WET demo on Xbox Live

By Tom Bramwell Published 26 August, 2009

Gold-exclusive shooty sampler.

Some magical combination of developer A2M, publisher Bethesda Softworks and platform holder Microsoft has deposited a demo of WET on Xbox Live.

The playable taster is exclusive to Xbox Live Gold members at the moment, and weighs in at 632MB. We don't know what's in it because I'm downloading Shadow Complex instead and the Marketplace website doesn't elaborate.

We poked our gun-barrels into WET for a recent hands-on. It probably won't set the world on fire, but there are some nice ideas in amongst its mixture of third-person hackandslashery, blasting, quick-time action sequences and bonkers red-mist berserker levels.

The full game's due out for PS3 and Xbox 360 on 18th September.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (41) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Darren #1 3 years ago

    For once I appreciate being a Silver subbie and not being able to try the 360 demo because the PS3 version was a bit underwhelming and bland. Plays and looks OK and there's actually nothing wrong with it as such but there's just something very 2004 about the whole thing. I found it completely forgettable but then that's the great thing about playable demos, they can stop from making a bad purchasing decision. :)

  • Buztafen #2 3 years ago

    Played through this last night. Has shades of Stranglehold and Max Payne with Kill Bill thrown in for good measure. Plays quite well and i didnt get bored through it though its got fairly generic gameplay. Sliding down a ladder upside down never gets old though. Plus Dushku makes me wet. 7/10 i reckon.

    EDIT: though judging by the rest of the comments maybe a i just have low standards :)
    Edited by 1 at 26/08/09 @ 09:05

  • swissorc #3 3 years ago

    Don't care Don't care Don't care. Main character looks cute though:-)

  • Jonathan_Fakenham #4 3 years ago

    Meh

  • Beige_Alert #5 3 years ago

    6/10 tops

  • beastmaster #6 3 years ago

    This is the kind of demo I'd keep on the hard drive and have a quick go on for s few mins. Then gets deleted after about a week.

  • christourlord #7 3 years ago

    Utter shite. I played it with one hand while on the phone last night and had absolutely no desire to carry on with two hands once I had finished my call.

  • muscleblade #8 3 years ago

    "they can stop from making a bad purchasing decision. :) "

    They can stop you from making a good purchasing decision too. The Dead Space demo didnt help selling the game even if the full game was amazing. Same goes for The Force Unleashed and Stranglehold imo.

  • Nephirion #9 3 years ago

    Another mediocre FPS can't wait

  • muscleblade #10 3 years ago

    Enjoyed the demo, but theres too many games coming so i probably wont buy this. Agree with Darren that the game feels a little dated even if its fun. A typical B game that is entertaining for a few hours but doesnt offer aything special.

  • muscleblade #11 3 years ago

    @Nephirion

    Its not an FPS.

  • space_ace #12 3 years ago

    hopefully the wet demo won't extinguish our enthusiasm...

  • chubster2010 #13 3 years ago

    I played the demo last week on PSN - and thought it was really, really, awful. Dreadful (and I mean DREADFUL) camera, mediocre combat, dumb game design, uninspiring bullet-time effects. Bad.

  • Eraser #14 3 years ago

    I wonder why developers still bother with games where the main hero is a woman dressed in tight leathers. Give me another Cate Archer. Far more interesting character as a whole.

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #15 3 years ago

    What a complete rip off of stranglehold but based on kill bill instead of a John Woo!

    Not that stranglehold was a bad game, I loved it. I was starting to enjoy the demo of this until her face got splattered with blood and it did the kill bill 'alarm'. Fucking hell.

  • Monkey_Puncher #16 3 years ago

    It's okay, certainly wouldn't catch me paying £40 for it though. For £10-20 it'd be some brainless fun, no more though.

  • VicViper #17 3 years ago

    Played the demo on PS3 and won't be bothering with the game at all untill its in tha bargin bin maybe.
    Stranglehold might not have looked better but it played far better and if the rage mode is the hook then its not much of one, if its in the full game and when you attack limbs should dismember like the sence in Kill bill if that was what they were going for then I see the point.

    In the arena section I killed all the eniemes till they stopped spawning then worked out that I was meant to close the shutters it was so poorly communicated was that a quicker way to complete that section?

  • BBIAJ #18 3 years ago

    @ VicViper:

    Erm, you get a text prompt telling you to close the three enemy spawn points, it couldn't be any clearer!

    Anyway, I found this a good laugh, the QTE section was especially over the top, and the rage section had a nice visual look to it.

  • bratmandu #19 3 years ago

    This demo was like a poor Stranglehold, and I disliked Stranglehold a lot. I found myself wandering around, jumping and sliding till the next bit opened up. It wasn't very clear on where you should go next or what you should do. I ended up in a big room with several skull icons about the place, and no indication as to what you do.

  • magicpocket #20 3 years ago

    Thoroughly enjoyed this demo. It's a no-brainer hack-n-slash-shoot-em-up that has entertaining and varied gameplay. Looking forward to the full game.

  • captainrentboy #21 3 years ago

    Yeah, played like Stranglehold but with slightly less responsive controls. I didn't care for it much. And the 'film' scratch thing that continuously plays over the screen looks a bit daft in a videogame.

  • esperanto #22 3 years ago

    Quite enjoyed the demo but pretty generic all the same - maybe a £20 pick up before Xmas

  • lucky_jim #23 3 years ago

    I didn't think it was "really, really awful" or "utter shite" at all. It's not great, but if the demo is anything to go by, it's got some nice set-pieces, and good-enough combat. Its style is a bit full-on (which is where I think a lot of the hate comes from) but I thought it was better than, say, Ninja Blade. It's one I'll consider when I see in the bargain bins.

  • VicViper #24 3 years ago

    @BBIAJ

    Really? I must have missed the text. Thats annoying, I kept thinking what are those for? well thats me corrected. I shall play it again and see if that section was better knowing that.

    The expoiltation movie feel was good though when I think back on it.

  • JusticeMoses #25 3 years ago

    Thought it was rubbish to be honest. Graphics look very dated; models and animation poor. QTE was worse than your average QTE as it only wants you to use the X and A buttons (as if four buttons is too difficult?). The style was over the top and ached of trying to be cool which it failed at. The only hope they have of selling this is that it is coming out just before all the big AAA titles hit (except Batman) but I for one will be avoiding it entirely.

  • CARL05 #26 3 years ago

    I was actually pleasently surprised by this demo. The controls felt a bit too sensitive which was annoying, and the film appearing on the screen before you die was a bit irritating, but apart from that I found it fairly good and entertaining, kinda like Stranglehold but with a more varied style and gameplay.

    I'm not going to rush out and buy it but I wouldn't mind waiting till it's gone down in price (£10-£20?).

  • penhalion #27 3 years ago

    Wow what a let down of a demo!

    The title page looks like it was ripped straight off House of the Dead Overkill, even down to the stupid B-Movie filter and on rails car chase section. The aiming is nonsense. How the heck does one gun auto aim while you have to manually try to get a bead on someone else. I just ended up jumping and shooting, knowing that my autolocked gun would kill someone regardless of my own aiming skills and don't get me started on the stupid camera or the blood level!

  • geeza2020 #28 3 years ago

    WET by A2M = LOL ;)

  • Razorus #29 3 years ago

    I didn't like it either. Felt like a poor man's Stranglehold. Clunky gameplay and horrid graphics made it a bit of a chore to play.

  • laudy #30 3 years ago

    Absolute rubbish

    The demo that is. It's one of those instances where I hope it's a Dead Space situation. The DS demo didn't convince me at all...the full game however...
    Edited by 1 at 26/08/09 @ 16:58

  • TeaFiend #31 3 years ago

    Anyone else find the filter effect used throughout a bit of an eyesore?

  • Rens11 #32 3 years ago

    tried it on PS3 not very good imo the way you can get stuck in the fountains at the end just reeks of sloppy design desions which there will probably be plenty of in the main game
    Edited by 1 at 26/08/09 @ 18:20

  • sarcasmoidosis #33 3 years ago

    Just finished it for the second time. It's ok, I knew what I was getting. People that have been watching this for a while won't be disappointed. People that expect a 10/10 game... yeah, they'll flame it for a while :)

    Seriously, why can't you just press Y and kick the doors open? X spamming is old.

  • DrMGinius #34 3 years ago

    I didnt try the demo but seems too much bullet time to me. Also, It doesn't seems like this game is going to have an interesting, detailed and creative storyline. Probablly not even interesting. Just a theory.
    Edited by 1 at 27/08/09 @ 06:16

  • Zebula77 #35 3 years ago

    Had absolutely no hopes for this game. All the previews made it look like an also-ran. Have to admit the demo was fun, albeit in a half-brain sort of way. Some interesting ideas (especially when she gets soaked in blood and everything turns red - great visual design on that). Is the game from the same people that made the John Woo game (Stranglehold)? It felt a LOT like that one.

    Most likely won't be getting this, but the demo was ok.

  • TheJuriel #36 3 years ago

    The game's alright, but not remarkable. Some clunkiness in controls, doesn't look too great nor feel exciting. But I liked the musics and the attitude.

  • TheJuriel #37 3 years ago

    "Seriously, why can't you just press Y and kick the doors open? X spamming is old."
    And oh yeah, this was the most annoying part of the whole demo.

  • m0thr4 #38 3 years ago

    Played this on PS3 last night. Style-wise, it's like Tomb Raider meets Kill Bill.

    The main character moves gracefully enough during slow-motion "kill moves", but when walking around, she moves like a cartoon robot. While she's walking, the camera behind her often gets caught up in the surrounding scenery. The transitional animation between her various jumping and climbing moves is practically non-existent. The result is a very artificial look that I thought we've moved beyond on PS3 & Xbox 360.

    The fight sequences are reasonably entertaining for the life of the demo, but I can't imagine wanting any more than that. The QTE sections are rather strange - it's not clear exactly when you have to press the button displayed on the screen, so you end up hammering it several times for it to work. Maybe that's the point? It's certainly not clear.

    The demo gives you no idea of the story or who the main character is and why she's chopping up all these people. To be honest, having played through it once, I couldn't even tell you her name. Here's something I noticed: One wheelchair-bound character at the beginning is supposed to have an electrolarynx, but the developers obviously couldn't be bothered to source a real one or even attempt to emulate what they sound like, so you simply have a regular voice with a slightly weird effect on it that ends up sounding nothing like the real thing. Okay, a pretty pedantic thing to spot, but we've probably all heard a real electrolarynx in that recent anti-smoking advert (or in the first Mad Max film) and not bothering to replicate the sound accurately gives you a sense of the overall level of effort applied to making the game world believable.

    As another person pointed out above, I think this is one of those games where I'll just play the demo a few times until I get bored with it... then I'll simply delete it. Although, having played it once, I don't really feel inclined to give it a second go.

  • sarcasmoidosis #39 3 years ago

    "The QTE sections are rather strange - it's not clear exactly when you have to press the button displayed on the screen"

    There's a slight blip around the button when you have to press it. You press it then and there's a delay before the action start. Not awesome QTE's clearly, but not that bad either. Which probably sums up the game :)

  • nottingham01 #40 3 years ago

    this game is a load of shit

  • dcangel #41 2 years ago

    Played the demo on X360 earlier on.

    I'm getting really bloody sick of "cinematic" gaming. Cinema and games are such totally different mediums that trying to mash them together seems rather like trying to breed a chihuahua with a Rottweiler. You end up with an ugly, misshapen hybrid that's neither one thing nor the other. Devs, please stop doing it. Use your imaginations to come up with more interesting ways to tell a story, rather than filling the design documents with detailed descriptions of the tight leather costume that your heroine is to be squeezed into.

    Anyway, thoughts. The controls are very sloppy - the protagonist skitters about as if coked up to the eyeballs on methamphetamines and oven cleaner (except in slow motion when her view pans about with all the frantic urgency of an arthritic tortoise wading uphill through a stream of black treacle after having had its legs chopped off) and I lost count of how many times the idiot broad decided that, rather than wall-running up the crates to reach the spawn door controls as I clearly intended, she would wallrun up the wall next to the crates and execute a neat backflip into a hail of hot enemy lead. Dreadful.

    The combat, obviously the meat of this game, pulls off the masterstroke of being dreadfully repetitive while also being overly and unnecessarily complicated. Why you should be forced to leap about like some sort of heat-packing Zebedee to effectively use your guns is beyond me. And there doesn't seem to be any visual feedback as to whether your shots are actually connecting or not, until the magic number appears over the enemy head to signify termination of life functions. This is however made up for by the swordplay, which seems so ludicrously simplistic as to be pretty much redundant.

    As for presentation, the graphics are adequate but simply not good enough for an A title, and the inability to turn off the stupid film grain effect is unforgivable. The sound is completely forgettable - I can't recall anything specific enough to make comment on. And that animation when you take a gulp of whisky... *shakehead*

    Overall, not impressed. Shame on you, Bethesda, for picking up something that should probably have stayed dropped.

    m0thr4, I'm glad someone else noticed the electrolarynx. Failure to get something so simple correct just makes the sound guys look like idiots. Not that realism is much of a concern here. ;)