For ages, the recipe for a "guy game" has been the same: take one hot chick, give her a couple of guns, throw her into an environment full of dudes to shoot and boom and you got yourself a game that will sell well, just because the chick on the box is hot. Bethesda tempered with this sacred formula, and in some ways they improved it, but in even more ways, they broke it.

It's hard to say what Wet is exactly. It's an action game that looks like it's seen more Quentin Tarantino movies than it should have, listened to way too much psychobilly and is cranked on speed to a degree that makes its heart escape through the ears. If a game could be on drugs, this would be the game. It's a haze, it's hard to remember anything more than a blur of running, shooting and that crazy music playing in the background. And, if you play for long enough, it's quite possible that you'll have that grindhouse video filter effect on your own vision for the rest of your life. But let's get down to business. What's this all about?

In Wet, you play Rubi Malone, a somewhat alternative redneck, gun-for-hire sweaty-n-sexy heroine. I have to admit, Rubi's character is a masterpiece; she is the part of the game that really shines. You get to play probably the most badass chick in the history of video games. She lives in the middle of the desert in a junkyard/plane graveyard, drinks whiskey instead of using medkits, knows how to handle her guns and a sword (sweet), says "fuck" a lot and has quite an impressive (although slightly generic) sleeve tattoo. This girl is a steaming explosion of attitude and that's very refreshing, because it does not follow the female heroine canon at all. Rubi is quite an achievement, as well as the other characters in the game, like Tarantula (you don't really know who she is, but goth/latex fetishists will be happy to see her). Now, this might be the most important thing about the game: it's about the girl and shooting stuff.

I have to be honest, I don't really remember what Wet's story is about. There is some kind of a revenge-driven plot in the game, but that's pretty much all I can say about it. And this unveils the first and biggest of the game's problems: it's completely, front to back, style over substance. If I can't remember what it was about, with the exception of the tattooed lady, the story must be very weak and unoriginal. So if there is no story to speak of, let's move on to the gameplay. Ouch.

Wet is difficult, but not on purpose. It's sort of difficult by accident. Simply put, all the glitches and bugs in the game make it difficult, frustrating and not really a pleasant gaming experience. Also, the game is designed in a way that doesn't really let you adjust yourself to the glitches, you're pressured to go forward all the time, and you end up just running through the game. Here is the basic idea of what you'll be doing in Wet: you have two guns and a sword, but you can't just simply run around and shoot enemies, because they will shoot you first, and you'll die. In order to cause any kind of damage, you have to activate the mechanism called acrobatic slo-mo. And this is the part where the game breaks. You are given a vast arsenal of spectacular Matrix-like moves, like wall-running, power-sliding, sliding down ladders headfirst while shooting, bouncing off walls (and people) in mid-air, Max Payne style dives and many many more. They are all animated very well and look fantastic, but the problem here is that it's not an option for you to use them – it's an absolute necessity. Your health runs out very quickly. To stay alive, you have to build up a large score multiplier (you get score for kills and chaining acrobatics together), because the higher your multiplier is, the faster your health regenerates. So to get this (in just one sentence): you need to be doing all that crazy Matrix shit and shoot guys in the head while doing it just to stay alive. Needless to say, when the chain of acrobatic moves gets too long, it starts looking funny and completely kills the mood. It is also a bit frustrating, because you can't play this game your way. You have to play it exactly as it was made to be played, because that is the only way to reach the end. So whether you like it or not, you will spend the entire game acting like a circus freak on speed.

The level design is simple and straight-forward. You just go forward, there are no multiple paths or anything like that, just go and shoot. In every level, there is an arena battle – you get locked in one area and an infinite amount of bad guys will come out to get you until you destroy all their spawning spots. Since there are no boss battles in Wet, I suppose this is the replacement, but really I'd rather have a huge ass boss in every level than this arena bullshit. 50 guys shooting at you from every direction means that you have to be on the move constantly, and constantly in the acrobatic slo-mo mode. Fortunately, there are some levels that are not about shooting, they're more like interactive cut scenes, and these - on the other hand - are very enjoyable. The highway sequence is almost as awesome as the aerial boss fight with Afrodroid in Afro Samurai. There are only a couple of these cut scene levels in the game, and they operate on the "quick time" event mechanics (press the button that appears on the screen as quick as you can).

Overall, the gameplay might not have been so bad if the technical aspect of it was better developed. Every time you do something, it seems like the game's engine can't really handle what you're trying to do. You'll miss a ledge, your feet won't catch the wall, you'll dodge in the wrong direction by accident...a lot of shit will piss you off, because of how unfinished the core of the game is. I don't know, maybe it's time for a new physics engine, this certainly cannot handle Rubi's skills, and that in turn kills the game.

I'd really prefer not to talk about the audiovisual presentation of Wet, but I guess I have to. The graphics suck. That's it. If this game was released four years ago, the graphics would still look old. And that grindhouse film reel effect...you can turn it on, but I advise you not to. When it's on, at least you don't see the sharp edges and pixelized shapes. The graphics are a real disappointment, with the exception of Rubi's sleeve texture, which is rendered surprisingly well. As for music, it's all on drugs. Psychobilly is on all the time in the game and believe me, if you don't listen to this genre on a daily basis at some point you will hit that mute button on your TV remote. Wet can give you a headache fast, with the grindhouse effect, the music and the acrobatics on screen. The voice acting is very good, and to some degree makes up for the failure of the rest of the soundtrack. Suffice it to say that the game is full of badass one-liners delivered by Eliza Dushku, the voice behind Rubi.

All in all Wet leaves you with mixed impressions. If I had to tell you about this game in just one sentence I'd say this: everything you do in Wet is fun, but only the first time you do it. And that's exactly what this game is. You can't expect even the best characters to perform great in a lousy crafted environment. And this is Wet's issue; Rubi is a character with tremendous potential, but this game is like a prison cell for her; the game's engine simply cannot handle the badass-ness that is Rubi, both literally and metaphorically. Hopefully there will be a sequel that will let players actually enjoy all that Rubi's got (just don't lick the screen bro) and will be glitch-free. It would be a real shame if this lady appeared in only this one very mediocre title. With supreme character design like that, she deserves to be in a better game. In the end the score is 3; check Wet out (but don't buy it) just to see what Rubi's all about. Chick's crazy, man.