Midway Games has announced a release date for its new game, Wheelman, for the end of the coming month of March. Tigon Studios, a company founded by Vin Diesel, is working closely with Midway Games to produce this all-new video game for the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 and PC. Both these companies have assembled world class people as well as up-and-coming young talent to help produce this game.
“We’re designing Wheelman to play like a Hollywood blockbuster,” said Vin Diesel, Wheelman star and executive producer, Tigon Studios. “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.”
For the first time ever, a video game is set in Barcelona. The developer of this game has provided three reasons for this setting, primarily because it is such a beautiful city—complete with great geography, natural landmarks and breathtaking architecture, all of which have been integrated into the game. This makes for a great backdrop while you, the gamer, are creating carnage everywhere. It is also the perfect setting used to depict the real world as a basis for all the different personalities in the story (e.g., Romanian arms dealers, the Chulos street punk biker gang, and Spanish mafia). Last, but certainly not least, Barcelona is jam packed with sweeping highways and tunnels—great for high-speed pursuits, as well as narrow alleyways that are perfect for bikes and smaller vehicles.
Now, what is this video game about? In essence, the storyline is as follows: Vin Diesel is the main character playing an undercover CIA agent named Milo Burik. His job is to infiltrate the gangs of Barcelona to gather intel on a covert heist. He is an amazing driver, so he works as the “wheelman,” hence the name of the game. The cops come into play because he’s undercover, and since the local cops have no clue, he has to stay one step ahead of them.
The whole gameplay heavily reminds me of Burnout and GTA; Burnout because of its destructive theme, and GTA because of its real world focus and the third person on foot gameplay. Nevertheless, Wheelman has something to offer gamers that both these games don’t: each vehicle is finely tuned and thus the level of gameplay has gone up.
For example, each car in Wheelman has its own physics model for handling and damage, making it much more realistic and allowing the gamer to pull off better drifts, 360 spins, handbrake turns and other stunts. One of the huge features that I noticed was the Vehicle Melee System and being able to shoot at enemies while driving. The Vehicle Melee feature allows gamers to sideswipe pursuing enemies with a simple flick of the joystick. Wheelman’s devastating “slam-n-ram” manoeuvres can be carried out in all directions, just like how it would be in a Hollywood-style car chase.
It doesn’t just stop with those two features; you also have the option of being able to “Air Jack” a car. The days are over where you stop gameplay by getting out of a car and stealing a new one. In Wheelman, you can leap from one moving vehicle to another. On top of this, there is a feature called “Aimed Shot,” which enables gamers to slow down gameplay in order to achieve better accuracy while shooting targets, such as weak spots on cars. This feature works in conjunction with another called “Cyclone.” Gamers are allowed to perform the cyclone move; the cyclone move turns the vehicle 180 degrees and makes an Aimed Shot.
Now let’s get to the objective of this post: the cars and bikes. Wheelman is loaded with as many cars and classes as GTA. There are a multitude of vehicles, such as compact hatchbacks, German sedans, limousines, sport cars, vans, scooters, trucks, and sport bikes. However, let’s not forget about the weapons. Wheelman has all the standard weapons one would expect to see in such a game, including pistols, machine guns, sub-machine guns, grenade launchers, and assault rifles.
In terms of actual gameplay, Wheelman is jam-packed with action. It contains 105 side missions that are broken down into seven categories: Fugitive, Contracts, Street Showdown, Hot Potato, Taxi, Made to Order and Rampage. These side missions tie into the main story and help unlock key bonuses such as garages, weapon/ammo caches, tuning shops and taxi points. Each side mission shows up on the PDA map and sends you an email once it is unlocked.
Wheelman is such a versatile game and action packed that people from Hollywood are trying to develop a script for its movie adaptation. Everyone should keep in mind that it was the game that came first. Currently, the movie is considered as a completely separate entity, which confuses many people. Look out for this game at the end of March 2009, as well as the game-based-movie later on.
Watch the trailer here.
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