E3 09: Hands On With Wet + Eliza Dushku
What if Quentin Tarantino made a stylish action shooter, and Eliza Dushku voiced the lead? Bethesda's Wet brings all the 70s pulp style and improbable violence of Kill Bill to a game that's easy to pick up and hard to forget. A Tarantino-style story (written by 24 scribe Duppy Demitrius) pulls along the action, which in my brief experience alternated between run-n-gun chase scenes and area-clearing blockades.
Gun-for-hire Rubi Malone goes on a bloody rampage in a quest for vengeance - that's the pretext for the highly stylized triple-threat action that is the meat of Wet. Three types of gameplay emerge pretty seamlessly from a simple control scheme: the first is a sort of acrobatic bullettime - anytime Rubi jumps, wall-runs, or (the coolest) rushes forward and slides down on her knees, the game slows down.
During this grayed-out slow moment, the second type of gameplay kicks in: Rubi auto-aims with one pistol while letting the player aim the other with the right analog stick. Did I forget to mention that Rubi dual wields? It's twice the mayhem with twice the reward: your auto-aiming pistol will rack up kills while your manual piece gives the challenge shooter fans expect.
The third and slightly anticlimactic aspect is swordplay, which is nevertheless swift, brutal, and awesome.
I had a blast diving into the heavily stylized world of Wet (so titled because 'wet' is underworld slang for bloodshed) and the innovative mechanics backed up the ambitious concept.
But the best moment came when the Bethesda staffer beside me said, "Did I mention that Rubi is voiced by Eliza Dushku?"
"No way," says I. "That's sweet."
"Yeah," he says. "And she's right next to you."
And... she was!
Surrounded by handlers and suits, but next to Tiny Dancer indeed - whilst he played her character, no less. And suddenly I wasn't playing so well anymore... but my E3 dreams had come true.
tiny dancer
Posted to E3, Hot Stuff, Video Games on 5 June 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: bethesda, e3, e3 2009, eliza dushku, ps3, wet, xbox 360
Oh lawdy, I envy you so much. Eliza is pure
no way! if that happened to me i would have totally went fanboy a la Buffy or Dollhouse.
Sounds pretty cool (even though I had to hit imdb.com to figure out who Eliza Dushku is). Is it console only or will it be on PC as well?
Only console ATM. Shin, we need to get you watchin' some more Whedon!
Define jealousy: Me over you being next to Dushku.