Wheelman

The Wheelman can’t beat the likes of other driving and carnage games out there, but it’s worth a try if you’re a fan of Vin Diesel or enjoy jumping into speeding cars.

While Wheelman won’t win any games for originality it’s still a fun game which is packed to the brim with action, it’s definitely worth the cost of a rental fee if you are on the fence.

Packed with high-speed chases, car combat (you can bump rivals into walls) and ridiculous explosions, the game's still far from perfect. Sloppy looking characters, excessive loading and average on-foot shooting keep it several steps behind the competition. As a rental, however, Wheelman offers some decent thrills.

Wheelman isn’t exactly the smartest video game out there. In fact, it’s quite possibly the dumbest game I’ve played in a long while. However, it’s wickedly self-aware of its own silliness and revels in it, leading to the kind of guilty pleasure that can only come with such a willful grasp of absurdity. And smashing things up, of course.

Wheelman is a relatively successful movie based game without a movie. It translates spectacular over-the-top cinematic racing action to an accessible game, set in the pleasant surroundings of Barcelona. Unfortunately its gameplay is so dumbed down that it lacks any challenge whatsoever, making Wheelman a decent – but flawed – snack that lies somewhere in-between GTA IV, Driver, and Burnout.

Quite frankly, we’re as stunned as you are. Just take one look at that box, that exploitable genre, that celebrity-endorsed title; everything about Wheelman screams disaster, except the game itself.

While it won’t win huge awards, The Wheelman remains a fun game to experience. The saddest part of all is that Midway’s economic problems have clearly hampered the development of the game. It feels unfinished, unpolished and compressed into its simplest form. When you go to the store to buy it or rent it, just don’t expect to be blown away and it won’t hurt your feelings.

Something about The Wheelman doesn't feel entirely finished. It could be the graphics, which look sloppy and fall victim to all of the downfalls of the Unreal 3 engine. Texture pop-ins are almost constant, and they don't even look that good once they are fully displayed.

Though it’s fun at first due to the arcade steering, Wheelman quickly decelerates to a halt, because of the dull story and the imbalanced difficulty.

Wheelman is saved by the fact that none of its flaws affect the core of the gameplay and, by extension, its entertaining value. It's an incredibly direct game, a rarity in this generation. If you can look beyond its absurd plot, going berserk in Barcelona has never been this fun.

This game is actually a lot of fun while it lasts, but the missions soon begin to blend into one another and the side missions are just not that entertaining. The on foot sections of the game are frankly dire, but if you are after a few hours of fun you could do much worse than lose yourself in this.

I wasn’t expecting much out of Wheelman, and then Vin showed me he means business. Wheelman is a fun ride, but ultimately forgettable once it the ride is over.

The story is bland and doesn't match the fast pace of the gameplay, but actually playing the game is really fun. The glitches occur a bit more frequently than I would like to see, but overall the experience is fun, and delivers on the sense of being a totally badass wheelman.

Midway Studios Newcastle and Tigon Studios have created one of the most frantic games of the market, which unfortunately fails in its lack of depth and repetitiveness.

My expectations and hopes weren't dashed. I instead got a sort of fun action game that has some cool missions but some terrible flaws and an awful story.

The Wheelman is a fusion between the sandbox and the race genre. Featuring ideas taken from games like Driver, Need for Speed and GTA, Vin Diesel is the main figure of the staff between the game. Controlling Milo Burik, a sort of undercover cop, we´ll travel to Barcelona to see what´s happening there. We´ll never know which is our real objective, and the plot lacks depth and connection. Racing through Barcelona, we found a decent game that has a mix of driving and shooting. Pack this with a fair graphic engine and you have a title that performs well but is not at the level of the best.

Wheelman draws influence from a number of other titles, and fails to provide anything really new to the mix. Some initial excitement is offset quickly by repetition, and ultimately the game suffers for it.

Wheelman is a merely correct videogame that could be improved with more inspiration in its development. Nothing is especially good or bad in this Vin Diesel flick, but it needs that point that pushes us to play and/or recommend it. With the enormous supply of quality Sand-Box in the market, the option of Wheelman is only useful for those who are done with Saint’s Row 2 or GTA IV.

I appreciate Vin Diesel’s love for gaming, and the plans he has for future games, but I can’t help but hope that the subsequent releases from his studio don’t cater to his Hollywood nature. His games will benefit from it.

Unfortunately, while on paper it might have sounded like a Fast and Furious calibre idea, in reality Wheelman is barely a Pacifier.

Fun, fast and, on occasions, furiously agitating, Wheelman is a rental-worthy release through and through.

Wheelman offers plenty of movie-style thrills, although it's hamstrung by terrible on-foot gameplay.

Wheelman is best described as a B-movie. Bad production values and a lousy script. However, the funny one-liners, bad dialog and over-the-top action make up for lost ground. Wheelman is by far a good game, but still a very enjoyable one.

If you’re looking for a GTA-style title with Vin Diesel in it, then you’ve found your game. If you’re looking for an open-world, arcade-style racer, then you may want to look elsewhere. Wheelman flirts on the buggy side and the over-the-top, cinematic action is often bogged down by silly additions and weird design decisions.

This could have been an inspired game, and it certainly contains some original touches and good ideas. However, just when it should be hitting top gear it is knocked back into neutral by inconsistencies and average execution.

We couldn’t really recommend purchasing Wheelman – not at full price anyway. For the sheer fact that it isn’t necessarily painful to play, you might want to chuck some cash in Wheelman’s general direction when it inevitably hits the bargain bins, but that, as they say, is your whack.

It's certainly mechanically sound, but you should probably attempt to find it at a slight discount.

But poor storytelling, dull mission structure, lack of variety in the location and a lack of polish left me wanting much more.

While Wheelman is great fun in a vehicle, on foot it becomes decidedly average. [May 2009, p.122]

If you mix together gameplay elements from Driver, Grand Theft Auto, Burnout and then throw some Vin Diesel in there the result is The Wheelman. An action filled experience where driving cars actually offers an entertaining experience during the somewhat repetitive missions. There is a total lack of storytelling in the game, and the sequences on foot are quite mediocre, but if you can look past this you'll be treated to a decent action experience.

The Wheelman can be fun in small doses, but it quickly becomes repetitive and even with the additional tasks and missions, the game can’t have the personality and vibrancy needed to keep us playing through the virtual streets of Barcelona for a long time.

Brainless fun in small doses, but so many spare parts in the long run.

Thrilling pursuits are the only focus of the game, because the free roaming aspect and the on-foot sections are not enjoyable. You can save Wheelman if you like Vin Diesel. Otherwise, save your money.

You know, it’s not the end of the world, but it seems aimed squarely at people who have either never driven a car or like the cut of Vin’s jib. I’m neither, so I found it a difficult thing to appreciate in any way, shape or form. It’s too easy, too simple, too contrived. People who demand very little from their time on a game might disagree.

You'll quickly discover the game runs out of tricks and you'll grow tired of the drudgery of plowing through missions. Just like any good adrenaline rush, you'll come crashing back down.

Contains a few neat innovations, but it's too clumsy to let you really enjoy them. [June 2009, p.76]

A clumsy and lifeless last-gen action game.

Sure, you might give the developers a hand when it comes to several “cool” concepts of slamming enemies into the wall with your car or leaping from car to car, but you’ll grow tired of the over-the-top action sooner rather than later.

Wheelman delivers in some entertaining driving-based action that tries extremely hard to capture any who lust for a Driver rebirth; however, there's just too much missing from the overall formula to make it an engrossing offering.

There are some highs, but they all come early, in the thrill of your first Air Jack or Cyclone, or the first hilarious ragdoll enemy death or the sight of Vin Diesel on a scooter. After that, nothing really changes. It's all smoothly presented, accessible, and easy enough to play for a few hours, but it has very little to offer beyond not making you especially angry.

It's passable for those just looking for some mindless action and fans of his films, but there's too many issues to hold this game aloft in the crowded action genre.

On paper, the mission design seems suitably varied, but before long it grows deeply repetitive. It doesn’t help that outdated design decisions, such as artificially sped-up vehicles during chase sequences, rear their ugly heads.