DESIGN REVIEW: Wet

Borrowing heavily from grindhouse films and Quentin Tarantino, Wet can't be played like other 3rd person shooters. The correct way to play the game is to jump or slide on the ground as soon as you see some bad guys, which automatically triggers bullet time, giving you easy kills. While a solid experience, this sole mechanic which the entire game is based on overstays its welcome just a bit, making the normal sections of the game tedious at the end. What I really loved were the balls to the wall on the rails sequences like being in a Matrix-like car chase and falling out of an airplane.

LIKED:
- Style. Wet borrows heavily from the grindhouse era of American films. Inevitably, that also means emulating Quentin Tarantino. The dialog is cheesy - just bad enough to be good, the game by default has a film grain filter to it (which you can thankfully turn off), and the characters are all crazy. The most bizarre however, are the classic advertisements you get to view before the start of each chapter, which look to be lifted straight from the movie theaters... 50 years ago. Rubi, the game's protagonist also has the most bad-ass way to climb down ladders I've ever seen in a video game.


- On the Rails Sections. These are the parts where I had the most fun in the game. Exciting and crazy, it really is something to fall 20,000 ft in the air, dodge airplane debris and shoot bad guys. I really wished there were more of these in the game, as they help break up the monotonous nature of the game fairly well.



- Rubi Vision. The world transforms into red, white and black colors and Rubi gets even more badass. Serves for some entertaining enemy deaths as they evaporate into thin air. Also a pace breaker... even though it still closely follows the main game mechanic of using bullet time to kill dudes.


DISLIKED:
- Overused Main Game Mechanic. There's a reason that bullet time should be a commodity, and not be allowed to be triggered freely, anywhere and anytime the player feels like it - if you do it all the time, it loses its special meaning and becomes monotonous. This is a very negative issue for Wet, especially since the entire game revolves around this sole mechanic!