When I first got behind the wheel of Wheelman at last year's E3, I'm not too worried to say I didn't care too much about the game. It seemed ultra cheesy, poorly constructed and lax in anything dynamic or fun. Of course E3 isn't always the best judging ground for many games as a lot of the time any product shown is simply far too early in development to get a good grasp.

So when Wheelman arrived here at AusGamers, I was still very much dubious and outwardly expecting of nothing more than a lacklustre game with Vin Diesel's name and likeness attached to try and move copies.

Fortunately for the game (and its developer), only half of my expectations were right. This is cheesy, and Vin Diesel's name really only does seem attached for good measure, but the end retail product is surprisingly fun and definitely more than competent.



The basic set up is that Wheelman is essentially a game built around the best driving mechanics of, say, Grand Theft Auto, only with a more over-the-top emphasis. Controls aren't nearly as touchy, and as such you'll find most cars (even those tiny little Smart cars) to be tough as an army tank, and most of the environment to be paper thin (in that you can pretty much smash through it all). This makes for some grand racing with plenty of destruction in tow.

The story sees our Vin Diesel infiltrating the seedy underworld of Barcelona, Spain. He's in town as a 'Wheelman', which is basically the backbone of any good criminal organisation, because when the going gets tough, you need the best driver in town to keep things under control, and you alive.

You progress through the game by performing certain driving jobs for various gangsters, and if you're not working for them, you're working against them. Missions range from escaping/losing cops to scaring the pants off a bad guy through crazy, reckless driving so he'll talk. It's all surprisingly fun and addictive, and thanks to a more than forgiving environment and some great game-world design, you'll find yourself eating this ridiculous game set-up for breakfast, lunch and tea.

Reckless driving will reward you with boosts, which you can then use to chase down bad guys or make a bigger break between you and your pursuers. You can also use it for a massive boost over any one of the myriads of conspicuous jumps scattered about the game-world. But the real place The Wheelman shines is in car combat.

There's a very different style of action riddles throughout Wheelman, and it all starts with a simple ramming mechanic allotted to your right thumbstick. Essentially pushing it up, down, left or right will violently thrust your vehicle in that direction. This makes taking down enemy cars a lot easier, and also far more cinematic, but mastering the mechanic also means you'll be able to deftly use it to avoid recourse from the baddies as well as weave in and out of heavy traffic to help build your boost meter.

It doesn't really sound like a game-changing concept, but without it, Wheelman would be a pretty ordinary game. There's an unusual amount of skill involved with mastering the use of the vehicle ram, and anyone flailing about on the thumbstick with abandon is going to end up blowing themselves up. You can utilise it to great effect, but tying it in with boosts, evasion and stylish take-downs is the absolute meat of the game.

Of course, you'd be remiss to create a game featuring Vin Diesel if you didn't actually get to properly use him, so you're not always going to be driving in Wheelman.

There are some very cool over-the-top action actions, such as leaping from your wrecked vehicle to the rooftop of one in front of you to hijack it. This is simply a case of holding a button until an icon changes colour indicating the jump is safe, but when you're in the middle of a hectic street battle with several other cars, flying through environmental debris and your own vehicle is about to blow, it can still get a tad unnerving.

There are also a handful of missions you do on foot. There's a cover and fire system, but for the most part, while these missions do break up the gameplay a bit, the third-person mechanics in Wheelman really are among its weakest points. Vin just feels sluggish in the control department, and his reactions to your inputs almost feel delayed. Maybe he's just too used to sitting on his arse, but ultimately it's these missions the game could really do without.

Visually Wheelman is a lot better than when I saw it last year. Cars are nice and shiny with some reasonable damage modelling going on. There's also a lot of background stuff happening – pedestrians, other vehicles and, of course, the copious amounts of debris you'll end up sending flying. That's a fair amount of physics along with plenty of particle effects. It's not the greatest looking game, but for what it sets out to do, Wheelman definitely works.

In all there are some 30-odd Story Missions with over 100 Side Missions on offer. Mission times range from quick five minuters to much, much longer, depending on your level of skill. But in all, there's perhaps a little too much of the same throughout, and the only time the game variates with on-foot missions, it really falls apart.

There's plenty to like here, and it's definitely a surprise, it's just unfortunate the game is only carried with any strength by a single concept. But if you like car games, explosions, shortcuts and smashing stuff to bits, you'll definitely find something of value here, just don't go expecting a genre-defining piece of software. Oh, and it has Vin Diesel in it – that might make or break your decision depending on which of his movies you've seen ;)