Play now: Wet
The neo-noir slasher is sharper than you remember
Voiced by Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Eliza Dushku1, heroine Rubi Malone plays like the tattooed rockabilly cousin of Lara Croft. She’s gutsy, snarky, and can backflip across a bustling motorway as if hacking The Matrix directly into her veins.
Rubi’s a gun for hire, a problemsolver who doesn’t mind straying to the dark side if the price is right. Wet’s plot takes in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and London, as well as a Texas base camp where you practice Rubi’s gymnastic moves. She can knee-slide under obstacles, flip across gaps, swing from poles, and wall-run over enemies – and all these moves flow together while she’s shooting enemies with twin guns and slashing at them with her samurai blade. Leaning into an old-school arcade sensibility Wet’s not simply about defeating enemies but doing so in style. Each violent arena is a playground of death. Score multiplier icons float in the world and collecting these boosts your score. Along with linking kills this helps regenerate Rubi’s health. It creates a simple loop of killing to survive to chase high scores and unlock new weapons.
RUBI ROCKS
How much you enjoy Wet comes down to how far you buy into the game’s style. Its blend of arcade combos and violent grindhouse design is an enticing one. Backed by a rollicking soundtrack2 that included new songs from Gypsy Pistoleros, Wet sells its Tarantinodoes-Tomb-Raider style perfectly.
Yes, it’s a style that masks some technical shortcomings, though it can’t always hide the fact there’s little original happening on screen, no matter how busy it can get. Rubi herself inspires the same love/hate reaction as her biggest inspirations; like Tarantino’s characters she is either hailed as a strong star delivering sharp one-liners or condemned as an unlikable lead who wallows in death. Still, similar could be said of Nate Drake. Right?
FOOTNOTES 1 Other Hollywood stars involved include Malcolm McDowell and Alan Cumming. 2 Beck keyboardist Brian LeBarton composed the soundtrack.