take place in a very stylized environment, with your enemies looking like paper cutouts that dissolve when they are hit with bullets or your melee weapon.  The backgrounds are also in sharp colors and angles.  Again, WET is looking at outside influences for its design, grabbing at what looks to be just like a sequence out of the first Kill Bill movie.

Visually, WET takes a cue from the grindhouse films of yesteryear.  The film has a brown tinge of faded film, and as you go through the cut scenes, you will notice little details like lines running through the film, and pops in the video. The edges of the screen start to burn away as you get close to death.  It is a neat effect, which I thought would get old, but I never really tired of it.  The actual game engine is good, with a lot of detail in the major characters, but most of the bottom level rent-a-henchmen types are very generic and basic, never changing all that much from location to location.   Sound work is really well done, with Eliza Dushku providing a solid voice over track for Rubi, and the weapons all sound like top notch real life weapons.  But the soundtrack really stands out the most for WET in this department.  Full of all kinds of western/Hispanic/Asian flavor, I could listen to the background music over and over.  It is a solid soundtrack that hopefully will come out on a disc or digital format somewhere here in the near future.  It really is that good.

WET does not get everything right, and as a matter of fact, it does get a fair amount wrong, or right without much inspiration.  There are a lot of jumps where the camera takes you completely out of position, and you end up dying quite a bit.  Collision detection is almost non-existent when it comes to things like Rubi’s slide.  You can direct Rubi to slide across the floor.  However, if you do this, say next to a table, she will sit there and slide for 10 seconds, but she will just keep hitting the table, instead of realizing, “I have hit the table and I should just get up”.  Someone brain-dead enemy AI at times and a lack of new ideas or inventions between the arena and Rubi Rage modes is a problem at times.

While that looks like a laundry list of terrible items, it really never gets in the way of just sitting down and having a bunch of mindless fun.  At the end of the day, you are looking to have a ton of fun, and WET does deliver on that promise in gold.  The bigger issue is that when you look at the nature of the game, and the fact that it is on the shorter side when it comes to the main storyline, the price becomes a major issue.  When you look at what WET is giving the player, it is more of a $40 experience, and that is going to hurt it with most consumers.  WET is going through the same issues that 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand went through – highly entertaining, but at a price that is too high at launch.

Occasionally, I come across a game that has me in a conundrum when it comes to a review.  Normally, you end up with a decisive feeling when it comes to a game after you have finished it.  You know where it stands in the review score scale.  Then there are games like WET, which offer up a ton of fun, even with the problems, but you know that in your heart of hearts, the game is not worth the money that is being asked for the experience.  Therein, lies the main situation for WET – it is a highly entertaining game with some issues, but the price looms larger than any of the other problems.  That said WET does get a 3.5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.
Check out WET and other PS3 reviews at Test Freaks.