Wheelman

For the bicyclist, see League of American Bicyclists. For the book by Lance Armstrong, see Wheelmen.

Wheelman is an action-adventure video game developed by Tigon Studios for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.

Gameplay

The game is set in an open world environment modeled after Barcelona, full of destructible objects, alleyways, shortcuts through office blocks and a total of 31 story missions and 105 side missions. While most missions are driving-oriented, there are also foot missions which are played from a third person perspective. A wide variety of weapons are available to the player, such as pistols and RPGs.

Among the vehicles used by Milo Burik in the game is the Pontiac G8, shown in released trailers for Wheelman. Reports also indicated that the Opel Astra is a drivable vehicle. In the demo, his license plate says MRTL KM8T which is a reference to Mortal Kombat, Midway's popular fighting game.

Plot

The protagonist, Milo Burik (a digitized Vin Diesel, but also voiced), is an undercover agent whose assignment is to work along with a gang in Barcelona planning the biggest heist of their career. He turns out to be one of the most effective weapons in the business. Azucena Duran is the DJ and main narrator, helping to guide Milo through the game.

Development

The video game Wheelman was first announced in February 2006 by publisher Midway Games as the second of three titles in a joint collaboration between Midway and MTV Networks. Midway Games collaborated with Tigon Studios to design the game. After multiple delays over the course of around 3 years, Wheelman was finally released in many "major territories" including the United States, Australia and the biggest European countries on March 24.

Film adaptation

Simultaneously with the announcement of the video game in February 2006, a film adaptation was announced with Vin Diesel in the lead role and Rich Wilkes, who worked with Diesel on xXx (2002), was hired to write the script. Paramount Pictures and MTV Films were announced to collaborate on the project. Production of the film, with no script written yet, was estimated to be 18 months away from February 2006. The film will be a sequel to the video game, which will establish the background. Nine years have passed and no news of a film has ever been mentioned leaving the project presumably dead.

Reception

The game has received mixed reviews, many of the reviewers criticising the game for falling short of story mode and lacking multiplayer functionality. Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstman said "Wheelman has some great ideas that are executed well, but a lot of the peripheral stuff is underwhelming." GamePro, however, gave the game a high 4/5, calling the game "a GTA-meets-Burnout romp." GameSpot gave the game a 6/10 saying "Wheelman offers plenty of movie-style thrills, although it's hamstrung by terrible on-foot gameplay. Hyper's Darren Wells commends the game for "cool and useful special driving moves [and] genuinely new locale". However, he criticises it for "meaningless vehicle handling, cheating AI, poor on-foot level design [and] bland graphics".

Reviewing Site Address/Name	Rating
Edge Magazine	4/10
IGN	4.8/10
play.tm	82/100
Game Informer	8.5/10
That Gaming Site	8.8/10
Push Square	3/4

External links

• Official website
• Wheelman at IMDb