Game #1245: Wet

 The closest thing to a Kill Bill videogame.

 Every now and then it's time for me to finally play a game that I knew existed but for whatever reason didn't care bout, only for me to discover that I missed out. Wet is one such game. A sword-and-gun toting protagonist, just why wasn't I interested in this game before? I don't know, but I regret it immensely, as this was one exciting third-person shooter I could have done with way back when.

 First things first, this is no Uncharted, the budget wasn't quite as large, and you can tell that certain things such as moving around can feel sorta clunky, heck, you'll come across a ton of reused animation sequences and what not. But it's got a lot of heart, they went after a pulpy, grind-house aesthetics and they knocked it out of the park.

 The game feels like an early 2000's PS2 game, thanks to the pulpy soundtrack, abuse of slo-mo mechanics and very simple gameplay, but I say this as high praise. The game just works. You play as Rubi, the deadliest woman in the mercenary business, and she's angry 'cause she was double-crossed and left for dead, but jokes on them, as now she's back for revenge.

 The game's hook is Rubi's stylish slo-mo shooting. You can press R1 and very slowly shoot your gun. It's boring, not very effective, but you can do it. Or you can slide, wall-run or jump and enter slo-mo, upon which Rubi will start shooting with another gun. Whenever you enter slo-mo, which never runs out, a red targeting reticule will pop on top of the closest enemy. Rubi will automatically shoot at it with one of her guns, meanwhile, you get a white reticule that you can move with the right analog stick, letting you shoot any other enemy that you wish, or maybe the same enemy as the one she is already automatically attacking, or heck, maybe you are feeling dumb and just want to shoot at thin air. This very basic and simple mechanic is a ton of fun and allows for some very stylish moments.

 Rubi is armed with her unlimited ammo guns at all times, and she doesn't need to reload them, but as you go through the game you'll unlock dual shotguns, machine guns and explosive crossbows, These other guns do run on ammo, however, and they are used exactly like her main guns, slo-mo and everything. I thought that having to abuse the slo-mo would get boring.... but it never did.

 But sometimes you just want to take things up close and personal, which is why Rubi carries a sword. At first the only thing you can do is a very basic, but powerful, three-hit combo. But you can purchase new abilities, such as aerial slashing, sliding slashing and even a slash while wall-running. Sword combat is, evidently, not very deep, but it gets the job done, and slashing up enemies is fun. 

 The game rewards your stylistic carnage with point modifiers, and the points you earned can be spent on new abilities, upgraded health bar or even upgrades to your weapons. I love upgrade systems like this in videogames, and it's not overly-expansive, so you can get most of them by the end of the game, heck, I was only missing one.

 There are QTEs every now and then, which weren't too bad as the input window is pretty generous. Although, sadly, the final boss is just one extensive QTE section. One final mechanic is the Rage Mode, every now and then, the same exact cutscene will play out in which Rubi shoots someone and her face gets splattered in blood... in which case a red-and-black cell-shaded filter will be applied, and now you deal extra damage. It's pretty cool, although I much preferred the normal graphics.

 The game is divided into three main sections, so to speak. Your basic third-person shooting as you advance through levels, enemy arenas, in which near-endless enemy waves will spawn until you destroy their spawn points... although, I liked the game so much, and wanted to get my upgrades, that I pretty much didn't break the spawn points until enemies completely dried out! And then there are the parkour sections, which are alright. A few times I was completely stumped on how to proceed, but eventually I'd figure it out.

 The best thing about the game is, simply, how insanely cool and exciting it is. There's a lot of action and shooting, and Rubi is one lethal badass, she gets all sorts of cool moments, some you get to create yourself, others you get to watch, Enemies too are an interesting sort, particularly the named ones, and even though many of them get very few lines or scene time, they do manage to make an impression, either because of their quirks or their cool designs.

 I honestly can't believe how long it took me to play this game, and I almost didn't even consider getting it, but for some reason I decided I wanted to try PS3 action games that I missed out back in the day, and even though this one made it to my list, I wasn't too excited about it. Turns out, it was sort of an obscure little gem.

 9.0