Vin Diesel ‘Wheelman’ Review (Xbox 360)

What do you get when you mix together The Fast and the Furious, Grand Theft Auto, and a whole lot of H20? You get a watered down GTA knockoff called ‘Wheelman,’ the latest open world car theft game from Ubisoft and Midway. Everything about ‘Wheelman’ screams GTA. However, the actual gameplay, mechanics and story contradict everything you’d find in a GTA title.

When Vin Diesel’s Tigon studios announced ‘Wheelman,’ I was actually semi-optimistic. Unlike other celeb featured games like 50 Cent: Bulletproof (Blood in the Sand hadn’t been released yet), I expected Vin would use his Hollywood contacts to create a great script coupled with enough action sequences to befit an action title starring himself. I didn’t expect much on the technical side, since this would be his studio’s first venture into the world of console gaming.

I was wrong on one out of two accounts. The story is so disjointed that it should never have been made. “Wheelman’ especially falls short of coming close to mediocrity when compared against the last few GTA titles, which it obviously stole conceptually. This begs the question, “Where was Vin Diesel’s head when this story was scripted?”

In Wheelman, you star as Milo Burik, an American that miraculously finds his way inside Spain’s underworld thanks to his driving prowess. Your driving skills earn you the title of Wheelman with all of Spain’s notorious sleaze buckets.

The game begins with an intense opening car chase sequence that will have you amped to continue playing ‘Wheelman.’ You are given four Vehicle Melee attacks using the control stick. You can drift left and right to ram the policia into buildings. There’s a backwards drift to ram cars behind you. And, you can also push the control stick forward to burst through roadblocks. What’s really cool here are the real-time cut scenes that happen when you knock out one of the police cars chasing you. If a police car is badly damaged and you drift into it, you may trigger an explosion as the car bursts into flames against one of the adjacent buildings. These cut scenes are great to watch.

After the dramatic police chase through the streets of Barcelona, you realize that you’re not just a simple American seeking the affection of Spain’s underworld. You’re a CIA operative working in Spain. Where’s James Bond when you need him?

Be sure to soak up as much story as possible from the opening scene. Because once it’s over – it’s over. There is no actual story linking any of the missions within ‘Wheelman’ together. You just go through missions at your leisure, pissing off a bad guy here and earning the loyalty of criminal there. Once a mission is completed, you’re given a dossier on the Spaniard you just encountered.

There are several side missions to break the monotony of the game, but they seem to just be floating out in limbo. This is an open world game, but you’re given a map that allows you to teleport from mission to mission. If you feel like driving a taxi, go to the map, select the yellow bubble and you’ll magically appear in a taxi to drop off a passenger in the allotted time. In GTA, this experience was more interactive since you actually had to rob a taxi car and then find a passenger. The most fun side missions are the fugitive missions. There’s no real premise as to why you’re a fuguitive, you just are and the police are on your tail. You’ll have to ditch them by getting to a safe house in the allotted time. Players are ranked based on how fast they are able to make it to safety. The funny part about fugitive mode is that you need a car to start. Let me explain. If you’re on foot and go to the world map for a taxi mission you teleport into a taxi. By contrast, you are not allowed to use the world map in fugitive mode unless you are already in a car. In general, there is no specific reason as to why you’re a fugitive all of a sudden – you just are.

I was extremely struck at how bad some of the character models were, especially Vin Diesel. He’s the star of the game, but the minute he gets out of the car and you see his face you wonder what the hell it is you’re looking at. His face is a circular blob with no features. It almost feels like the developers forgot to add in detail to his face because they were running short on time. Instead of seeing Diesel, you see a character model that could be Vin Diesel with glossy eyes and a stenciled mouth.

The settings are reasonably close to those of its Spanish roots. The buildings have rich vivid colors. Unfortunately, Spain is one dead city in ‘Wheelman.’ You would expect that in using a country with such a culturally rich landscape as Spain you would be afforded the opportunity to throw in some cultural references in the landscape. Maybe feature a Running of the Bulls? However, every street in Barcelona looks just like the street you just drifted from. You might as well be driving around South Beach. There’s a subway station that you can ride through for what feels like days on end, but there isn’t any actual train traffic.

While we’re on the subject of the subway stations, it’s only fair to mention that any car you ride in possesses god-like stability. I took excessive amounts of damage to my vehicle on more than one occasion and it didn’t catch fire or explode. When I was on the run from the police, I dashed inside the subway station, and rammed my car through countless baracades. In the end, my car was still as good as new. I couldn’t say the same for the police who took two drifts from me and exploded into a blazing inferno.

As the game progresses, you are given a few more vehicle attacks to use. As you build up speed you can perform slow motion attacks like the 180 degree cyclone and bullet time shoot outs with cars behind and in front of you. There’s an auto-aim feature where a bulls-eye will appear on an enemy car’s gas tank or engine and if you shoot it, you’ll trigger a cut scene explosion.

The best part about Wheelman is Airjacking. When you get close enough to a car in-front of you, you can jump right out of your driver seat, onto the top of the car you were following and then dive right in the passenger window to steal the car. This may be insanely ludicrous, but Airjacking never gets old. Unfortunately, you can’t jack or Airjack a cop car, which I found to be limiting.

The on-foot gameplay will make you wish there was no on-foot gameplay. Vin moves around like he has to take a severe dump. About an hour into the game, you will be given your first gun mission. Aiming the gun is painfully awkward. Also, you’re given the opportunity to switch out between two guns. The second gun clings to your back Master Chief style. One can only wonder if Vin’s back is made of Velcro. Plus, you can’t hurt any pedestrians. If you’re going to steal from GTA you had better make sure to steal everything and not just the car steeling part – which, by the way, wasn’t done right either. In one mission your asked to make a daring rescue and bring the captive back to the safe house. Somehow your passenger doesn’t actually need to open the door to the car to get in. Every time you switch cars he can magically teleport inside your vehicle. The fun doesn’t stop there. If you’re on foot, cars don’t actually have to be at a full stop already for you to steal them. Press the Y-button any nearby driver will stop and gladly hand over their car.

Vin Diesel’s voice over is great. The characters around him, however, sound like something out of a 80s cartoon mockery. Don’t get me wrong, I love the GI Joe Wild Bills, Transformers’ Iron Hide, and Destro voices of the world. I just think if you’re going for cliché do it throughout, and not just on any non-Diesel character. The actual music is very good and gives you a feel for Spain. Although, I’ve got to admit I wish there was more customization of music in the actual missions.

Maybe I’m just hoping, but I get the feeling that Vin wasn’t involved in the development of this title at all. How could he have signed off on such a poorly scripted story topped off with insultingly bad character model of himself? You would expect that as a Hollywood actor, Vin would be used to reading and reviewing scripts to see if a part is right for him. Heck, Vin made his career by creating his own film short Multi-Facial. Yet, outside of the cut scenes there is little feeling that any film-making influence that went into the creation of this game. Thankfully, this disjointed story can be finished in eight hours.

Tigon studios ‘Wheelman’ definitely has its fun moments causing random vandalism throughout the streets of a make-shift Spain. However, a poorly scripted story coupled with irrelevant missions and shoddy technicals severely hurt Diesel’s first venture into game creation. If you’re a fan of violence and want to get your Tokyo Drift on in Spain, then you may want to check this one out. Just make sure you know that this game isn’t worth the 59.99 price tag.