WET

 I´m very torn about WET. On one hand its an extremely stylish third person action game with great ideas, a superb lead character, one of the best soundtracks of the year and smooth, adrenaline pumping action. But on the other hand the game is riddled with small design errors that really detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game. 
 
The game casts you as Rubi Malone. A hard, independent gun for hire taken direcly from a grindhouse-like, tarantino esque movie that´s not been made yet. You are thrown into a web of double crossing and gang activity that takes you on a trip from London to Hong Kong to set things right and to kick alot of ass on the way. 
 

The game is, at its core, a very standard 3rd person shooter but the look and feel of it makes it very unique. Constant slow motion combined with wall-running, dual wielding jumping and more makes it feel like more than the rest of the genre. It´s Stranglehold and Max Payne on crack. You constantly want to keep the slow-motion going and to do that you need to perform acrobatic moves and string them together. As long as you´re sliding on your knees, running up walls, swinging from poles and jumping sideways the slow-mo keeps going, aswell as the combo multiplier that ties into your own health regeneration. 
The game also features certain closed off sequences from the normal level traversing. Long quicktime related sequences that brings my mind to Ninja Blade and "rage"mode portions of the game keeps things varied, at least for a while. 
Its a bummer that it all ends up feeling very gamey and very repetative. Play a level for a while, get into a closed off arena battle where you need to cut off spawn points, play a rage level, a quick time level and then go back to the arenas again. It ends up feeling a bit chopped up and you never really feel that youre out on a grand adventure. Its more of a "I´m standing in an arcade and pumping quarters into this game that lets me play these arcade shooter levels" thing. 
The game is also riddled with small designmisses. Jumps that feels just off enough that you´re glad you actually managed to grab onto the ledge on the other side or doors you´re supposed to go through that closes in your face because you stopped in front of it, making you reload your last save. 
Leveldesign feels uninspired and dosent always contribute to the fun of the shooting as much as it detracts from it and it can also be extremely confusing at times making you look for the right way to go way longer than you would wish. 
 

Despite all this WET´s sense of style really shines through. The technical side of the graphics dosent go very far and almost feels Xbox 1 at times but the very focused design of the game really shows. Great personalities with Rubi as the shining star, a very psychobilly / rockabilly style soundtrack, a filmgrain filter and a very heavy focus on throwing in alot of grindhouse cinema style trappings like old public service announcement FMV´s really speaks to me since I´m way into that kind of thing when it comes to movies. 
Eliza Dushku plays a fantastic Rubi Malone ending up making this a great female character for todays gaming market. 
The combat also feels very smooth. The coolness factor of pulling off long chains of stunts and combos is very high at all times and controls feels like a dream when it comes to the action. 
 
Its unfortunate that so many things in WET feels unpolished and that there´s so many small annoyances that break up the pace because the design vision for the game is fantastic. I keep playing because I want more of the action and more of Rubi´s awesome personality.  
 
There are 12 chapters in total and 5 or 6 difficulty settings that unlock as you play through it. There´s also challenge levels and collectables and plenty of stuff that should let you play through this game several times and still enjoy it. I don´t know if I will but at the end of the day I feel I must recommend this for fans of the genre because it feels fresh and cool. 
It might not be remembered amongst the titans but if you go into it without expecting too much and with an appriciation for movies like Kill Bill or Sukiyaki Western Django you´ll have a fun time rocking out with your dual shotguns, pistols, SMG´s or explosive darts.