Trading in a chainsaw bayonet for a stick shift, Unreal Engine 3 moves into a different gear for Midway's upcoming action-racer, Wheelman. Vin Diesel stars in this testosterone-fueled driving game that shares more in common with Spy Hunter than anything else. Free-roaming gameplay in a fictionalized Barcelona has you zipping about the city running errands and making calls, all cylinders firing—in both your car and gun. We took the game for a test drive ahead of its fall release at Midway Gamers' Day.
In the game's opening mission entitled “Frantic,” you serve as the getaway driver for a bank robbery. Rushing out of the bank to the sound of sirens in the distance, a woman named Lumi shouts for you to speed away from the scene. Bullets break through the back window as the vehicle shifts into gear and zips forward. Lumi guides you through the narrow streets of Barcelona, an effort aided by the mini-map situated in the lower-right corner of the screen. You're free to drive anywhere in the city, but the only way to successfully escape arrest is to follow Lumi and her spur-of-the-moment directions.
Losing the police requires more than speeding through the streets, though. Vehicle melee attacks triggered via the right thumbstick enable you to take out other cars. Saddle up alongside a police car, for instance, and you can flick the right thumbstick to the left or right to slam into it. Similar to the Burnout series' take downs, you can rack up dozens of attacks without ending up in the junkyard yourself. You can also fire at other cars by tapping the left bumper, which has you leaning out the driver's side window to shoot. Special abilities, such as the cyclone, also come into good use during close chases. Instead of having to lean out and shoot, the cyclone spins your car 180 degrees for a short period of time. Whip out your gun and you can take aim at an enemy's engine, leaving them behind and blown apart.
Unfortunately, it isn't enough to run the cops off the road since your vehicle has been marked for identification. Once the police have dropped from sight, Lumi tells you to switch to a different car so as to lose some heat. A marker on the mini-map lets you know the location of Lumi's car. The moment the car comes into sight in the windshield, it explodes into flames. Apparently Lumi has serious enemies and they just obliterated your escape. No worries because you can jack any vehicle with a tap of the Y button. Hop into a nearby car with Lumi in tow and the mission ends.
“Frantic” sets a breakneck pace for Wheelman, which only leads us to expect the rest of the game to dish out the same high-octane vehicular action. 40 missions make up the main story, although you can tackle any of 80 various events scattered throughout Barcelona. These range from running errands and pulling favors to simple races against the local gangs. Certain missions actually take you out of the driver's seat for a bit of on-foot action. The vast majority of the game is meant to be driven, but about 20% of your time will be hoofing it around the city.
In “Introducing Benito,” for example, you're tasked with picking up a local crime lord. Driving to his location is a breeze, but escorting him to safety is nothing less than hairy. Using the thumbsticks to move and aim, and the right trigger to shoot, you're able to clear the way to the car. Like most shooters, any damage you receive is relayed by means of red marks on the edges of the screen. Resting behind cover lets you recover any lost health.
The on-foot sections do not seem nearly as exciting as driving, which is to make a point. Midway doesn't plan on reinventing the third-person shooter with Wheelman; on the contrary, these sequences are included as a way of propelling the story forward and instilling variety in the experience. The team's ultimate goal is to craft a driving game packed with action and the two missions we played definitely deliver in that respect. Whether the breakneck pacing can be maintained throughout the entire game will have to be seen when the game ships this autumn.
