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Vin Diesel is expert Wheelman Milo Burik, out to expose the criminal Barcelona underworld.
Vin Diesel is expert Wheelman Milo Burik, out to expose the criminal Barcelona underworld.Vin Diesel is expert Wheelman Milo Burik, out to expose the criminal Barcelona underworld.

If you haven't got a clue what Wheelman is, let us clear it up for you. It's Midway Newcastle's attempt to make a next-gen Driver, set in Barcelona and with the help of Hollywood hard man Vin Diesel, himself an avid gamer and star of the game.

Funnily enough, the first Driver game, released on the PlayStation a decade ago (my God, I'm getting old) was called Driver: You Are the Wheelman. The second was called Driver 2: The Wheelman is Back. And if those similarities weren't enough, get this. The Driver series is developed by Reflections Interactive, now Ubisoft Reflections, also in Newcastle.

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And so, now we have Wheelman, which fuses elements of GTA, Burnout, and, to my eye, PSP arcade racer Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. The GTA feeling comes from the mini-map in the bottom right hand corner of the screen (complete with text message icon). It comes from the premise of the game - it's an open world game and has an adult, gangster twang - Vin Diesel, aka expert Wheelman Milo Burik, is an undercover agent who poses as a driver-for-hire in order to infiltrate the criminal Barcelona underworld and gather intel on a heist. And of course there are on-foot sections, with melee fighting, third-person shooting and car jacking.

Then there's the Burnout influence. Midway Newcastle has certainly recreated an impressive sense of speed, with some spectacular Hollywood-style stunts, as well as forgiving car handling and easy to pull off handbrake turns, but, it has also included a special move - vehicle melee. Stay with us.

Wheelman fuses elements of GTA and BurnoutWheelman fuses elements of GTA and Burnout

Driving is as you would expect, controlled with an acceleration button and the left thumb stick. But you can also shift your car in any direction with the right thumb stick. So, for example, drive up alongside an enemy vehicle and push the right stick in its direction, and your car will dart towards it, sending it flying. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do it does become intuitive. The burning question for us was, is the vehicle melee a cool gameplay mechanic or a silly one?
Shaun Himmerick, executive producer at Midway Newcastle, is certainly convinced of the vehicle melee, as I discovered when I interviewed him at Midway's recent Gamers' Day in Las Vegas. "You know in a lot of car racing games when you destroy the other cars it's just like, bumping bumping bumping bumping. Vehicle melee for us is like smash, smash! Three or four big hits. Car goes tumbling, barrel rolls, slams into a fruit car. We wanted that over the top Hollywood feel."

Despite what you think about the vehicle melee in Wheelman, Shaun reckons that it's guaranteed to be copied by other driving games in the future.

"When we have our focus testers in they literally say, "oh I can't believe Burnout doesn't have this!". It's so instinctive, driving then suddenly slam it left, Bam! Take that car out, send it flying. I guarantee that's the one that will get stolen."

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