Full WET Review

** Spoiler Alert**

I have just now finished playing the game WET and I wanted to get some thoughts about it down under the guise of a legitimate review. I suppose this is a review in the loose sense of the word. After all it's not really a rant (though there will be some of that) and I am not being paid to write any of this. In fact I doubt much of anyone will read this that won't hear this from me anyway, but that is not important.

I figure the best place to start is the things I like about the game. First off, I LOVE the soundtrack of this game. As I write this I am listening to the soundtrack for this game using the Jukebox feature (great idea by the way). Even so I will probably still buy the soundtrack just to have it on my computer. Most of the music featured in this game is of a genre I adore, Pychobilly. A hybrid genre of Rockabilly and Punk and I love the sound of it. It compliments the game's theme and play speed very well, being very high paced and energetic. The only real complaint I have about the soundtrack is that there needs to be more of it, a few of the chase and fight scenes are lacking any music save for the environmental sounds. But what sort of complaint is that there needs to be more of something awesome, especially with the ability to listen to just the soundtrack.

Now sad to say that is the only part of the game I can truly praise. Don't get me wrong I found the game enjoyable. I am just saying that while playing through the game a good bit of it's content struck me as lifted from other games, movies, and tropes. Now if you know me you will already know I don't consider this a damning thing. At this point in history and even gaming history, it is very hard to do much of anything that hasn't been done better by someone before you. One need look no further than South Park to prove this. And my answer to this is so fucking what, just because something has been don't doesn't mean it can't be put to good use.

Moving on. Since this is an action platforming shooter, let's talk about those first. Now the action is solid, the main (and advertised) focus is the "Acrobatic Slo-Mo" that pervades the combat throughout this game. And when I say pervades, I mean if you are not using this game's take on bullet time, then you are as good as dead. Now the jumping/sliding/wall running works well and is solid enough. Is it perfect, fuck no! But the learning curve is good and the controls feel smooth and easy. As for the platforming, well...it's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time... Minus the whole rewinding time thing (thank god this game has no time manipulation). I really won't complain about that since as far as 3-D platforming involving climbing/swinging, jumping (as well as incorporating the combat in with it) goes, I personally think PoP:SoT is the gold standard. So you could do a lot worse than copy it. Of course it really even out to be a net of meh since, it is still a pretty blatant rip-off none the less. The Shooting, I'm really not sure where this mechanic is taken from, but it is solid and while I have no real praise I can't fault it. the only time the shooting really sucked was in the beginning when I was playing like shit, but that is me and not the game.

Now the controls. This game like so many other nowadays, covers and makes use of all the buttons on the controller. The two bumper buttons only find use when the right upgrades are purchased (more on those later). I have played much worse control schemes and much less intuitive ones as well (Mirror's Edge). Once again I kept getting the feeling that the basic layout of the controls was taken from Prince of Persia, and once again I don't think that is a bad thing.

The voice acting and animation. the voice work is actually pretty enjoyable, not Oscar worth to be sure but it is quite good and I didn't come across any really bad performances, even the mindless minions sounds into it and that seems rare in games these days. The animation on the other hand is... acceptable, nothing much more than that, the environments look good and accomplish their job of hiding the invisible walls and looking pretty and believable. The character models look like a recent game for the PS2 and that is not something good on an XBOX 360. I will say this the voice acting and the soundtrack do go along way to make this a great sounding game, which would be great if I were only listening to it, which I am not.

There are a few other things that go a good ways to helping the atmosphere of this game the film scratches and other old time film effects, event he commercials that occasionally pop up are a nice touch to be sure. I am certainly no film buff, but the whole thing feel like a Quentin Tarentino movie (namely Kill Bill) turned into a game, touches and all.

Now to the bad parts.

In relation to the controls, while I think the basic control scheme is not really a problem I do feel that the commands that you gain through the upgrade system are thoroughly unnecessary. First off, why the fuck is there an evade button? This is a game where the main character's whole freaking combat style is based around jumping and moving around, too make her hard to hit and give her a combat advantage. Why does dodging have to be a separate button, and the left bumper no less, I often forget about the bumper buttons entirely, why would I use it to dodge shit when I am jumping through the air.

The Quciktime Events. I know, I know, bitching about QTE's in modern games is like complaining about bad AI and Jumping puzzles, they are here to stay because they work, for game developers. I will even admit that they have their place in games, they can spice up a cutscene nicely and provide some nifty deaths (God of War being my gold standard here) But when I have to press a button and mash another for a few seconds, it is not only flow breaking, it's pointless. In a game that empathizes constant movement and agility, spending a few seconds at each do I have to pass through is ridiculous. They are put to decent use in this game but not nearly enough to redeem the doors.

There are a few little things, the upgrade system is unnecessary, I am getting tired of action/shooter game trying to be RPG's by adding in upgrading systems.

I had to mention this last bit because out of all the nagging little things that I felt held this game back, this is the one time where I could not let it slide. This game has, in my humble opinion, THE LEAST SATISFYING BOSS FIGHT at the end of the game. Without getting into plot details the boss fight involves taking on the main villain and his remaining bodyguard, one at a time. Nothing wrong with this on the surface, pretty standard for the most part, but whatever. Here is my problem with it, the sub-boss (the bodyguard) is A 5 BUTTON LONG QUICKTIME EVENT strung together with about 3 minutes of cut-scenes of the two of you fighting. I actually had to retry it ONCE because the first time I played it I was so stunned at what I was seeing that I forgot to watch the button commands.

As if that was not enough of a kick to the balls (or punch to the ovaries) for you, the final boss fight... Are you ready for this, is a whopping 3 BUTTON QUICKTIME EVENT. That is it. That is fucking it. I actually sat there after I beat him on my first try and could not believe what the fuck had just happened. I could call this sort of fight all kinds of things, but given the rest of the game (and the state of games today) I really should not have been surprised. After all the fight with the first bodyguard (who is fucking awesome) is all QTE's and unless I skipped a cut scene by actident he dies off screen. Seriously I get to the final showdown and spent about 15 seconds asking the TV where this guy had gone to. I have never felt so let down by a game that I was looking forward to so much and enjoyed playing as I did this one.

I am used to the actual ending scenes and story conclusions failing to impress or satisfy. But never the fucking boss fights. If you want to know what this ending did to my opinion of the game, just look back at all the stuff I mentioned that was acceptable but not good. The bits I mentioned that were maybe copied from other games. The parts that didn't hurt the game but really did nothing to help it. Take all that stuff and ignore it, completely. Now this may feel like an asshole move. You have now read through a good bit of my writing (I am sorry for you) and now I am saying that none of this was worth the electricity used to power your monitor. Well, welcome to my world after finishing this game.

With some games, you know that it is not worth your money as soon as you hear about it or play the demo. Some games actually get you to buy the game and play the first couple of levels before you see the folly of your ways.

This freaking game, made me wait until the very fucking end before it decided to cockslap me in the face and laugh at me. Granted I have not taken a crack at the challenge modes yet, nor the higher difficulties, so I can't speak for it's replay value. But let me tell you it doesn't look promising. In summary the only thing I can recommend to anyone interested int his game is to go out and find the soundtrack, you'll save a good bit of money.

WET Demo Review

Greetings denizens of the internet. I know updates to this blog have been pretty damn infrequent lately and I also realize that by and large this doesn't matter, even if by some miracle someone other than the three of the authors actually read this blog. But none the less I figured that I would post something, partly because I felt like doing a little writing and partly since I always feel bad when this blog goes without updates for too long.

Since our usual game guy around these parts seems to have gone into hibernation I felt like writing about the demo for the upcoming game "WET". Now for those of you that have not checked out the demo for this game it's an upcoming release from Bethesda Studios and developed by Artificial Mind and Movement. Bethesda really needs no introduction. Their work is topnotch for the most part and more likely than not you know who they are. If you don't then Google them, seriously I'm not gonna waste my time explaining them anymore. Now Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M) is another matter altogether, looking at their list of games is not very encouraging. With a few exceptions all of their games to date are tie-in games to movies and children television shows and frankly that is worrying, but the demo is encouraging.

The game is a third person shooter featuring a female heroine named Rubi Malone. The style of the Game's music, art, and theme feels kind of like a film noir as done by Quentin Tarantino. It seems to have that sort of Kill Bill-esque violence as a spectacle sort of thing going on. And I think it works, granted violent games are a dime a dozen these days, and it's not like this game is going to stand out on it's violence alone. But really isn't that a good thing. Games can't really ride that train anymore and really that whole sort of thing stopped woring back in the 90's.

Anyhow, the demo. Like most demos the goal is to show the game off, show the control scheme, and several game modes. I could get into a whole different rant about how that should be what ALL demos do , but I won't bore any of you with that. The demo starts with a cut scene, of a deal gone wrong, classic and nothing out of the ordinary, I personally like the guy with the voice box, and in true gaming tradition, the cool one off characters get killed off way to fast. Rubi enters and the demo runs you through the controls for the games fighting and one of the main action focuses of the game, the acrobatic fighting. basically, when you jump, slide, or wall run the game goes into bullet time and allows for easier kills. Actually this leads into the closest thing I have to a complaint about the demo, Shooting normally is basically a waste of time your accuracy and the effectiveness of your weapons seems to drop to near uselessness. Granted that could be more an issue with my own skill, and since the game thoughtfully provides you with many, many, many places to jump of and run off so this is probably needless bitching. Moving on, after you kill all the enemies you go through a few more areas that show you health regen (Drinking Whiskey, awesome) and sword attacks (good feedback, awesome).

After a bit more linear progression, you come to a large and fairly open area and kick off the second main action focus, Arena Combat. I could get into this but that's unnecessary. The basic idea is that there are a certain number of spawn points and you have to close them while killing enemies. Since there is no whiskey lying about, you regenerate health by building up a multiplier by killing enemies, which is fun and challenging without being overly hard. After that is done you move onto the next action focus, a high speed car chase, with Rubi jumping from the roof of car to car, shooting baddies and doing, you guessed it quick time events!!!! Now I know that a good amount of critics bag on these but I don't have a real problem with them when they are used responsibly (a minority even to be sure) and I feel in this game they work, they are infrequent enough to not get in the way, pervasive enough so you know to watch out for them, and while some of them (especially in the driving section) are "Press X to not die affairs", the game is generous enough with checkpoints so they aren't controller snappingly annoying.

Overall I can't wait for this game. Granted all these things could be thrown off in the real game, but Bethesda is a good developer and I am choosing to invest some faith in them to put out a good game.