The Wheelman shapes up for February

By Robert Purchese Published 20 November, 2008

Can Vin Diesel pull off another Riddick?

Midway plans to release Hollywood-style driving game The Wheelman on 20th February. This is the game recently pushed back to 2009 in order to allow more time to improve the quality.

The Wheelman is a collaboration between Midway Newcastle and Tigon Studios for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Film star Vin Diesel founded Tigon Studios back in 2002. It played a key role in the development of the excellent Chronicles of Riddick games.

The idea in The Wheelman is to infiltrate and expose an underground crime syndicate in Barcelona by offering your services as a top notch driver for hire.

"We're designing Wheelman to play like a Hollywood blockbuster," mumbled Vin Diesel, who main character Milo Burlik looks, sounds and acts like.

"Playing this game will be just like taking control of the greatest car chases from feature films, except this time you're in the driver's seat."

Glitzy mission-based driving, then, sparked by the ability to ram other cars off the road and pull-off set piece-style moves.

"This is not just another run-of-the-mill, licensed Hollywood knock-off," said Midway boss Matt Booty, who's throwing millions of pounds at marketing for the project.

Head over to The Wheelman gamepage for our first impressions, plus all the media released to date.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Quint2020 #1 4 years ago

    Tigon and Starbreeze made one of my all time favourite games with Escape From Butcher Bay but this time they're working with Midway.........

    I won't be holding my breath.
    Edited by Quint2020 at 20/11/08 @ 09:41

  • pjmaybe #2 4 years ago

    I dunno, I've seen the footage. It looks very much like they've nicked a few of the assets from Stranglehold, so it might turn out alright.

    Anyway guns + driving + shallowness = WIN in my book

  • NinjaWilliams #3 4 years ago

    May give this a shot, could be WHEELY good! :p

  • Triggerhappytel #4 4 years ago

    Isn't this based on a movie of the same name? Makes all their comments about how it will look and play like a Hollywood movie seem a bit... pointless..?

    Also:

    "Can Vin Diesel pull off another Riddick?"

    Almost certainly not, no. The driving sections look kinda fun albeit really shallow, but the on-foot sections look really lame. There's a glimmer of hope with Tigon involved, but I'm not expecting another Butcher Bay. I'd like it to do well though, as its UK-developed, isn't it?

  • Bongo #5 4 years ago

    UK developed at Midway Newcastle, and there is no film tie-in. It's a standalone game.

  • muscleblade #6 4 years ago

    "The Wheelman shapes up for February"

    Vin Diesel need to shape up too. He looks out of shape lately. More tuna and broccoli less pizza and beer should do the trick.

  • SEVQA #7 4 years ago

    The Wheelman, sounds like a disabled super hero!

    The Wheelman AKA Chris Reeves!


  • CapnCloudchaser #8 4 years ago

    It's like a cross between Burnout Paradise and Driver. I'm really interested to see how well it does.