WET is a 2009 Third-Person Shooter developed by Behaviour Interactive (then known as Artifical Mind & Movement), with an emphasis on over-the-top acrobatic fight sequences of the sort found in movies directed by the likes of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.
The player takes on the role of Rubi Malone, hired gun and "problem fixer," who will take pretty much any job for the right price. She's got a reputation as one of the best in the business, so of course one day she gets double-crossed, almost killed, and not paid. Incredibly pissed at this turn of events, Rubi sets off on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that takes her across three continents.
The major gameplay innovation offered by WET is that ability to shoot while performing any action. You have a fairly standard repertoire of Cinematic Platformer moves; jumping, diving, wallrunning, etc., but you can shoot while doing any of these, and the game's style makes it essential to do so. Firing while running only lets you fire one of Rubi's two guns, but firing while performing any sort of acrobatic action will activate "acrobatic slo-mo," sending the game into Bullet Time and allowing you to deal massive damage to your opponents by virtue of the fact that your reaction time and fire rate are an order of magnitude above any reasonable human level.
The game is presented in the style of a Grindhouse-esque Exploitation Film, complete with film grain effects, little in-betweener cartoons, and, of course, ludicrously bombastic, over-the-top action sequences. The soundtrack is also totally awesome, inspired by The '70s and reminiscent of the musical stylings of Cowboy Bebop.
Oh, and there's a decently impressive voice cast, featuring Eliza Dushku as Rubi herself, Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Pelham and Alan Cumming as Ze Kollektor.
Tropes featured in WET include:
- Action Commands: And plenty of 'em, especially during the car chase segments.
- Action Girl: Rubi. Picture...
most of the roles her actress has played, actually, as a bloodthirsty gun wielding mercenary. - After Boss Recovery: There's usually a bottle of whiskey to take a swig from (which restores your health completely) after the arena fights.
- Animal Motifs:
- Rubi has a monkey motif, probably a reference to her ridiculous repertoire of acrobatic skills. Tarantula... well, guess.
- Also, Rat Boy.
- Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Tarantula.
- Art Shift: Just about the only thing different about the rage-mode levels is the red, white, and black coloration.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Tarantula does this to Rubi in one cutscene. Rubi herself does it in several cutscenes.
- Blood Upgrade: Rubi getting blood on her face is the trigger for Rage Mode.
- Boom, Headshot!: Landing headshots, in addition to being the fastest way to take out your opponents, will net you a point bonus and a notification next to your point multiplier proclaiming "SKULL-CRUSHER."
- Booze-Based Buff: Taking a swig from a bottle of whiskey fully restores Rubi's health.
- Bottomless Magazines: The revolvers never need to be reloaded, nor do they run out of ammo. Ever. The shotguns, SMGs, and crossbows never need to be reloaded either, but they do have limited ammo capacity.
- Bottomless Pits: It's fairly clear that none of these are actually bottomless, though in many cases it's too dark to see the bottom. There are some particularly stupid examples, such as a one-story drop near the beginning of the opera house level which kills you if you fall.
- Bullet Time: Firing while jumping, sliding, or doing pretty much anything besides running activates "acrobatic slo-mo," enabling autotarget, increasing your fire rate, and enhancing your reaction time to inhuman levels.
- By Wall That Is Holey: Towards the end of the 'Falling for Kafka' level, after having to guide Rubi around assorted falling plane debris, the player has to guide her through a huge hole in the middle of it.
- Camera Abuse: at one point, a basketball Rubi kicks crashes into the camera, shattering it.
- Catchphrase: "Here we go."
- Checkpoint: The game is quite generous in this regard with restart points being placed before and after difficult sections, or simply navigating from point A to point B.
- Cinematic Platform Game: Largely reminiscent of the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time trilogy and the (recent) Tomb Raider games, with the additional element of being able to fire (with perfect accuracy, mind you) from pretty much any vantage point, including while hanging from ledges, while swinging around horizontal poles, and while sliding down a ladder upside-down.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: At the end of the game, after deflecting two bullets with her sword, she is about to behead Rupert Pelham she comments, "Bummer. Sucks for you." This with her talking as if she had accidentally stepped in a rain puddle.
- Cliffhanger: Tarantula turns out to be Not Quite Dead.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Rubi alone shouts the type of euphemisms that would make even Faith or Shaundi blush, to say nothing of the other characters.
- Collection Sidequest: There are five toy monkeys per level to find and collect.
- Cradling Your Kill: One of the potential QTE failures in the fight against Tarantula results in her cutting and stabbing Rubi to death, and then taking her still-kneeling body into a soft embrace.
- Crate Expectations: Ammo and point bonuses can be found in crates and the occasional other breakable object, and the monkey toy collectibles often hide behind stacks of crates.
- Critical Existence Failure: When you're low on health, the amount of film grain increases dramatically, and the color starts washing out, but Rubi remains as capable as ever.
- Cutscene Boss: After all the crazy-ass gunplay and swordination, having the final showdown with Tarantula and Pelham being nothing but an extended series of Press X to Not Die is something of a letdown.
- Dark Action Girl: Tarantula, The Dragon to Malcolm MdDowell's character. Rubi herself would even out darken the page's trope girl.
- Disability Superpower: Tarantula is blind, but it seems pretty clear by now that blindness will only make you better at things like aiming.
- Doesn't Like Guns: Ze Kollektor.
- Dueling Games: Rubi is very much a Distaff Counterpart to the Rogue Warrior, who also had a uber violent swearathon game released at the same time as Wet.
- Dual Wielding: Ze Kollektor wields two swords. As mentioned in Guns Akimbo below, Tarantula's dual SMG's have huge underslung bayonets affixed to them, so she also demonstrates some characteristics of this trope.
- Elite Mooks: The chaingun-wielding "Leaders." In addition to the fact that they take forever to kill, they also inspire the regular Mooks to be more aggressive. Also, outside of designated chaingun scenes, they have to be dispatched via Action Commands.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Rubi is shocked at Trevor's death ( Pellum pretended to be his father and hired her to deliver him,) finding the real William Ackers and Zhi being hooked on drugs to betray his brother.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: All cars will explode after a few shots, even if you've only been shooting them in the windows.
- Everything Fades: During the Kill Bill blood rage modes slain enemies will disappear in a puff of smoke, but despite the Art Shift the violence loses nothing.
- Evil Brit: Rupert Pelham: a drug kingpin who seeks to take over the Hong Kong trade and kill off other dealers.
- Exploding Barrels: Handy for the collateral damage bonuses.
- Expy:
- Doesn't this game and its main character...REMIND you of something???
- The looks, the voice, the acrobatic flips, the Jerk With a Heart of Gold...ness, the tendency to fly into a murderous rage. Yep, real Slayer material.
- Fake Nationality: Alan Cumming (Scottish) voices Ze Kollektor (German) - of course, Cumming is certainly no stranger to playing characters of different nationalities.
- Fan Disservice: In one scene, Rubi is stripped down to her tank top and underwear. She's also being given the Electric Torture treatment by a nasty piece of work.
- Finger-Twitching Revival: Tarantula.
- Gatling Good: The Elite Mooks wield chainguns, and there are also sections where Rubi herself will get behind a mounted chaingun to kill waves of Mooks.
- Girls with Guns: Do you even have to ask?
- Girly Run: Just about the only feminine trait Rubi has, unfortunately.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Ze Kollektor is covered with scars, which he thinks of as "trophies".
- Groin Attack: Rubi seems incredibly fond of these. Killing enemies by shooting them in the nuts earns you a point bonus and a "BALL-BREAKER" notification next to your score multiplier, and killing the Elite Mooks involves a short sequence of Action Commands that usually end with Rubi cutting up from between the guy's legs.
- Gun Fu: Essentially the entire point of the game.
- Guns Akimbo: Rubi's preferred style. Her default weapons are dual revolvers, but you can also unlock dual Sawed Off Shotguns, dual SMG's, and dual crossbows. Tarantula also wields dual SMG's with massive underslung bayonets, effectively combining this with Dual Wielding.
- The Gunslinger: Rubi is a combination of The Trick Shot and The Woo. Incidentally, one of the goals of the developers was to make the player feel like they were inside a John Woo movie.
- Gun Twirling: A favorite move of Rubi's; short cinematics before and after every arena fight show her doing this.
- Handicapped Badass: Tarantula. Despite being blind can take on Rubi in a fight and serves as the Final Boss.
- Heroic Bloodshed: The game was specifically designed to evoke the feel of this kind of movie.
- High-Speed Battle: The car chase. Rubi gunfights... while carsurfing... and jumping from car to car!
- Hood Hopping: "Vehicular Carnage".
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: "Cake Walk" (Easy), "Hired Gun" (Normal), "Fixer" (Hard), "Femme Fatale" (Ultra Hard), and "Golden Bullets." Insta-kill bullets (for the player) and a very small amount of health. In other words, "Heaven or Hell".
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Rubi can shoot perfectly accurately while sliding down a ladder upside-down.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Rubi is what an older Faith might look like. Malcolm McDowell resembles the character he plays as well.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Rubi prefers a katana for close-up melee.
- Leap and Fire: An actual gameplay mechanic, and one you'll be using constantly, since firing while flying through the air activates Bullet Time.
- Limited Wardrobe: Rubi wears the cargos, red shirt and jacket all through the game, even in the prologue and past training stages. Not that she's the type to wear a dress, but does she have anything else?
- Multi-Mook Melee: The arena stages, where you have to blast up mooks while trying to reach the markers in order to shut down the doors that the mooks are spawning from, then mopping up anyone still standing before moving on.
- Musical Spoiler: "Why Did You Lie To Me" plays just before Rubi catches up with Zhi, who led her into a trap in return for drugs.
- My Nayme Is: Our heroine's name is conventionally spelled Ruby.
- Neck Snap: Rubi does this to Tarantula. Apparently, even that isn't enough to kill her...
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Nintendo Hard: On the "Fixer" (Hard) difficulty, at least, there are plenty of points that will make you tear your hair out. - Oh, Crap!: The loading scenes feature a monkey, smoking a cigar, with one of Rubi's guns pointed at it's head. As you might expect it leads to this trope.
- Off with His Head!: Trevor Ackers at Tarantula's hands under orders from Rupert Pelham, and Rupert Pelham himself at Rubi's hands at the end.
- Ominous Walk: Rubi uses this trope at the end of the game as she approaches Rupert Pelham and takes it to eleven by deflecting two shots with her sword.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Ze Kollektor, Tarantula, and Rat Boy.
- Pet the Dog: For being queen badass Rubi does this several times, trying to reach out to Zhi and showing genuine concern over an ally at death's door.
- Press X to Not Die: Since Action Commands feature fairly heavily in the gameplay, and the time block to execute them is generous, these don't actually end up being much of a nuisance.
- Red Filter of Doom: When Rubi enters Rage Mode, this generally ensues.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Rubi's default weapons are a pair of black custom eight-cylinder revolvers.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Most of the plot after the first chapter after being fooled into helping Rupert Pelham kill Trevor Ackers before leaving her for dead.
- Rule of Cool:
- Basically the only way Rubi can fire her revolvers at a combined rate of 16 rounds per second. That's 960 rounds per minute, comparable to machine guns.
- And that's before upgrading their fire rate. At all.
- Also, that's firing one semi-automatic weapon 8 times a second. Go ahead and try it. We'll wait.
- Run, Don't Walk: You can walk in the game but it's largely pointless: jumping, sliding and performing acrobatic moves puts you in Bullet Time. You will need this.
- Score Multiplier: It's automatically ramped up by killing enemies really fast. However, in boss battles, there are also one-time-only score multipliers that can be picked up (usually through acrobatic jumps) and stack with the regular multipliers.
- Sequel Hook: One of Pelham's bodyguards known only as Ze Kollektor is only fought once before departing from the plot altogether saying We Will Meet Again and then there is Tarantula being implied to survive her battle with Rubi.
- Shout-Out: The achievement for getting 200 total kills with the revolvers is called "Revolver Onslaught," which sounds way too much like the name of a certain character from a certain video game series to be a coincidence.
- Slasher Smile: Rubi is wearing one of these as she leaves the Rage Mode segments.
- Spiritual Successor: In a way, it's Stranglehold but the protagonist is played by Eliza Dushku instead of Chow Yun-fat, with both games focusing around letting the player go on a Heroic Bloodshed power trip with Bullet Time as a key mechanic.
- Stock Scream: The Wilhelm scream is used in the opening cutscene, even before the tutorial that shows you how to proceed to bloody murder.
- Super Mode:
- Rage Mode. The entire game world goes black, white and red, Rubi can now fire both guns while running (though it's still better to shoot in acrobatic slo-mo, since aiming is a hell of a lot easier in Bullet Time), and her shots do much more damage. The player doesn't have the option to activate this at any time; rather, Rage Mode segments are pre-scripted sequences of the game.
- Golden Bullets mode counts, arguably, since every shot that Rubi makes is an instant kill.
- Tattooed Crook: Rubi has tattoos on her arms, and Tarantula has a huge one that covers her entire back.
- The Triads and the Tongs: A common enemy in Rubi's missions in Hong Kong.
- Unstoppable Rage: The aptly-named Rage Mode, where Rubi goes completely nuts and slaughters everything and everyone in her way.
- Unflinching Walk: After getting the heart for Ackers from Simmons she sets his car on fire making it explode because he called her a bitch. She engages in this trope as she walks away from it.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's hard to tell what exactly happened to Ze Kollektor and Zhi.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Rubi casually mentions in a cutscene that she hates flying. It comes up again later when she has to get on a plane to get a book for Kafka, but she deals with it pretty well.
- Worthy Opponent: Rubi Malone vs. Ze Kollektor.
