Wheelman Review - PlayDevil.com v2.0 - European Gaming Site -

Vin Diesel is a busy man. A new film and tow new games this spring. I quite like the gravely voiced gentleman, so I’ve seen the film and played his games. Does "Wheelman" live up to the quality of his other work this year, or does the fact that Midway is now bankrupt and has asked Ubisoft to co-publish the game affect the quality of the title?

The story, like all good Vin Diesel properties, is fairly simple. You play as Milo, an undercover CIA operative who pitches up in Barcelona in order to sort out the local gangs and drug lords and the like.

Meanwhile, you also get involved with a high class local dancer, and also take on jobs for various people on the side. What is quite neat, taking on these side jobs helps you out in the story missions by upgrading your stats. There are a couple of nice twists and turns in the story as you play off against the three main local gangs, and some really cool cinematic moments too.

Ultimately, it’s a little generic, but quite good fun at the same time thanks to Vin’s gruff one liners and all the totally mad, over the top action going on.

The gameplay follows on again from the graphics and audio, with some real highlights, and also some depths of simplicity and awfulness not seen for some time. For example, the on foot shooting is just dreadful. You’re pretty tough, so to counter this, you get attacked by hordes of generic dudes that can’t aim well, can’t cover well, and often spawn about two foot in front of you.

You also can’t cover, and the duck function doesn’t work that well. Your weapons feel underpowered, and to be honest, it’s a mess, and I just hated these sections. I’d have rather had no foot access to the streets and even more time focused on the awesome driving model.

The handling is by no means perfect, but it’s a halfway decent arcade style that makes traversing the streets easy. However, the cinematic aspects to the driving is what makes the driving so great. You can smash into other vehicles using the right stick- damage them enough and the explode out in slow-mo, often in hilarious fashion thanks to the game’s dodgy/purposely over-the-top physics engine.

Additionally, there is some nitro to use, and two slow-mo special attacks which you have to build up ‘focus’ to use by driving niftily. These are great as you use your gun, aim at the targets given to you, and then watch the fireworks. Normally a direct hit involves whatever it is exploding in ridiculous fashion, which, to be honest, is awesome! It makes you feel like you’re in the middle of an amazing movie car chase with Michael Bay & Jerry Bruckheimer directing.

At these moments, Wheelman feels like an amazing game, but it’s just a shame that it’s short- at about 6-8 hours for the single player story, and that you spend to much of this time on foot really. Additionally, there’s no multiplayer to uses these moves in, which is another disappointment to be honest.

Graphically and aurally, Wheelman is a complete mixed bag. Some parts are excellent, others are frankly appalling. Starting with the sound, Vin Diesel delivers his well written one liners with his usual gruff enthusiasm, and that, for me, was the real highlight. The rest of the speech is just fine, without ever being spectacular, but it all starts to go downhill from there. Effects are very cheap- it seems like there is just one engine noise for all cars, and the same with most guns.

There is no licensed music at all, which is really unusual today, and the generic composed tunes are just about passable, but to be honest, the fact that there’s no GTA-style radio stations is a real disappointment.

The graphics follow a similar theme. Barcelona itself has been pretty beautifully rendered, with some great representations of the significant landscapes, buildings and features, and some nice texture work too. Additionally, the frame rate is solid too. Vin himself looks pretty good, but when compared to Riddick it’s not so impressive.

The rest of the characters vary from not as good as Milo to frankly terrible, with low poly counts, generic design and terrible animation. Talking of which, even Vin himself is animated pretty badly, looking like he needs the loo every time that you run.

The lack of licensed cars also really hurts the game, and the fact that there only about 5 generic models in addition to the 2 licensed models means you get tired of what’s on offer real quick.

"Wheelman" is a really great concept that has been let down quite badly by some obvious budget cuts. The face that there are only 2 licensed cars means that they stand out, whilst the selection of generic cars is too small. The music is poor and there is no multiplayer. It’s also pretty short when compared to most open world games. However, the core racing and combat is a blast, and the special moves are just fantastic. The story itself is also pretty reasonable.

'Wheelman' isn’t a perfect game, but it’s pretty fun whilst it lasts, and might consider buying it when it's a bargain.