Wet - Hands On Preview

If shooters featuring mercenaries and private military companies were the vogue in 2008 (Army of Two, Haze, Battlefield: Bad Company, Far Cry 2, Mercs 2, and Conflict: Denied Ops), then bullet-time shooters have definitely come back into fashion for 2009. In the wake of the first two Max Payne games and their many copycats, the bullet-time feature became a worn down and clichéd gameplay dynamic earlier in the decade. Fashions are cyclical though, and bullet-time is once again the colour to be seen in this shooter season, to the point where there are now as many as seven bullet-time shooters being released within 12 months of each other.

This bullet-time renaissance is being headlined by incoming titles such as Max Payne 3, Singularity, and Wolfenstein, while supporting acts have already popped up so far in 2009 including Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, and Wheelman. Amongst this mixed bag of titles will be A2M's Wet, which is coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn. Despite being the most unfortunately named developer in the games industry, A2M continued developing Wet after it fell out of the Activision stable when the publisher merged with Vivendi last year. Bethesda then announced that it had picked up the project earlier this year and the rest, as they say, is history (barring another jealous Activision lawsuit).

Rubi-Time

Considering that Rubi Malone is the name of Wet's vamp protagonist (voiced by Eliza Dushku), Rubi-Time isn't exactly the most imaginative name for its bullet-time system. Still, just be glad that A2M didn't call it Wet-Time, as that would've conjured up all kinds of unholy thoughts. All euphemisms aside though, the whole game is built around this slow-mo system. Whether you're leaping from a balcony, sliding beneath a table, or wall-running towards a bunch of gangsters, the application of gunfire automatically puts Rubi-Time into motion without the need for a chargeable meter.

Conversely, firing guns while running around aimlessly or from behind cover won't do you any favours. It's only when you utilise certain actions (i.e. sliding, jumping, or wall-running) and fire your guns at the same time that Rubi-Time kicks in. It's a system that puts the emphasis on using your environment to chain moves together, which keeps the action ticking over at a frenetic pace. If there's one thing Wet isn't, it's a Jack-in-the-box shooter. There are no elaborate covering systems and the last thing that the AI will be worrying about is ducking behind walls and flanking you.

A simple combo system then adds an element of strategy to this frenzied action: more Rubi-Time antics mean a higher multiplier that increases your score on the one hand, or can replenish your health if you drop out of Rubi-Time to lick your wounds (although the multiplier then depletes when you're not ratcheting up the kills). In this sense, Wet is not unlike Bizarre Creations' much underrated The Club.

This all works towards Wet's strongpoint, which is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. A Grindhouse cinema style is evident throughout Wet's filters, from aged celluloid during gameplay to a film reel going up in flames as part of the bleed-out screen. To fit this, villains have been etched with a purposefully comical air while Rubi herself has been unashamedly lifted from the sketchbook of Quentin Tarantino. The Katana sword wielding femme fatale not only pursues a vendetta as stubbornly as The Bride in Kill Bill, but also transforms into a sociopathic Rage mode at the sounding of a claxon.

It's this Rage mode that adds variation to the level designs. Certain sections of the game turn the environments blood red and enemy characters into silhouettes, while blood is white and splatters on walls, spelling out words like "R.I.P." - it's kind of like an inverted Sin City colour scheme mixed with the Crazy 88 scene in Kill Bill Vol.1. In these sections, Rubi moves around as if she's fully levelled up at the end of the game. Wall runs can be seamlessly combined with advanced Katana moves, while gunfire is spewed out of Rubi's dual-wielded pistols at a faster rate. In short, the Rage mode is an excuse for one hell of a killing spree and, viewed from this angle, it won't disappoint.

Level designs are varied beyond these Rage sections as well. Some sections move from A to B using the standard format, while others take place in arenas with multiple spawning points where the challenge is cutting off each spawning point at its source in order to move onto the next section. Throughout these arenas you'll find zip-wires, chandeliers, and aerial bars to aid Rubi in her bullet-time gymnastics. Many of these objects also offer additional multipliers to your score, so you might get x2 for vaulting from a table to a high bar and chaining kills in-between.

Dual-Wielding Gymnastics

It's not as if the standard A to B sections are dull either. Our demo exhibited plenty of colourful uses of the environment throughout these areas, such as ladders that Rubi clasps between her legs and slides down, while upside-down and firing at bad guys. Dual-wielding comes in handy during these sections and is played-out using two reticules. One auto-targets the nearest enemy while a second can be moved around with the right thumbstick, allowing Rubi to dual-wield if you fire at enemies that aren't auto-locked. As well as the Katana sword as a secondary weapon that can be used during close combat, Rubi was also packing a sub-machine gun and shotgun in our playtest. While all of the additional weapons had their charms, Wet is undoubtedly at its best when being gymnastically dual-wielded.

Rounding off our hands on was a level based on interactive cut-scenes and on-rails shooting. The villain that Rubi had been pursuing throughout the demo was now escaping by car across the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Rubi, on the other hand, was not travelling by car. Instead, she was vaulting from one car to the next in an attempt to reach the getaway vehicle: cue a series of QTEs. When she gets close, henchman from other vehicles start shooting at Rubi to stop her reaching the lead car: cue some bullet-time infused, on-rails shooting. Finally, Rubi catches up with and kills the villain: more QTEs. It's a fairly standard example of its kind, albeit one that's linked together better than most.

Considering the menagerie of bullet-time based shooters coming out this year, Wet will surely sit amongst the best of the bunch when the dust settles early in 2010. However, there's still not a whole lot more to the bullet-time features in Wet that haven't already been well-trodden by previous games (and that goes for most of the bullet-time games that have come out this year or are soon to appear). This far into the lifecycle of current-gen consoles, you can't help but feel that developers could be getting more out of next-gen tech such as detailed destruction of the environments in bullet-time and sleeker animations. Nonetheless, Wet certainly looks like a solid piece of work at this stage even if it isn't necessarily groundbreaking.