Wheelman

Even better than the wheel thing.

The last time Vin Diesel got involved in videogame production, it all turned out rather nicely. Arguably 2004's game of the year, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay demonstrated in breathtaking fashion how to make good use of a movie licence. Billed by Midway as "the true driving force" behind The Wheelman, the bald beefcake and his Tigon Studio cohorts are hoping to have a similarly dizzying effect on The Wheelman, Midway Newcastle's "ultimate car-chase experience" due for release on 360, PS3 and PC this autumn.

Produced in tandem with the MTV Films/Paramount movie of the same name, it's all about going on the run from the US mafia, driving like a loony around Barcelona, and shooting lots of people in the name of protecting a woman from your inevitably dark past. Presumably, you're a bit fond of this lovely lady, so it's "your job to set the factions against each other to cover a daring heist", and come out with deathly cool one-liners in that famously deadpan drawl that only Vin Diesel and people with throat cancer can.

Playable for the first time at Midway's Gamers Day event in Las Vegas, we got a hands-on with the first and seventh mission in the game, supervised by the game's creative director Simon Woodroffe (previously responsible for super creepy survival-horror stealth nightmare Call of Cthulhu, fact fans). As the Midway reps are keen to remind us, the focus here is very much on "over-the-top, intense vehicle combat" - kind of a logical progression of what Reflections were trying to achieve with Driv3r and Stuntman before it all went horribly wrong. With the crazed destruction of the long-forgotten Wreckless, the in-car combat of Starsky & Hutch, and a sprinkling of third person on-foot shooting, The Wheelman definitely feels like it has been produced on an endless diet of Vodka Red Bulls.

Nose to meet you.

Right from the word go, it's about driving like an unlicensed Soho minicab driver on a Saturday night, smashing into everything, barreling around corners, jumping off ramps through buildings, taking out your pursuers, playing Bhangra music at high volume and generally trying to get from A to B with scant regard for your passenger's safety. Heavily inspired by the best car-chase movies (Ronin, Bourne Identity, Bullitt, Vanishing Point, et al), you'll be following barked instructions, and trying to get to the green blob on the mini-map without being killed. Doing so will build your reputation, although Woodroffe said the openworld nature of the game would leave it very much up to players whether to plump for the missions, or simply mess about with the 'Burnout Paradise-style' extreme stunt challenges dotted around the game's Barcelona-inspired setting.

During the two missions we played, the formula's an instantly familiar one for anyone who's been gorging on openworld action-driving games for the past seven years. The driving has that accessible GTA-style handling, with hugely forgiving steering and a satisfying use of handbrake turns. From what we could glean, you'll generally drive to the marker, get out, shoot a bunch of perps, rescue so-and-so, escort them to a drop-off point while fending off a relentlessly aggressive chasing pack of Uzi-toting maniacs. If your ride gets shot to bits, you can simply get out and carjack any vehicle you see nearby and carry on, just as you might expect.

One of the areas where Vin Diesel has had a key influence is on the direction and game mechanics of these manic chase sequences. "He's a really passionate gamer," explains Woodroffe. "You can see that in every way he's been involved in this project. I never really expected that from an A-list Hollywood star."

Via various production meeting, Diesel advised on The Wheelman's 'Super Moves'. Essentially, 'cool driving' helps build up your Focus Meter, and, when topped up, gives you access to time-limited moves that give you the upper hand when the heat is on. Accessible via up on the d-pad, The Cyclone slows time down while allowing you to swing the car around 180 degrees for ten seconds or so. At this point, you've got a brief window in which to loose off a deadly volley of targeted pot shots at specific parts of your pursuers. To help you out, you can cycle between red targeting reticules and take out individual tyres, as well as the occupants of the vehicle itself.

When it's all over, the car swings back around and it's time to focus on the small matter of driving like a loon. To add a further layer to the mechanics, how well you can aim during these sequences depends on how well you're driving, so if you're doing cool handbrake turns and generally not crashing into walls every five seconds, you'll be able to hit the target when it counts.

Another key element of the driving combat is the use of the right stick to ram opponents off the road. Rather than simply steering to ram, you can effectively focus on driving in a straight line but have a rather more forceful barge effect when you apply the right stick. In addition, when opponents sidle up, using the left bumper (or L1 on the PS3) allows you to shoot at where the automatic reticule dictates - such as at their tyres or at the individuals busily shooting the shit out of your ride.

'Wheelman' Screenshot 2

Shooting often makes driving more fun.

As you might expect, The Wheelman is a game with an awful lot of destruction going on. Practically every piece of scenery can be smashed to bits in spectacular fashion, while the vehicle damage modelling has been lavished with a similarly pleasing degree of care. While it's fair to comment that the frame-rate's not quite there yet, at this early stage, with months of polish to come, the final game ought to boast impressively chaotic scenes. Evidently the scripted levels lead you via the most damage-happy routes possible, but the freedom to take your own route is also apparent.

The serious concern right now is how the on-foot elements will be bedded into the missions. In the demo missions shown off, the scripted AI is clearly nowhere near finished, and the rather loose aiming mechanics and absence of cover utilisation left everyone in no doubt that there's still a lot of work to do in shoring up this part of the game. To give Midway some slack, the publisher admits that the difficulty was set at a low level during Gamers Day, so we'll have to see how this part of the game develops over the coming months.

Comments (26) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dan13l #1 4 years ago

    Hang on, haven't finished reading yet, but "Ronan" - is that the story of an irish pop singer who likes to indulge in car chases at the weekend?

    You mean Ronin, yes?
  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #2 4 years ago

    Is Midway Newcastle the studio that gave us LA Rush, or the studio formally known as Reflections?
  • actionfitz #3 4 years ago

    ^
    lol. "Ronan Keatings' Road Rage"- coming soon to PS3 and XBox 360...
    sounds like something you'd pick up from the pre-owned section in Game... then peel off the sticker and re-trade it back in towards something decent the next day. hehe

    Though the 'Riddick' Game kicked ass. (butchers bay?). so Mr Diesel (lol) has built up a wee bit of goodwill from me :)
    I loved the original 'Driver' on PS1 (except for the 30 min or so it took me to get out of the effing garage at the start -.- ).
    lets hope its nothing like the sequels to that game though.
    Driv3r was so bad im sure it gave me cancer of the thumbs just from trying to play it.
    (thank god i had the wisdom to borrow it before buying).
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/08 @ 12:04
  • That_Happy_Cat #4 4 years ago

    Ronan.... "Midway do it best... when they do nothing at all"
  • coojam #5 4 years ago

    "lol. "Ronan Keatings' Road Rage"- coming soon to PS3 and XBox 360...
    sounds like something you'd pick up from the pre-owned section in Game... then peel off the sticker and re-trade it back in towards something decent the next day. hehe "

    Dude, you know places give refunds these days don't you lol?
  • acidmonkey #6 4 years ago

    reflections is now ubisoft, midway in newcastle i think was a take-2 studio before
  • Johnson #7 4 years ago

    >> "You can see that in every way he's been involved in this project. I never really expected that from an A-list Hollywood star."

    I wouldn't have expected that from an A-lister either. Vin Diesel on the other hand...
  • GrandTheftApu #8 4 years ago

    Seems very heavily influenced by the film 'The Transporter'
  • Quint2020 #9 4 years ago

    I'm going to open myself up to a barrage of mockery but i'm actually quite a fan of Vin Diesel.

    Starbreeze and Diesel's Tigon Studios created one of my favourite games of all time with Escape From Butcher Bay so i'm really hoping this will be of the same great standard (though Midway's name being attached to it doesn't exactly fill me with hope).

    Either way if this is basically Driver 2 next gen done well then i'll be happy.
  • Fab4 #10 4 years ago

    "The serious concern right now is..." how bad your tag-lines are becoming ;)
  • monkie_king #11 4 years ago

    Mentalist: yes, they're the Newcastle-based driving game specialists formerly known as Pitbull Syndicate, as opposed to the Newcastle-based driving game specialists Reflections, or Newcastle-based driving game specialists Eutechnyx.
  • mingster #12 4 years ago

    Quint2020... don't worry your not alone.

    I completed butchers bay on the xbox and thought it was great.
    and i liked chronicles of riddick and pitch black.
  • pjmaybe #13 4 years ago

    Quite encouraging. In a year chock-full of grand theft alsos, this is going to have to be spectacular.

    Midway / Tigon should've had a chat with the Stranglehold boys when it comes to the on-foot sections methinks :)
  • Skooch #14 4 years ago

    "deathly cool one-liners"

    Let's hope it is better than XXX; I still remember cringing horribly when Vin Diesel sends a heat-seeking rocket after a guy smoking a cigarette and then says "I told him smoking would kill him one day".
  • T4RG4 #15 4 years ago

    I dont know why Eurogamer gives such an easy ride to previews... afraid of the publisher/dev not letting you review in the future? Preview builds showcase a developers quality as much as the likelihood of the game being any good.
  • Quint2020 #16 4 years ago

    "I still remember cringing horribly when Vin Diesel sends a heat-seeking rocket after a guy smoking a cigarette and then says "I told him that cigarette would kill him one day"."

    Lool i loved that one liner, Triple X was a good old school dumb as a bucket of shit action movie. It did what it did very well imo, sometimes watching shit blow up is just fun (see commando).
  • Monkey #17 4 years ago

    Add a dash of Getaway
    Add a sprig of The Transporter
    Think The Fast & The Furious

    et voila
    The Wheelman

    I.. thank you!

    :)
  • asphaltcowboy #18 4 years ago

    lol @ the Ronan jokes - well played!
  • glaeken #19 4 years ago

    I can not really take Vin Diesel seriously anymore since I watched the below.

    [link url=http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=KzFAHv5iHmc
    ]http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=KzFAHv5iHmc
    [/link]

    The game might be Ok though.
  • dan13l #20 4 years ago

    The stealthy swines have fixed the Ronan error now. And don't try and tell us it was a typo Eurogamer - the a and i are at opposite ends of the keyboard.

    I'm watching you sunshine...
  • miiiguel #21 4 years ago

    Vin Dieasel is a cool character in a kietsche kinda way. It resembles in a way to early Arnold, as he also has a very good movie (as Arnold has the 1st Terminator) - Pitch Black.
    I can't praise the XXX titles though, they're, imho, very, very bad.
  • penhalion #22 4 years ago

    Naw they meant Roland from grange hill surely

    /get's coat
  • holy_bazooka #23 4 years ago

    someone should say this here,
    call of cthulu was an awesome videogame. sad that nobody played it.
  • Davemanz #24 4 years ago

    "I never really expected that from an A-list Hollywood star."

    They're not doing a very good job of hiding the celebrity gimmick.
  • TheJuriel #25 4 years ago

    Driver + Vin Diesel should be awesome. I'm just worried about the on-foot sections...
  • dadrester #26 4 years ago

    Is Midway Newcastle the studio that gave us LA Rush, or the studio formally known as Reflections?

    LA Rush... iirc "reflections" is now called "ubisoft reflections"... nice office right by the telegraph... mmm... the telegraph... mmmm... cold beer...