WET Review

So you just purchased or rented the game WET and are ready to play it for the first time? Or you’re like me and while you were at the video store had nothing better so hoped for the best that this turned out decent. So here we go…

Alright I don’t know for sure if it was because the last guy who rented it scratched it up, if my machine was just being picky or if the game store just got a bad copy but the first time I put it in it didn’t load for about 3 minutes which isn’t a good sign. So I finally get in and find that I am a leather wearing, sword wielding, pistol packin’ murderer named Rubi. So after the basic tutorial you get to unleash hell upon your enemies. So as to not ruin the story for you I’ll just go over the basic game elements and go from there.

The main thing in the game is the acrobatics. You’ll dive, slide, wall run, and jump all the while shooting or slicing your enemies to pieces. Mostly you’ll be using your dual guns to take out hoards of enemies while racking up style points and getting combo multipliers, trying to keep it high for as long as possible. The controls are finely tuned to make using your acrobatic skills very easy which is nice because it plays a very large part in the game. This can be slightly annoying because in order to shoot at maximum speed you do need to be doing some sort of acrobatic move so when fighting unless using you’re sword you will almost always be in acrobat mode. While in the beginning fighting enemies is way easy and it pretty much has you focus on getting a lot of points as you progress it becomes a lot more difficult as the game progresses as each situation requires you learn more moves to beat it.

Now onto the weapons. Rubi has only 4 ranged weapons all of which are upgradeable as well as her sword which is also upgradeable. Aside from the ones you start with every time you get a new one you will have to do a challenge in the Boneyard and beat it to get the weapon for story mode.  You start with the pistols which have infinite ammo and decent range. With a few upgrades the rate of fire and damage become pretty good for a gun with no ammo limit. You also begin with a sword, which in the first levels is a one shot kill, if you can get close enough. The issue I had when I started is that I couldn’t slide and then do a slash but you can buy that upgrade which is pretty nice. There’s also upgrades for damage and other moves. The second ranged weapon you get is the dual shotguns which are very deadly at close range. This gun does not have infinite ammo and I used it a lot because it seemed to be one shot kills for awhile. You can upgrade its rate of fire, damage, and how much ammo you can hold for it. After a few more levels you acquire the sub machine guns. Weak but fire so quick they make up for it. These guns are very good for taking out multiple guys at range if you have the ammo for it. You can upgrade the rate of fire, damage and how much ammo you can hold for this as well. Lastly is the crossbow. It’s not your typical crossbow unless you consider exploding bolts typical. This is the heavy hitter of the arsenal. It’s mostly a one shot on the lower level goons and although you can’t really spam it on the stronger goons it does the job after a few shots. You can upgrade rate of fire and how much you hold on this gun. Lastly a little note about ammo. You do not replenish ammo after each level so you have to be careful and check breakable boxes for ammo.

Now onto the rage mode. Throughout the game some random noob will rush you with a bat or something and Rubi will just blast his face and the blood will get all over her face and everything will go red, black and white. In this mode you’re pretty much the Grim Reaper. Your sword is, as far as I know, always a one shot kill and the guns damage is increased dramatically making it way easier. Which is good because you have to deal with a lot more guys then normal. Now since you’re in rage mode it’s not really about style points anymore it’s just about how big of a kill streak you can get before the timer runs out. After you make your first kill there will be a little timer in the corner where it says how many kills you have chained up and once that runs out, it resets. Rage mode was a very fun part of the game to me.

Alright that’s all the best things about the game now to the not so great. The controls are a bit rough it seems. Don’t get me wrong the combat controls are really good and so are the acrobatic ones but when you have to avoid dangerous things like flames it can be a bit hard to do. Sometimes you’ll tap the jump button and get a dive and then down you go into the abyss and you have to reload. And it seems like when it’s just a straight shot across something you always seem to curve left or right during the jump which can throw you off or even kill you. Also in certain spots of the game you have to hit spots on the wall which help you jump off the wall onto something else… The button pops up early and if you tap it then you miss but at the same time to late you miss, it has to be perfect, which can be rough when you have to chain a couple together. This mixed with the camera that can move at the wrong time or zoom up in a bad spot can make the game very hard.

Okay for certain games a certain element of platforming is great but this game is not one of those. This game goes from extremely fast to extremely dull in a matter of a few seconds because you have to jump up a building or climb a wall. This comes back again to the controls and you will more likely then not miss a jump or jump wrong and fall to your death and have to restart… This part wasn’t done all that great.

Alright the graphics in this game are not that great. I’ve had more then one instance when something has gone through a character during a cut scene which can really distract someone from actually getting into the story. Also the film effect can get strenuous on your eyes.

Now to the sound and the story. While I wouldn’t call the story A-list I would put it in the B-list category. Despite all the problems stated above I found that I couldn’t put the game down and had to beat it. The story keeps you going which is nice. The sound is also pretty good. When you’re fighting huge mobs of bad guys they will play a song from the games huge set list which is always a good thing, even if some of the music isn’t what you want to hear.

Now the ending which is as fast paced as the rest of the action in the game. I don’t know if you can really call it a fight because all you do is button commands to beat the last boss. Its better then fighting someone who shoots, you dodge, then attack, then the boss blocks and you wait for him to shoot again. After you beat the boss you can go to Rubi’s Boneyard and redo all the weapon challenges you did earlier in the game to get the weapons, as well as kill the scorpions for the achievement/trophy.

Well after all that the game doesn’t have a very high replay value and once you’re done with the challenges you’re left with nothing to do but to go back through the story. So although I will give the game an 6.3/10 I would only recommend you rent the game and not buy it.