Wade Manns – The Corsair
“Wet”
developed by Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M)
published by Bethesda Softworks
rating: Mature, for blood and gore, drug reference, intense violence, sexual content, strong language.
Wet is a stylized 70s-style third-person action shooter, complete with film grain on the main playing field, filmstrips intruding upon the gameplay and cutscenes, and vintage promos (advertising the concession stand, for instance) in between each level. Think of it as an interactive version of the movie Kill Bill, except our main character, Rubi Malone, does not necessarily begin on a mission of vengeance, but is what we call a fixer: a person hired to fix problems of any kind by any means necessary. She uses her dual pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, crossbows and her sword to dispatch her enemies with the greatest amount of efficiency possible, and you are rewarded in-game for doing so.
Like most other games of this type, you have the opportunity to upgrade your character between levels to improve her abilities. She starts out with the ability to engage in slow motion acrobatic gunplay; whenever she jumps or slides on her knees, or runs across the wall and starts shooting, the game slows down to a crawl but allows you to aim very accurately—most times at more than one assailant at a time. Eventually you’ll unlock the ability to shoot while swinging from horizontally placed poles, shoot when sliding down a zip line, slice your enemies off at the knees while you’re sliding on the ground, and more.
At certain times throughout each level you’ll be locked into an arena, and faced with enemies coming out nonstop from doors which you must close. This harkens back to the days of the old school game, Gauntlet and its more popular sequel, Gauntlet II, where your chosen character must battle through dungeons and destroy the monster generators that you find in order to progress to the next level. You’ll have to guide Rubi through several athletic and acrobatic feats of daring in order to get to the control boxes that electronically lock each door when they are destroyed. At several points throughout the game, you will also have to take on “quick time events” which are prevalent in modern games, in which you are given a button to press and must press it quickly before you die (similar to an older game, Dragon’s Lair). The trial and error in these sequences may be a bit frustrating, but you will eventually get the pattern down since it doesn’t change.
As you can imagine, this is not a game for the kiddies. There is a great deal of swearing and blood and gore, but nothing adults shouldn’t be able to handle. It’s a refreshing bit of action, though nothing that’s not been done before. I’ll have to give it 4 out of 5 stars.