The Wheelman is a title that promises to deliver the thrill of summer action movies to a video game. This goal isn’t extremely lofty, but with Vin Diesel backing it, The Wheelman had the potential to be another Escape From Butcher Bay. Unfortunately, this seems too much to expect from struggling Midway, who turned a potentially great idea into another average game. It isn’t terrible, but you will have to suspend your disbelief, much more than you would in any blockbuster movie.
The first hour is promising, starting you in a colourful rendition of Barcelona, with a few easy escape missions to demonstrate the game’s neat driving mechanics. You can dart laterally with a car by using the right stick, which is great for avoiding close obstacles, but is best used to “check” other vehicles (ala Burnout). There’s a sense of maniacal satisfaction in the hard crunch before a fiery end for a sorry opponent. You can also “air jack,” where Vin leaps from his moving car to another, smashing his feet through the window like Indiana Jones before taking control. This does wonders in keeping the chase flowing, as when your car takes too much damage, you don’t have to stop to get into another vehicle. You can also boost and slow down time, but these are both almost useless. Boosting just blurs the screen around you, but barely gives you any extra speed, and while slowing down time is great for blowing out tires, evidently driving school in Barcelona teaches everyone how to handle a car perfectly, at high speed, while riding on three rims. Nevertheless, The Wheelman’s driving is insanely fun. You always feel at the edge of your seat, barely scraping around the final corner, with twenty cars chasing your burning wreck. Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from here.
Vin Diesel plays Milo Belic, a wheelman for hire originally from Miami. Except, not really. He works for the CIA, or RAI, or something. He wants jobs from gangs around Barcelona to get to “the package,” which can apparently destroy the world. I think. None of this is very well explained, and it’s strung together so poorly, it makes The Fast and the Furious seem Oscar worthy. Video games aren’t known for their great stories, but if you’re going to hire a well-known actor, at least make the plot cohesive. Diesel delivers a solid performance, which can’t be terribly hard when he plays the same character in everything, but he puts in stark contrast the awful acting of everybody else. Cheesy lines with overdone accents just don’t play in 2009.
Speaking of archaic stuff, why does everything need a glowing coloured marker around it? It really takes away from the immersion when beams of green light shoot down from the sky to tell me the Romanians are having car trouble. And yes, this is the first game to include Romanian gangs (finally!).
After the very first mission, Milo says “You always know where I am, behind the wheel.” The lying sonuvabitch! About a quarter of the game is spent on foot, and while this doesn’t sound like much, clunky controls and animations make you wish The Wheelman just stayed in the damn car!
If you’re looking for something to play until The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena comes out, and have somehow finished the pile of great games from the holiday, The Wheelman isn’t a terrible choice. The arcade driving can pack a thrilling punch, and most of the mechanics work well. Just be wary of the terrible plot, acting, and shooting, and you should have a decent drive into the sunset.
