dirty jokes are fun, but what about this game?
One of the things that I was hopeful for when I made the journey to E3 was to see an emergence of strong, sophisticated, sexy-without-the-slutty, badass female lead characters. What I got, was the hint of WET. At the time the sole impression I got from the advertisment was “Wow! She’s sexy…and she kills.” Granted these are two things I love to have in a main character, but even I am not that shallow. In fact, dare I say I enjoy a deeply invested back-story to my random acts of murder and violence? Yeah, I dare to! The main character, Rubi, is a gun-toting, sword-swinging gymnast! Not only can she jump from tall distances without taking damage, but she has also been studying at the School of Spiderman, as is evident with her upside down ballistic techniques.
It has a surprising voice cast
* Eliza Dushku as Rubi Malone
* Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Pellum/Mr. Ackers
* Parry Shen as Zhi
* Ron Yuan as Ratboy/Dr. Afro
* Alan Cumming as Sorrell
* James Sie as Ming
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a HUGE Malcolm McDowell fan. If Eliza Dushku gives Rubi the “Faith” vibe from Buffy then I’ll be more than satisfied with her casting. I have enjoyed a lot of Cummings’ films and assorted Cummings’ products. If you don’t know about that…get on the info train and check it out!
Nevertheless, I left it to Ninjasistah (who by DNA is my actual sister) to play it up and I left my speculation up to the hoards of the gamerdom that weekend. I assumed that fate would step in to give me a more intimate time with the newly anticipated Bethesda/Artificial Mind and Motion creation. Several months passed and the voices of the gamer community did not seem to be in support of this game. Surprising? I think not. From the community of people who do not create, we do what we can by judging…and judging harshly. Still, I waited for the playable demo to hit my respective console in hopes that I would find some enjoyment, where the masses had not.
Needless to say, after playing the WET demo, I did not rage quit and punch puppies in their faces. I sat there, controller in hand…and felt nothing. Was something wrong with my gamer pleasure receptors? Had I had a minor stroke and lost several moments of my life? Nothing was wrong with the game, It is just…something was missing…or wasn’t settling in.
Now I know in a demo they don’t want to give you much story, because they are essentially charging us money for the story. However in the case of something like this, I feel it is necessary to give us something. In the end, what they decided to give us was a brunette clone of “The Bride” from Kill Bill, a dash of Quentin Tarantino with an ability that recreates the famous Crazy 88 black and white fight (however in WET it’s Black, White and Red) and a filter that…over exaggerates the first two things I mentioned. If Bethesda really wanted to keep the purity of the movie series in terms of style they wouldn’t have included a filter that made it look like an actual movie. They would have left the game universe as it was.
Let me touch on the game play. From the demo I felt Rubi moved a little too slow. Now I’m aware that the aesthetics of this game is the main focal point. It isn’t a matter of killing all the enemies; it’s how cool Rubi looks while doing it! Who’s against slow motion power sliding armed with identical guns of badassery? I know I’m not. Then again…how thrilling is it to do the same maneuver eight times in a row? Yeah not nearly as cool.
In my opinion, the demo should have played Rubi up at her best, fully powered up, so we could see a rapid chain of stylish ass kicking while taking names. I am more than certain that because of this unpolished demo, that the numbers from purchasing this game will be lower than anticipated.
As it is right now, the game has been out for five days. It was released on September 15, 2009. So…did WET make me wet? Nope, not even moist I’m afraid. Try again?