Wheelman Review

Big vehicles make melee attacks more brutal

There's never a dull moment in Wheelman, and the designers have done a good job of adding variety to a game that could have got old very quickly. You'll have to transport a massive truck across the city while being attacked by goons, creep through the side streets to evade the cops (there's a GTA-style star-based wanted system in place here) while trying to get a "friend" to a bomb disposal expert, hijack heavily armed vehicles protected by a police escort and trash advertising put up throughout the city. And this isn't all you can do, with fun little side missions always available if you want a break from the story.

By taking part in the many side missions on offer (there really are loads, with more and more opening up as you meet the game's full cast of characters), which range from taxi jobs to wanton destruction and street races, you'll earn upgrades to vehicle performance, vehicle attack power, vehicle health and your Focus gauge. These upgrades make for a nice bonus reason to play through the non-story-based missions, but you'll want to play them for the sheer thrill anyway. Side missions are often little more than filler in open world games, but here there are ranks to achieve and clear rewards that make them a real time sink.

And then there's the on-foot combat. It more or less had to be included as guns sell games and this is one of Hollywood's premier action heroes we're talking about, but it's still by far the weakest aspect of Wheelman's action-packed gameplay. You can fire a weapon by locking onto an enemy, switching targets with a flick of the right stick, or aim with more precision. Perhaps it's GTA 4's influence seeping into our thoughts, but the lack of a cover system here makes the on-foot sections feel dated. Milo can duck, allowing him to stand behind cover and pop up when firing, but it all feels slow and awkward.

What's also quite jarring is how dull the on-foot action is compared to when you're behind the wheel of a car. Had Midway Newcastle thrown in some of the mechanics from Midway's incredibly fun Stranglehold, we'd have had a game that could have rivalled the big summer blockbuster movies in terms of sheer spectacle. As it stands you'll have to play through the on-foot sections to progress, but will likely be very glad to get behind a wheel again.

On-foot combat isn't so great, but it's not the game's focus.

Built using the Unreal Engine 3, Wheelman is no slouch in the visual department, running at a decent clip and featuring an impressive amount of destruction. There's the odd frame rate slip up (something that's sadly more of a problem in the PS3 version) and characters look fake and plastic, but on the whole Wheelman looks rather good. Barcelona looks great, albeit not quite as busy as it probably is, there's decent environment variety across the map and loading times when you hop straight to missions aren't too bad.

Audio work is solid, with Vin Diesel providing his gruff action man tones for Milo and the supporting cast doing a decent job too. For some reason we felt Vin's voice didn't quite gel, standing out a little from the rest of the cast, but it's a minor issue that others might not even notice. The soundtrack (which is played over your vehicle's radio stations) is nothing spectacular, especially compared to what we've seen in other open world games, but it's certainly passable.

Fun can be found in the simplest of things, and Wheelman nails car combat to the extent that it carries the whole game on its wheels. There are clear issues, with re-spawning enemy drivers causing a whole heap of hassle at times, and the aforementioned on-foot combat is forgettable at best, but for the most part you'll want to stay behind the wheel. There's enough here to keep you going for some time too (certainly longer than your average action game), so if the idea of a crazy, almost stuntman-like car-based action game sounds like your kind of thing, Wheelman shouldn't be passed up.