Wheelman
Combining spectacular Hollywood-style stunts with a gripping storyline, Wheelman provides an adrenaline-fueled, cinematic thrill ride guaranteed to leave you breathless. Vin Diesel stars as an undercover agent and highly skilled driver who must infiltrate the Barcelona underworld to gather intelligence surrounding a covert heist. Posing as a driver-for-hire, he ends up caught in a crossfire of corruption and chaos while trying to stay one step ahead of local law enforcement and rival gangs.
Get behind the wheel with Vin.
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Road rage in vehicle melee mode.
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Take to the streets when need be.
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Over-the-top cinematic action.
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A Game That Plays Like a Movie
Video games based on movies are not rare, but what is rare is a video game developed to look and play like a movie, and that is exactly what Wheelman is. Featuring the image and voice of action star Vin Diesel as undercover agent and driver for hire Milo Burik, in an entirely digital performance, Wheelman was originally planned as a launching pad for a new movie franchise of the same name. Until then, Wheelman the video game will stand as a brash celebration of car chases and on-screen collisions that do not need a movie to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Open World Gameplay and Wheelman Moves First and foremost
Wheelman is a driving game, but in its open world gameplay universe players can go anywhere, whether behind the wheel or on foot. As with other open world games, action is split between mission play, event and freeplay, with the breakdown working out to about 80% of it taking place behind the wheel or on motorcycles, to 20% while on foot. Also,
Wheelman features fully destructible environments, which allows players take advantage of special in-game features, known as
‘Wheelman Moves.’ Designed to illustrate the game’s philosophy which considers vehicles as the ultimate weapons, these features include the Vehicle Melee mode, which allows for quick and devastating vehicle sideswiping attacks; Airjacking, which allows you to jump from car to car while attacking without having to stop your vehicle as in other open world games; and the Cyclone and Aimed Shot with which players can perform devastating feats of ballistic accuracy while on the move.
Key Game Features:
- Vin Diesel Is The Wheelman - Action film megastar Vin Diesel and his Tigon Studios are again blurring the lines between entertainment mediums, this time collaborating with Midway in the design and production of Wheelman to ensure an edge-of-your-seat gaming experience. Diesel’s voice and likeness will appear as the game’s main character, expert Wheelman Milo Burik.
- The Ultimate Thrill Ride - Designed to play like a Hollywood blockbuster, Wheelman delivers all the rubber-burning, asphalt-churning excitement of the most jaw-dropping high-speed car chases.
- Open World Driving - Go where you want, do what you want, however you want. Choose your own route through the living, breathing city of Barcelona as you complete more than 30 missions and 100 side-missions, or simply drive around and take in the breathtaking Spanish architecture as you seek out all the game’s hidden cinematic jumps and golden lion statues.
- Revolutionary Car Combat - Sideswipe pursuing enemies with Wheelman’s groundbreaking Vehicle Melee car combat. Execute devastating “slam-n-ram” maneuvers in all directions with a simple flick of the joystick. But be careful, because your enemies can do the same. Once you experience Wheelman’s Vehicle Melee, you’ll never want to play another driving game without it.
- Maximum Mobility - Escape down a narrow alleyway on the back of a tricked-out motorcycle. Drive through an office building to make your getaway. Hop behind the wheel of exclusively licensed vehicles like the Pontiac G8 and Saturn Astra and make your escape in style. Drive it. Trash it. Crash it. You’re the Wheelman, it’s all up to you.
- Living, Breathing Barcelona - Set in the exotic location of Barcelona, Spain. This classic European city is densely populated with traffic and pedestrians that react intelligently to your actions as you roam around realistic environments filled with massively destructible objects.
- Cinematic Signature Stunts - Survive death-defying feats and perform pulse-pounding moves to trigger extreme over-the-top Hollywood-style mobile attack maneuvers including
- Aimed Shot - Drive and shoot at the same time while the rest of the world slows to an easy-to-target blur.
- The Air Jack - Leap from moving car to moving car to take control of a brand new ride.
- The 360° Cyclone Spin: Spin around 180° to take out anyone that’s behind you, and then spin back 180° again to resume your route.
- Hit the Pavement - Even the best Wheelman sometimes needs to get out of the vehicle. Take to the Barcelona streets for on-foot action ???but make sure to remember your guns.
Experience Spain Like You Never Expected
Barcelona, Spain - the cultural capital of Europe - known for its famous Goudi architecture, provides a cosmopolitan and unique backdrop for Wheelman. Lovingly re-created as the perfect environment for Wheelman’s incredible car chases - the city is filled with traffic, pedestrians and plenty of massive destruction. The realistic environment, authentic vehicles and the ambient sound and music contribute to create an immersive and believable game world unlike any other.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars GTA…..Almost
Sandbox game where you can do what you want when you want. You steal cars, race cars, smash up cars, upgrade cars, avoid police and kill mobsters….sound familiar? Two unique features are the ‘airjack’, basically hijacking a car from a car while moving…have been playing for about 3 days now and believe it or not the ‘airjack’ does not get old. The other being vehicle attacks (melee attacks with an automobile or motorcycle)
All in all this game, albeit a lot like GTA, still seems fresh. The game takes place in Spain, rather than New York. The dialog is VERY cheesy, Vin Diesel just does not really seem like a believable tough guy…maybe its me. The side missions are very fun, the main story almost seems optional, since the side missions in my opinion are way more engaging.
Basically if you liked GTA, you will like this. If you did not buy GTA for little Johnny at home because of the adult content, then get him this one as the cuss words and fine women have not been included (T rating).
5 Stars None stop intensity
This game is the most intense game I have ever play. None stop action. None stop fun. Everyone should buy this game.
2 Stars Fun ride, but can’t compare to others in it’s genre.
This game reminds me what a great game was all about… on the original xbox. I’ll give credit that this games car combat system is alot of fun, but the overall feel of the game serious reminds me of anything but next-gen.
The voice acting from Vin Diesel is so horrible that I don’t even pay interest the storyline anymore, and with that said the game really doesn’t even have a story at all. The graphics for the Unreal engine aren’t all that great. The open city lacks life, and any real sense of freedom since every corner you turn looks like the previous one you turned from. There is a complete lack of variety of cars, and even the small amount you have to choose from all have the same engine sound.
It amazes me how underpar this game really is, I think the creators spent too much time being intrigued with the car combat system, and air-jack factor, that they simply only put half the effort in the rest of the game. The roads are always practically open, you can’t communicate with AI pesdestrians, there are no buildings to explore, nothing you can customize, and the side missions are so boring that you’d probably be better off watching a chick flick.
If this game drops down in price to say about $19.99, then I’d say give it try for a good crashing time, but that’s all this game really brings to the table. After playing such games like, GTA and Saints row, you’ll be so underpress with this game that you’ll really be asking yourself why you are still playing it… Quick and easy Achievement points maybe?
5 Stars Hot DOGGY!
This game is wicked! I’ll be the first to admit that the game is completely stupid, but it’s stupid in such a good way. The stupidity feels more like something they were going for rather than something that was supposed to be serious and ended up badly. In other words, they use stupidity to create some of the funniest moments in gaming on purpose, and they succeed on this level wonderfully. The action is intense, the plot is pretty darned good and the game itself is simply a blast to play. Seriously ridiculous Hollywood style stunts can be pulled off, and you’ll love every last one of them ridiculous or not.
4 Stars Big Dumb Fun.
Wheelman is a bit of an enigma. Usually when games are bad, they’re just BAD, not so bad they’re good, as films often are. It’s hard to enjoy something that one could label as bad, as far as games go.
Yes, Wheelman has bad acting, bad dialog, weird mission structures, ugly faces on every character outside of Vin Diesel, but its also a lot of FUN. And when it comes down to it, the fun factor is the number one reason a game is worth your valuable gaming time or not. Wheelman is a ton of fun.
It’s got ramps and destructible objects littered all over a massive cityscape. It’s also got a ton of side missions that offer a lot of replay value. It’s got your standard street races, but here you have a pistol that targets the ‘tyres’ of your opponents, and you can physically ram or dodge with your vehicle by moving the right stick. It’s got slow-motion shooting events, while you’re still driving your vehicle. You can play ‘hot potato’ and try to grab as many cases as possible and return them ‘home’ in a limited amount of time. Sounds boring, but when some of the cases are located on the second story of buildings and you have to find a ramp to get to them, you have a great arcade mode that begs for a leaderboard companion.
It’s also got a rampage mode (destroy everything before the time runs out), taxi mode, and several others. The story mode is nothing special, but its still fun to progress through. And the better you do on your missions, the more upgrades you can unlock.
The game threw in a ton of great little gameplay elements that street racers have been missing. You’re not just a faceless driver a la the Burnout series. You have a character that develops and builds street cred along the way.
That said, the on-foot segments are pretty stale. Just run and gun. Nothing special.
Another point to mention is the ‘T’ rating. Wheelman doesn’t have the aggressive language, gory violence or sexual content that many other crime-based sandbox games (a la GTA and Saints Row) flaunt. That makes it fun for teens or even preteens. If you try to gun down a civilian or police officer, your bullets only push them away or hinder their movement. No bloody deaths. No deaths at all with the exception of other criminals.
It doesn’t try to be everything to everyone. No boring dating sims. No complex sniping missions. Just vehicle focused mayhem. Great game, a lot of fun.
Buy/More Info
PS3 Games Racing & Flying Action Star, Burik, Car Chases, Collisions, Digital Performance, Driving Game, Freeplay, Game Features, Games Action, Heist, Hollywood Style, Launching Pad, Melee, Rival Gangs, Road Rage, Skilled Driver, Undercover Agent, Vehic, Vin Diesel, World Games
