Wet - hands-on

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Rubi puts the ass in "assassin"

"The idea behind the combat is for Rubi to use her acrobatics skills to come out on top," he states as the scenario reloads. Before the respawned heavies can let off a single bullet, he caps one from a distance, then runs up a wall and executes a perfect backflip. The action decelerates as Rubi arcs through the air, splitting targets in mid flight and pumping round after round into her slo-mo foes. Landing, she skids towards a nearby enemy while leaning back and shooting a flanking baddie, then leaps up and rams her knee into the face of her final victim, drawing her sword and piercing him from behind with one deadly swipe, which sends a splatter of blood arcing across the screen. Fortier flashes us a self-satisfied smile.

Recalling our earlier teachings from Fortier, we quickly find ourselves pulling off a collection of impressive combos, flips, slides, precision shots and brutal sword kills as we're sucked into the action like a skin flake into a Dyson. Leaping around like an acrobat, we use every ledge, pole, step and obstacle to outmaneuver and out-think our enemies as our surroundings splinter and shatter from their stray bullets. Even at this early stage of development, it's clear that if A2M can fully realise Wet's obviously huge potential, we could be in for an open playground of carnage, where leaps, spins and kills can be linked as easily as trick combos in any Tony Hawk game.

However, with over a year of development time remaining before its release and with A2M making it known that it's taking decisive steps to avoid the pitfalls presented by a combat-centric, auto aiming action/adventure, there's still plenty of time for this initial wave of niggling doubts to be addressed.