Xbox 360 Review – Wheelman

Wheelman
Published by: Ubisoft
Developed by: Tigon
Genre: Action/Open World Driving
ESRB Rating:

Reviewed by: Brian Allen

Wheelman piles on heavy heapings of style over substance and in that regard almost succeeds in carving out a new niche in sandbox games. I’m wondering what might have happened if this game hadn’t been bouncing between publishers during Midway’s bankruptcy.

Vin Diesel is part of the draw here as Milo Burik, a hard nosed CIA agent undercover as a criminal and – I’ll stop because we’ve seen Diesel play this character before and will again.

The story doesn’t matter in this game anymore than it does in many of Diesel’s movies. All you need to know is that the laws of physics do not apply when Milo drives. His special moves are really the only thing that separates Wheelman from any other sandbox game.

Milo jacks cars by leaping onto his own vehicle hood and then into the passenger seat of the target car, drop kicking the driver into the street. If imagining that doesn’t take you too far toward a head explosion, you’re playing the right game. Other special moves include “The Cyclone” which allow to turn your vehicle completely around, drive backwards and blast fools. These tricks add some much needed new twist to “bullet time.” What would games and movies be doing now if not for The Matrix?

These special moves have to be earned by skillful driving and crazy stunts ala the Burnout series.  You begin with a vehicle melee move that allows you to flick the right thumbstick to side slam opposing vehicles. Doing this repeatedly will inevitably cause you to need a new car yourself, so you can leap quickly to another one mid-chase. These moves are fun and the next time I’m in traffic for real I’ll be fantasizing about them.

Unfortunately, like many driving game heroes,  Wheelman does himself no favors when he gets out of the car. The onfoot stages are clunky and the cover system is counter intuitive. You can’t pop anyone without sticking your own head out to get shot. This isn’t a huge problem because enemy A.I. is dumber than a sack of hammers. They pretty much line up and ask politely for their bullets.

These horrid jaunts exist mainly to pad the game’s story mode, but only serve to expose how short it is. You can breeze through the story in about six to seven hours, although side missions and the achievements for unlocking them add replay value.

Still there are plenty of other sandbox games that tally about 35-40 hours playthrough when you add all those things and they have decent achievements too. Achievement point whores will probably find it worth a playthrough. You can get several achievements by scoring even the lowest rank on side missions.

I can’t in good conscience recommend paying a full $60 for this. These days even $20 is pushing it for six hours of gameplay, seven or eight hours if you must unlock every single thing. It’s a textbook rental, as you can easily do the story mode and most of the achievements from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Now that Midway is shaking itself out under new management, I’d love to see a sequel add some more story, new special moves and perhaps even a decent reason to leave the car.

Recap:

Wheelman offers some movie-style thrills and some innovations in car combat I would like to see fleshed out. Other than that, I suspect anyone but the president of the Vin Diesel fan club is going to turn this into trade credit soon after purchase.

Final Score: 06/10 – Fair