'Wet' drips with blood-spilling action

The game has plenty of gore but is boring with sluggish controls.

By Tyler Peterson

Published Sept. 22, 2009

In 1996, the femme fatale of video games was born. Lara Croft, a tomb-raiding heroine that relied on nothing but a set of pistols and her sex appeal, burst onto the video game scene. And people went nuts. Thirteen years later, Croft has a rival.

Rubi Malone, the star of Bethesda Softworks' "Wet," is a rough, brash, raven-haired assassin who doesn't rely on an impossibly voluptuous body to get the job done, rather a sweet pair of combat boots, her flair for shooting whiskey and a certain knack for dismemberment. She frequently takes a sharp samurai sword to some dude's torso, head or arm — whatever appendage she thinks needs to go.

In "Wet," dismemberment, massacre and good ol' fashioned beheading is pretty common. Early on in the game, the player finds out Malone isn't one to be messed with: especially when it comes to her cash.

Rubi's itchy trigger fingers lead her on her first assignment: shoot down, cut up and kill every last gangster in order to retrieve a stolen transplant heart for a client. As long as there's a significant amount of cold hard cash involved, everything's square with this chick.

The foundation of the game is set up as a throwback to the grindhouse films of the '70s — over-the-top action, cuss-happy characters and a stylized rockin' soundtrack that weaves in and out of raucously dangerous situations. The atmosphere of "Wet" thirstily gulps from the fountain of Quentin Tarantino --especially that of "Kill Bill."

Although the excellent cropping of Tarantino-style throwbacks and the messily chopped-up human bodies are fantastic and possibly drool worthy, the substance, deep within the veins of "Wet," just doesn't seem to be pumping hard enough.

The style-points based system, in which the player is rewarded for creative, cinematic kills, is wickedly fun if you're playing with a lazy brain. But gamers who seek a deep, realistic experience need to look elsewhere. Although Rubi's repertoire of acrobatic moves delving into slow-motion are nothing to scoff at, the game inevitably feels like something from the early millennium: rough and outdated in the way you control impressive moves.

The level design also feels just a few years past it's time. Although swinging, flipping and diving over various items is insanely rewarding, you can only battle through the same basic set up of arenas and hallways so many times before yearning for something that breaks the glass ceiling of what's supposed to be a daring, repulsive and crude Tarantino-experience. Unfortunately, it never quite gets there as far as the level design goes.

Peering past the muddy visuals, sluggish controls and spurting crimson blood (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), there's no doubt a certain peculiar joy comes along with "Wet." Perhaps it's the feeling of power as Rubi shoots a man's body to chunks, but give in to Rubi and her shenanigans, and you'll be simply enjoying the brain-dead action of merciless beheading and blood spilling.