This picture is so awesome words fail me.

I've been a fan of car-combat games for a fair while game, I've played everything from Burnout (Number 3, Revenge and Paradise) to Full Auto and not to mention Twisted Metal. Those were some car games that blew me away. Going into Wheelman I felt that this would be a boring movie tie-in with almost no enjoyment, it turns out that sometimes I can be so wrong about first impressions it astounds me.

So after 1-2 hours of waiting around for the game to download I finally jumped into it with no previous knowledge of anything about it. The game introduces you with Vin Diesel, well Actually his name is Milo Burik.The cut scene shows him sitting in his car casually just doin' nothing, staring at some stuff, looking at some cops in slow-motion.

At this point a women who I have have no idea who the hell she is walks out of a bank with a bag...guess what happens next? If you guessed "The alarms ring and for no apparent reason she jumps in the car, bullets hitting the back windshield yelling "venga venga venga!", then congrats, you probably know what will proceed it.

At this point the game throws you into game play and says "Go nuts", it then walks off leaving you alone with almost no hint of what to do, It would have been nice for them to tell me the controls before hand and save me having to check the options menu.

The first thing in the game that struck me was that the scenery was incredibly detailed, the buildings look great and you can see that small touches have been added such as lighting effects on trees and such.

Awesome...Just Awesome.

There are a small number of inconsistencies, like some weird animations when a cop car explodes or some polygon-ish objects like tail-pipes or under the hood of a car and below a car (the underside), but those don't matter too much, they wouldn't ruin the game for you. Besides those parts the cars look great, nothing very ground breaking, but they are shiny, sleek.

The spark effects as well as fire fire wooooo! effects look very, very nice and seeing a car explode as you careen down the high way at 150KM/H or more looks just plain awesome, this can be because of the extremely well done blur effects.

The lightning! lighting is just great; when a car is hit/scratched the lighting on it changes, so the parts of the car that have no reflective gloss/paint are gone, yet they still reflect a bit. These small touches and such look beautiful, not to mention the amount of detail in it, Midway sent people over to Barcelona so they could get a perfect idea of where everything is and what it looks like.

This is one of the games strong points, the audio in it is damn near superb. Explosions make a nice "Boom" (You will never notice this since when a car is damaged to a point of explosion it will slow down, thus you are going to fast to be within range to hear the boom), guns sound

If you could hear this moment right now. I bet you'd die of extreme exposure to awesome

great, the Uzi's sound make a beautiful "tat-tat-ata-ta-ta-tata"(You don't get to use Uzi's but you get to be shot with them, that's good right?). Milo's desert eagle (Is it a desert eagle?) Makes a very crisp "ka-ting-BANG!" noise, it has a "boom" to it, yet it has the sound of a sharp "ping noise", if you pay close attention you can hear this, it's great really. Cars taking off make a great "vroooOOOOM!" noise and a skid has that great "rrrrrrrtttt-rrr-ttt" noise, breaking a bench or wooden structure has a nice crack, hitting metal poles and such makes a very good "clang" and breaking glass, hitting cars and all those are also extremely well done, there is heaps of variety in the noises, though there are inconsistencies, such as when hitting a car against a wall over and over will make a bit of a repetitive noise, but then again there is a great amount of variety and the occasional repeated sounds won't sour the experience to a noticeable point.

Now to voice acting, in the cut scenes it has become more apparent than every that Vin Diesel still sounds improbably awesome, after the first mission in which you kill roughly 20-70 people (depending on your skill) he then comes out of a crippled and broken car talking with the same expression as if he just met someone, it's a casual attitude that makes the game feel awesome. The sound track consists of orchestral tense music and it really sets the mood of a fast paced action thriller.

Story/Cut Scenes
The is not much of a story to speak about, it is only a demo after all. What I gathered was that you were a get away driver for a bank robber and there is something to do with a rival gang. This story, for some reason based in a European city called Barcelona.

Cut scenes are very inconsistent, at one point the detail on Milo's face is great at another his ears/nose are horribly rendered. The voice acting and lip-syncing are well done, with that said I don't like the cut scenes, I hope they are skip-able in the full game (They aren't in the demo).

The controls are tight and intuitive, there is hand brake for sharp turns and Left+Right trigger for drifts, those two kinds of turning mechanisms are great, they are sure as hell needed if you ever want to make a turn without slamming into a wall all the time. The action feels fast paced, but at times can feel slow if there isn't much going on, fortunately they is almost always hectic on-the-edge-of-your-fucking-seat action, it's great, you can do things like shoot while driving, blow out tires, shoot bad guys whilst close to them, ramming cars is always fun.

This picture is unrelated, but hey, It's got Vin Diesel in a high speed gun fight, what's not to like?

The game play, from what I have seen isn't very varied, you have a story mission, a racing mission and a mission in which you must jack 3 cars and bring them to a garage in a set amount of time, the racing mission is like the mission one, only with check-points and some minor tweaks, the other mode is self explanatory. There is definitely replay value in it, a hell of a lot from the few things I've seen. The game play is actually quite tactical, you will find yourself planning when to strike and when to shoot, ramming at the wrong time will send you into a wall and make your enemy's box you in and riddle you with holes, shooting at the wrong time will mean you are undefended on one side, as I said it's really tactical, you just have to figure out what to do first. There are many cool features, when you ram/slam a car you gain focus, when you do a drift/hand brake turn you also get focus, there are many different ways of getting focus to fill up your focus gauge.

The focus gauge can be used for the standard "super boost" A.K.A NOS, it can be used for slowing down time to shoot people. Yes, slowing down time whilst driving at high speeds to pop a cap in people, the game points out where on a car to shoot it (the engine or gas tank, it takes multiple hits to kill a car), but that is if you can't aim that well, for me I always go for a head-shot, oh yes, the head shot, hearing a slow motion "click-BOOM-splat" will never get old. If you are close enough to the enemy to hear the splat it becomes satisfying, though you will feel like you are insane when you think "Oh that guy's brain went all over the head rest! COOL!". There is also a mechanic in which you spin 180^o around and shoot people behind you, though you have roughly 3-5 seconds before it's too late and you have to re-fill your focus, that means you must concentrate, will you weaken the enemy by crippling the car or go for a skill shot and aim for the head? Choice is up to you. These skills are done so well they merge seamlessly with the game play. During mission levels (well in the demo there is one so it should be "level") there are over-the-top scenes where you must jump through an office building or over flaming ramp.

This is one of the examples of the over-the-top scenes, your flyin' through an office four stories up and glass is breaking everywhere, oh god the innocent glass, why god why.

Something insane like that, it's all done in a Hollywood-esque style, it's what you see in the movies basically, it is really funny because the sheer corniness of it, a good example is when the girl in the back seat is like "It can't end here, oh no!" and you then ram a gate and fly in slow motion into an office building....it's so corny it's hilarious, oh and fun. The over-the-top scenes usually include fire, explosions and broken glass everywhere, those things rule.

There are a wide arrangements of cars; from bikes to porshes, each car handles differently and takes time to master, it's the standard, bikes are nimble and fast but weak and porches are slightly weaker but corner better and are faster, then there are the strong but slightly slower hatch backs that can take 60+ bullets and keep chuggin' along, it's very well balanced and varied. The game is based on the concept of a Hollywood car chase scene, over and over, it is meant to have weird and unexplained reasons that a bike can take ridiculous amounts of damage may make or how you can slow down time and do a 180^o turn and somehow maintain all your momentum, but then again it's meant to be over-the-top insanity and hectic fun, that's what made games like SaintsRow Two so great. However I feel as if Vin Diesel is trying to be too much of a massive bad-ass in the game so much that it alienates the player from the experience at times.

The game is strung together really well, I feel as if the developers put some seriously polished ideas into the game. This is most evident when the game hits it's "groove", at this point it becomes a fantastic experience that is strung together flawlessly, there are some great concepts here that are executed with some real excellence, but they are rough around the edges, more so than other games, it works a against the game at times and may ruin it on a rare occasion. But since Midway was on it's financial downward spiral at this point I'm sure now that UbiSoft (that now has the title) will fix up many of the problems, I'm sure UbiSoft will release DLC to fix much of it. There are some real flaws here but, in all fairness it is overshadowed by its sheer greatness, but not all of it's problems are overshadowed. Seriously, Download it now.

Positive criticism/feed back would be nice, I hope people don't just say "Nice review man, I liked it" and go, that pisses me off, I would like more than two sentences please. So yeah, I'm done, get the demo now...Or else.....*Cocks Gun* (Tee-hee "Cocks Gun"!)

Bibliography: Team Xbox and Google Pictures. All pictures used under a law of some kind.

Hoped you enjoyed it!
...Yeah it is a bit fan-boy-ish, but I bet you would feel the same way when you play it.

~Danzorz

*Passes Out On Keyboard*

mjhhiv:
Haven't played it, because I was told it was just another GTA clone. I think you've convinced me to at least download the demo, so kudos for that. You've obviously put a lot of effort into this, and that's always nice to see. However, I think that you've concerned yourself a bit too much with effects and jokes, and didn't put enough time into polishing the writing.

You could have done well with one more re-read. I stumbled on a decent number of little errors that I'm sure you would've caught with fresh eyes. I know re-reading 2,000+ words multiple times isn't exactly fun, but it's certainly necessary.

Like I said, I found a few grammar errors, but for the most part, your problem is that you tend to "retread old ground". The last paragraph is a nice example:

Danzorz:

So there you have it, Wheelman; a truly great game that can be enjoyed by many, if you have a 360 or PS3 I recommend you run to it right now and pick up the game from marketplace or PSN, it's a great game and I recommend it if you like car-combat, or fast paced action. It's a great game help back a bit by it's own ambition, but as I said, it's great, it's fun, fast, addictive just like cocaine! and a new and interesting concept...well kind of, many of the things have been done before, but it does bring new things to the table. So yeah, get it now, get off the escapist and go to your 360 or PS3 and just download the demo, it's just an awesome game. It's mix of over-the-top Hollywood action and realistic gun fights are just what we need in the gaming industry, a new-ish concept.

Everything that paragraph tells me could be simplified into one or two sentences, really: "The Wheelman demo is fast-paced, fun and addictive. It's available on the 360 and PS3, and I recommend downloading it."

Everything told, though, you know you've done a nice job. It's a very thorough review, especially considering it's on a demo. This is already a fine job, and it doesn't really need that much help -- next time, just cut out the flab.

Yeah, sorry about that, I just wanted to make it extremely apparent how much I liked the game, re-hashing things are sometimes necessary if you want to make sure people listen.
Thanks for the criticism.
I should have cut some of it but I was a bit tired, I did polish it to my best ability, I'm just kinda bad with polishing stuff.

There, I re-polished it and cut out some useless text, I fixed some grammar and such, I also added some stuff, just a general clean up of the review really, Also BUUUUMP.

Anarchemitis:
Cool. Sounds like fun and excitement.
________Obligatory Criticism, apparently________
The speech was quite informal and had many Idiosyncratic "quotes" or onomatopoeias. While the intent is visible, to retain the audience's attention, it makes it a slightly awkward read.
Kudos otherwise on making an Epitome Gonzo Document.

To help polish my review I need examples my anarchistic Greek philosopher friend.
Thanks for the feedback and compliments. Have you played it yet?

meatloaf231:
Hmmm. Something involving Vin Diesel that isn't mediocre. I'll have to go look.

Name one mediocre Vin Diesel game, oh right...yeah...those, he doesn't exactly have the best track record...

Anarchemitis:

Danzorz:

Graphics
The first thing in the game that struck me was that the scenery was incredibly detailed, the buildings look great, Oh, right the game is based in a city called Barcelona. There are a small amount of inconsistencies, like some weird animations when a cop car explodes or some polygon-ish objects like tail-pipes or under the hood of a car/below, but those don't matter, the cars look great, nothing very ground breaking, but they are shiny, sleek and the spark effects as well as fire fire wooooo! effects look very, very nice and seeing a car explode as you careen down the high way at 150KM/H or more looks just plain awesome, come to think of it all explosions in this game are awesome.

Graphics
. But those don't matter, the cars look great although nothing very ground breaking. But they are shiny, sleek and the spark effects and fire (fire, wooooo!) effects look very, very nice, and seeing a car explode as you careen down the high way at 150KM/H or more looks just plain awesome. Come to think of it all explosions in this game are awesome.

Fixed. I edited it to be better.

Novajam:
Howdy Danzorz. I told you I'd get around to critiquing this for you. Apologies that it took so long.

Novajam's Big Dang Edit

A decent review, but in a very crude sort of stage. To me, it looks a lot like a first draft, waiting for a couple of readthroughs to fix up spelling, word flow, relevance and punctuation (which I think would be your major issues here). As mjhhiv said, re-reading a 2000 word piece over and over isn't exactly fun, but as I've proven to myself on multiple occasions, it has to be done. Errors glare through like lighthouses in the fog, and you do very well to eliminate them.

I notice you've got a bad case of Excessive Comma Use that's about to go terminal. Commas and Periods are both types of pauses, but they're used for different situations. Rethink you're comma use here, big time.

Apart from those things, remember to keep your language fresh and interesting by switching out your adjectives as much as possible.

Good work. Keep practising.

Fixed, I changed most of it. I hope it's up to standard now, I won't remove/cut down the sound part though, I think it should stay like that.
Also, this is what the underside of a car is. .

Yes I know it's a transformers toy car but it gets the point across.

Micvic709:
I played the demo and i have to say i was overall impressed. It seemed to me kind of like a trimmed up grand theft auto 4 focusing on the driving aspect with a few tweaks to make it really good. I loved the melee attacks and ability to switch cars whenever. The jump across moving cars in traffic to hijack in transit was also something i thought was pretty sweet haha

Any comments on the review? Did you read it?