Wetrix
Nintendo 64
Nostalgia Factor:
Wetrix came out for the Nintendo 64 back in 1998. Initially, I had zero interest in playing this game. Aside from Tetris, puzzle games really weren’t my thing. It wasn’t until I arrived at Blockbuster Video one random 90s evening and I saw that they had literally NOTHING I wanted to play that I finally gave Wetrix a look. You don’t just go to Blockbuster and leave empty handed.
To my surprise, I ended up really enjoying Wetrix. I played it a lot the weekend that I had it. After my three days were up and I returned Wetrix into the drop chute at Blockbuster, I never had the opportunity to play this game again.
Until now.
Story:
As far as I know, this game has no story.
Gameplay:
This is a tough one to describe, but bear with me. Each game starts you out with a flat square mysteriously floating in the air: your 3D playing field. Pieces fall from the sky. Using these pieces, you are expected to build a perimeter around the edge of your square. Why? Because your goal is to stop water from overflowing over the edge of your square. If too much water escapes, you lose and you die.
Building that perimeter is easier said than done. Before you know it, the game stops giving you pieces to build your structure and starts giving you giant water droplets you have to place on the board. If you build little dams or lakes, you can drop the water right into them so you don’t have to worry about it reaching the edge of your floating island and flowing over. But the game doesn’t give you enough pieces to cover all your bases. You have to strategically decide how you want to contain your water while at the same time making it so that the water can’t rise up over what you have built and start to escape.
There are going to be times where water is leaking out from multiple places, and you are going to have to live with that. You have to plug those holes and fortify your structures and your perimeter as best as you can. Wetrix is a constant, intense race against time. The game occasionally gives you a break via a falling fire ball that if you place it in a pool of water, it evaporates the water. What Wetrix giveth, it taketh away, however. You are also given bombs that you have no choice but to place onto your board. These bombs will destroy whatever structure you have in place, leaving a hole in its wake that water can leak out of. You have to immediately cover it up or you risk death.
You’re also given “down arrows” which will erode or erase certain parts of the structures you have built, depending on where you place it. The deeper you get into the game, the more twists are thrown at you. Ice can freeze all your water and mess up the structures you have built. Earthquakes happen if you have too much “mass” on your island. The only way to stop them is to use the bombs or down arrows strategically to eliminate parts of the structures you’ve built – thus reducing the mass and the strain on your floating square island. If your island gets too weighed down, the earthquake starts and completely decimates everything you’ve built. If you have a lot of pooled water on your island, this is almost an instant game over. Earthquakes are bad and you should avoid them at all costs.
As far as I know, there is no end to Wetrix. The game just keeps going and going, getting faster and more difficult the further along you get. Eventually it becomes too much and you die. Just like Tetris. It’s kind of dissappointing that there is no “story” modes or anything like that which you can complete or “beat.” You’re just playing for points, and to survive as long as you possibly can.
That means this game does not have a whole lot of replay value.
Graphics:
For a Nintendo 64 game, Wetrix looks really good. The water effects are amazing. The colors are bright and vibrant. Even though this game is very simple, it has a nice aesthetic to it that is interesting to look at – and timeless in a number of ways. I don’t know if this is a graphics or a gameplay issue, but I will complain that the camera choices are either too zoomed in or too zoomed out, often making it difficult to play pieces properly or to even see what is happening on your board.
Sound:
I just love this game’s music. It has this eerie vibe to it, like what you’re doing as you play carries the most dire conseqeuences to mankind. It’s so dramatic and I love it. The game’s sound effects are great too – as well as the announcer’s faintly robotic/accented voice. As I played I felt as if there was some kind of storyline hidden under the surface of what you’re doing in this game – one that is never revealed or so much as hinted at. It makes the game feel mysterious.
Overall:
The concept of Wetrix is extremely unique, and one I haven’t seen emulated by any other games to this day. The music, the graphics, and the oddly haunting atmosphere really add a ton to this game, too. As soon as I started playing Wetrix, it gripped me in a way that no other puzzle game has been able to do.
That said, the replay value of this game is very low. Also, I found that the game was best played in small doses. If I ever sat down to play Wetrix for more than an hour or so, it would irritate me and I’d actually start to play worse over time. In small batches, however, this game is a lot of fun.
As much as I enjoyed this game, however, I started to get sick of it quickly. Aside from classic mode, there are a few alternatives to check out: challenge mode, practice mode, handicap mode, etc. There’s even a split screen two player mode. But all of these modes amount to pretty much the same thing: doing what you’ve already been doing in classic mode.
There’s only so much structure building and water dropping you can do before the gameplay begins to get stale. After playing this game off and on for a couple of days, I think I am done with it. And really I don’t see much of a reason to ever come back to it, unless I ever want to get a quick round in to kill some time.
That said, this is a fun game and I applaud the unique concept. I just wish it gave us MORE. Instead, I was left a bit wanting.
Final Score:
C+
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