Wet Preview

Fun with fenya.

WET. Short for “wetworks”. Hired assassin. “Fixer”. Rubi. Asian chick. A leather top. Bare midriff. Katana. Tight black leather pants. Two pistols. Red-octane Lara Croft. Kicking men. Kicking their ass hard. Swift. Red. In slow motion. Blood lines. Leaping off walls. Sliding on knees. Cartwheeling past bullets. Tigress of the streets. Queen of the alleyways. No dick needed. She would say.

WET is what would happen if Quentin Tarantino had Lucy Liu star in a 1960s-inspired Kill Bill adaptation about a hot chick who assassinates everyone who stands in her way… and then made a video game about it. Like a Tarantino film, the dialogue is witty and to-the-point (for you Dollhouse and/or Joss Whedon fans, Rubi is voiced by Eliza Dushku), the violence is styled way over-the-top but so commonplace that it becomes casual, and the action loves to toy with the line between awesomeness and gruesome exaggeration. It even has a grainy Grindhouse-styled filter and loading screens framed by retro Love Guru-esque borders. The only thing missing is Tarantino appearing in the game itself.

In all honesty, I’m surprised that video games haven’t taken inspiration from Tarantino's films more often, considering his renowned use of soundtracks based off of cult movies, his knack for non-linear storytelling, and his propensity to show characters going through doors and angled from the back, as they walk menacingly slow down a hallway with a gun or sword. Sounds like a perfect match for video games to me, and luckily, developer Artificial Mind and Movement and publisher Bethesda Studios got the memo.

Rubi begins the adventure by swooping into a fair-minded discussion over a briefcase between two gang leaders who have anything but a fair mind. It’s only a few seconds before the boardroom becomes a slick and blistering bloodbath, with everyone’s eyes on the shiny metal briefcase holding the prize. While shooting both her infinite-ammo pistols at the same time – one that auto-aims and another that can cycle through enemies – Rubi uses her gymnastic flexibility and agility to weave and bob around bullets, stringing shots and sword slashes together to gain a higher multiplier for more (what would you know?) points. Like The Club, killing baddies swiftly and stylishly collects more upgrade points for her to, well, kill baddies even more swiftly and stylishly.

Unfortunately, one of the gang leaders snatches the briefcase and escapes, leading Rubi on a cat-and-mouse chase throughout San Francisco, from the Chinatown backstreets to the Golden Gate Bridge. Sprinting down narrow hallways, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, or blazing through gang underlings in arena-sized outlet malls, she’ll have to contend with waves of suited enemies as much as the twisting and turning of the urban environments.

Exploding barrels, pole swinging, and bullet time - nothing seems to be impossible for Rubi as long as it’s "humanly possible". By the end of the first mission at the Golden Gate Bridge, a car-hopping sequence ensues with Rubi doing insane cinematic flips and aerial maneuvers that would make even Trinity blush. San Francisco, London, Hong Kong, or the Arizona deserts, it’s all a playground of heavily dramatized and happily amplified violence.

None of this stylish action speaks better than when Rubi enters her enraged state, which is triggered at specific moments out of your control. Suddenly, the graphics are glossed with a Killer 7 filter, with every object forming an opaque silhouette. The walls turn into a dusty dark red, any light that shines through bodies turns into a bright lipstick red, and bodies become pitch black with only spurts of white and red highlighting their accessories and white undershirts. As if channeling Wolverine in her Rage state, Rubi’s run speed increases, she dishes out more damage, and her health regenerates more quickly. (Where are the claws?)

Though no multiplayer modes have been announced, WET looks to be more than just your standard third-person shooter with a buxom bombshell who might as well have been just a guy (but wasn’t because that wouldn’t be new or boobilicious or something like that). Look for Rubi to slash her way into stores on fall 2009.