Bear in mind that Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M) was the actual developer behind WET but that the game had the imprimatur of Bethesda as the publishing house behind it – mainly because parent company Zenimax obviously feels that the Bethesda name will provide a credibility to any game. This can, of course, back-fire... read on. Ed.
My editor is kind to me. He corrects my grammatical errors with patience, gives me cigarettes when I’ve run out and only makes me get the coffee a couple of times a day.
My editor made me play WET.
To put this in context you need to know that I love Bethesda. Fallout 3 sits contentedly on my shelf at 96% completion and all the DLC has been played. I have returned to Oblivion fairly regularly over the last few years each time with more love for it. I have my dark elf Spellsword on my phone and a canvas depicting the wasteland in my kitchen and even a folder, specially made, with a view over the Imperial City on the front. I take my Fallout lunchbox to work and considered a Bethesda cog tattoo. I’m a massive fangirl.
As it so happens, my favourite film is Planet Terror.
If you have already played the demo I’m sure you can guess the rest of this review.
WET hurts. The only wetness so far has come from my tears of loss and betrayal. It looks to be on paper everything that I should love, but in reality has absolutely no integrity. It shows a complete unwillingness to do something just for the love of it and everything to do with making a cheap money spinner to prey on the likes of suckers like me who thought Bethesda was better than this.
If you haven’t played the demo yet, you may need a little more information and a little less wailing and wringing of hands.
WET stars Rubi, a free-running, sword-swinging, pistol-toting hotty assassin on the tail of a dodgy bloke with a pony-tail and a penchant for leopard print as he has her suitcase, apparently. Unfortunately, the word 'hotty' might be misleading.
Rubi’s figure is disjointedly built of squares: never the most elegant or attractive of basic shapes. She reminds me of Manic Miner only with less charm. She is, in fact, utterly hateable, particularly when she refuses to react appropriately to the piss-weak control system which attempts to corrode your sense of self by spending half the game in slow-motion and the other half in cut scenes.
Is there something wrong with being a computer game now? Why are we continuing to try to merge the two distinct media of movie and game? It’s not even as if the cut scenes are good. WET is working its hardest to appear filmic and cinematic, with loading screens replaced by 70s' adverts for snacks and popcorn “available in the lobby”, sepia splashed all over them and Grindhouse style burns on the ‘reel’. It feels like nothing more than an unsuccessful and ridiculously obvious attempt to cover up the fact that better graphics were the norm on the PS2 or original Xbox.
Even in the lengthy and irritating cut scenes (which have to be seen again, in full, every time she dies, which isn’t often enough to satisfy my irritated, bubbling resentment) lorries appear to have been cut out with pinking shears and arms and faces to be made out of cereal boxes by a suicidal CBBeebies presenter who’s been watching too much Scarface.
It's like someone really couldn't be fussed, so they decided to let the work experience kids do their funny little idea for Stranglehold with a bird in it. Then, somehow, inexplicably, Bethesda released it.
Conclusion
I may be going a little far here, but my expectations of Bethesda are so far beyond this it’s like a joke. A horrible practical joke pulled by someone you love that makes you look like a dick for trusting them. On the other hand, if you don’t hold Bethesda in such high regard and want something brainless then you’ll be able to pick it up for twenty quid in a week or two.
SPOnG Score: 50%
My editor is kind to me. He corrects my grammatical errors with patience, gives me cigarettes when I’ve run out and only makes me get the coffee a couple of times a day.
My editor made me play WET.
As it so happens, my favourite film is Planet Terror.
If you have already played the demo I’m sure you can guess the rest of this review.
WET hurts. The only wetness so far has come from my tears of loss and betrayal. It looks to be on paper everything that I should love, but in reality has absolutely no integrity. It shows a complete unwillingness to do something just for the love of it and everything to do with making a cheap money spinner to prey on the likes of suckers like me who thought Bethesda was better than this.
WET stars Rubi, a free-running, sword-swinging, pistol-toting hotty assassin on the tail of a dodgy bloke with a pony-tail and a penchant for leopard print as he has her suitcase, apparently. Unfortunately, the word 'hotty' might be misleading.
Rubi’s figure is disjointedly built of squares: never the most elegant or attractive of basic shapes. She reminds me of Manic Miner only with less charm. She is, in fact, utterly hateable, particularly when she refuses to react appropriately to the piss-weak control system which attempts to corrode your sense of self by spending half the game in slow-motion and the other half in cut scenes.
Is there something wrong with being a computer game now? Why are we continuing to try to merge the two distinct media of movie and game? It’s not even as if the cut scenes are good. WET is working its hardest to appear filmic and cinematic, with loading screens replaced by 70s' adverts for snacks and popcorn “available in the lobby”, sepia splashed all over them and Grindhouse style burns on the ‘reel’. It feels like nothing more than an unsuccessful and ridiculously obvious attempt to cover up the fact that better graphics were the norm on the PS2 or original Xbox.
It's like someone really couldn't be fussed, so they decided to let the work experience kids do their funny little idea for Stranglehold with a bird in it. Then, somehow, inexplicably, Bethesda released it.
Conclusion
I may be going a little far here, but my expectations of Bethesda are so far beyond this it’s like a joke. A horrible practical joke pulled by someone you love that makes you look like a dick for trusting them. On the other hand, if you don’t hold Bethesda in such high regard and want something brainless then you’ll be able to pick it up for twenty quid in a week or two.
SPOnG Score: 50%
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Comments
JLR 6 Oct 2009 12:05
1/1
This is like one massive, sick, and amusing burn.
^_^
^_^