Wet

After spending a few months drifting through the publisher abyss, Wet was finally picked up by Bethesda, and it’s been dutifully showing it off ever since. Following the exploits of ‘fixer’ (read: hitman) Rubi Malone, who gets her hands wet with blood on a regular basis, Wet sees Rubi tasked with fixing a particularly gruesome problem of organ trafficking. Taking inspiration from the grindhouse exploitation cinema from the Seventies and with more than a knowing nod to the recent Tarantino and Rodriguez films Death Proof and Planet Terror, Wet is shaping up to be a surprisingly stylish action game. A2M has shown considerable talent displaying the grindhouse cinema traits: muffled sound, degraded and saturated images, and even the corny interval adverts displaying ‘Popcorn’ and ‘Coke!’

Wet’s nearest comparison would have to be Stranglehold, but that really doesn’t give enough credit for what A2M is attempting to do with Rubi’s abilities. Running along walls, jumping over tables, kicking guys in the face – all in slow motion, it’s pretty standard stuff, but it’s the way in which Rubi is able to stream these moves together and utilise the environments along with her katana sword that makes her acrobatic exploits stand out. Its stylish action and urban environments coupled with huge numbers of enemies that you’re forced to deal with mean using all of Rubi’s talents edges the gameplay more towards Ninja Gaiden territory.

Visually, few games have taken a theme and run with it as thoroughly as Wet. At certain moments Rubi will lose all control and enter into what A2M has dubbed ‘Rage’ mode. With a blink of her eye the world is displayed in reds and blacks and now the blood-splatters of your fallen enemies spew out in glorious whites all over the walls. It’s a striking look that’s only matched with the ridiculousness of the combat, especially the set pieces, one of which saw Rubi riding speeding cars down a freeway, taking out cars and wall-running along trucks. With the odd action-infused QTE and some promising set pieces, it appears that Bethesda has picked itself up a diamond in the rough. Or is that a Rubi?