Rubi is a merc for hire that takes on the more dangerous and violent missions, hence the game name WET, which refers to wetwork missions where the blood toll will be extremely high; sounds good already eh? The story starts with Rubi working for an underground boss's son trying to reclaim his father’s replacement heart. After the prologue the game starts in earnest with you travelling the globe trying to locate the son you had once worked for and taking vengeance for being double crossed and played for a fool.

 

 

The game will gently introduce you to the many moves available to Rubi, the simple run and gun moves are quite weak and very slow until you start mixing in some jumps, slides and wall runs, here the game will slow down but also allow for a really high rate of fire with a very simple dual aim control allowing you to target at a specific person whilst the other hand will automatically lock onto another. The acrobatic skills are linkable so you can jump off an enemy, flip to shoot and then slide to continue your death dance. With the more enemies you take out your combo meter grows, giving you higher multipliers and also a health boost.

 

Rubi starts off with simple dual pistols and a sword for the up close attacks. As you progress through the game Rubi will gain access to even more violent weapons, dual wield shotguns, SMGs and also an explosive crossbow. These weapons are reliant on ammo which is sadly very scarce, forcing you to break every box in the levels to scrape enough together to get a good run with them. To help matters you earn points in each level which allow Rubi to upgrade weapons like more ammo and power and even upgrade her moves to allow shooting from ledges, aerial attacks with the sword and a larger health bar.

 

The immediate snap judgement will be to sideline this with the action classic Stranglehold and you won't be far off it. However once you move away from the short alleyway and run and gun sections the game stands on its own. Each chapter is split into segments, at points you will be locked in a room for an arena fight with continually spawning enemies, you need to destroy the locks on the doors in these areas before you can move on. There are some quick time events involved in some stages but fear not, these are so well done that your heart will be in your throat, the first instance of this you are involved in a crazy high speed car chase on a motorway, jumping from roof to roof and taking shots at gangsters with cars and trucks flying all over the place. The balance of QTE events seems a little disproportionate to the rest of the game, at times it really works but near the end the game will rush through and dispose of the final boss characters with a few button presses, a little disappointing after all of the hard work put into the game.

 

The presentation is very cinematic with scratchy film giving it an old grindhouse feel even though it is based in the present time? The cinema feel also filters down to the ropey script and cutscenes with intermissions for food adverts. The most impressive looking levels are the blood lust moments, Rubi will shoot a hoodlum and will get soaked in blood, causing her to go into a rage and the screen will go blood red, looking similar in style to the scenes with the crazy 88's bloodbath in Kill Bill.

 

With all of the shooting going on the soundtrack somehow manages to ramp up the action with some really cool rockabilly tunes that pop up at arena and rage moments.

 

 

Away from the main game are some unlockables that are available upon completion. There are four difficulties in total plus a Golden Bullet mode with one hit one kills. The other modes are Boneyard Challenge where you visit Rubi’s home to carry out some against the clock assault courses and the Points Count mode where you can replay levels to get the highest score possible. These are fun add-ons but with no leaderboard they do seem a little pointless.

 

WET is one of those games that will be played to death and then gather dust, never to be thought of again, which is a shame as the Rubi character is a welcome change to the usual sexist approach to gaming. WET is definitely worth a try but be warned of the short lifespan.