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Wheelman, The

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6.7 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 25 critic reviews
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Based on 19 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Midway Games / Ubisoft

Developer: Midway Newcastle - Tigon Studios

Genre(s): Action, Driving

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: March 24, 2009

Summary

Wheelman takes gamers on a white knuckle thrill ride that unfolds throughout the streets of Barcelona. Featuring car chases inspired by Hollywood's most famous action-sequences, Wheelman delivers powerful cinematic moments throughout the game's compelling storyline. Vin Diesel stars as an undercover agent and highly skilled driver who must infiltrate the Barcelona underworld to gather intelligence surrounding a covert heist. Posing as a driver-for-hire, he ends up caught in a crossfire of corruption and chaos while trying to stay one step ahead of local law enforcement and rival gangs. [Midway]

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What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Gamers.at

Wheelman is good, but far from outstanding. The PC-Version's controls are unintuitive and some graphical glitches and missing detail-settings are making it hard to recommend the PC-Version. Nevertheless: if you consider yourself a fan of the Transporter-Movies, the Driver-Series oder simply Vin Diesel: Wheelman is exactly your game!

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1UP

If you're looking for just having some dumb fun driving in a big sprawling city, smashing and shooting every last thing in your way, then Wheelman is a great pick. However, it never even attempts to reinvent the wheel from any other free-roaming action-adventure.

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SpazioGames

The collaboration between Vin Diesel’s software house and Midway has given birth to something original and exciting, with fast paced action and Hollywood blockbuster’s style as the best elements in the game. Longevity, around 15 hours, is another strong point in the production, making of this game a must have for all the free roaming action game lovers, who will find in Wheelman the right dose of adrenaline and cinematic action.

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GameDaily

Packed with high-speed chases, car combat (you can bump rivals into walls) and ridiculous explosions, the game's still far from perfect. Sloppy looking characters, excessive loading and average on-foot shooting keep it several steps behind the competition. As a rental, however, Wheelman offers some decent thrills.

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InsideGamer.nl

Wheelman is a relatively successful movie based game without a movie. It translates spectacular over-the-top cinematic racing action to an accessible game, set in the pleasant surroundings of Barcelona. Unfortunately its gameplay is so dumbed down that it lacks any challenge whatsoever, making Wheelman a decent – but flawed – snack that lies somewhere in-between GTA IV, Driver, and Burnout.

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Play (Poland)

It's fast, spectacular and full of action - three attributes I require from every good racer are there, and in double helping. I can get new vehicles without stopping even for a moment. But the missions on foot are much worse and as a consequence the overall experience is rather unidimensional. [May 2009]

LEVEL (Czech Republic)

Terrible story, excellent missions. Car chases and street shootouts in this arcade game will surprise you with their fast pace. Don’t forget to switch off your brain to enjoy Wheelman completely. [Apr 2009]

Computer Games Online RO

It’s simple, direct, linear, sometimes spectacular, so Wheelman can actually inject a rainy weekend with a dose of fun, but it’s not grand enough to bring the sun to a week spent in London.

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Cynamite

Though it’s fun at first due to the arcade steering, Wheelman quickly decelerates to a halt, because of the dull story and the imbalanced difficulty.

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PC Gamer

Wheelman executes its core mechanics well, but not much else. [June 2009, p.76]

Vandal Online

Midway Studios Newcastle and Tigon Studios have created one of the most frantic games of the market, which unfortunately fails in its lack of depth and repetitiveness.

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GamingXP

If you want a nice, plain action game with Vin Diesel, you couldn’t make anything wrong. It’s fun to drive with the car and destroy the others.

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NZGamer

Unfortunately, while on paper it might have sounded like a Fast and Furious calibre idea, in reality Wheelman is barely a Pacifier.

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Giant Bomb

It's certainly mechanically sound, but you should probably attempt to find it at a slight discount.

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Total PC Gaming

Diesel-powered, but it’s lacking the turbo injection that we want.

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Gamer.nl

Wheelman is best described as a B-movie. Bad production values and a lousy script. However, the funny one-liners, bad dialog and over-the-top action make up for lost ground. Wheelman is by far a good game, but still a very enjoyable one.

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GameZone

Carjacking is quick and fun, at least the first few times. After the first few missions, things feel awfully repetitive.

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Absolute Games

“Never get out of the car”, the heroes of Interstate ’76 used to say. If the developers of Wheelman decided to follow this credo, they could have focused their efforts on turning lifeless Barcelona into a real city, instead of churning out boring TPS sequences. Or they could have made a menu for editing keyboard shortcuts. Or re-do boring side missions and build them into the story.

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Worth Playing

I can't recommend it at its current price point. The car combat is fun for a couple of hours, but everything else is riddled with so many problems.

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PC Gamer UK

In a further bizarre twist, The Wheelman has no interest in how wheels behave. [June 2009, p.89]

GameStar

There's a line drawn between uncomplicated action and stupid nonsense and that's exactly where Wheelman is lurching about. In large parts it's like GTA with the exception that nothing really works. The game feels artificial, unfinished, has no soul and takes itself too seriously. At least that's unintentionally funny.

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IGN

I wanted Wheelman to be a guilty pleasure, like 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, but it's just guilty of being a poor game.

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PC Format

Five years ago it might have been average. [June 2009, p.100]

PC Zone UK

Awful on-foot controls. [July 2009, p.72]

Game Revolution

It’s like an ironic mustache or mullet. Like having a Steven Segal DVD in your collection. You’ll never get any real use out of it. You just have it in with your other games to show you friends you have a sense of humor.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 19 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Raymond F gave it an8:
Fun game, but the pc version doesn't let you redefine the keyboard and mouse mappings, (it has different presets you can switch between)which is pretty bad, especially if you have a non standard keyboard like I do, buit the default mappings are mostly usuable. Graphics are not bad in 1920x1200, slightly above average quality for an Unreal Engine 3 games. This game would be a good buy when the price comes down.

Karolina M gave it a9:
It's one of those games where you can just jump in and have some fun driving and destroying everything around and go back to your daily life feeling satisfied and relaxed. It doesn't have the depth and complexity of GTA for sure but who cares? I don't think it's ever meant to be GTA, it's designed to be fun and it delivers!

Mac M gave it a9:
The so called "official" reviews of this game have been so unfair to this title. The game offers massive over the top movie style action and it does so at a frantic pace. I think too many people have GTA4 in their minds when they look at another sandbox driving game, and I have played all the GTA's to death. I've also played Saints Row 2 on the Xbox360 and if I had to pick one out that gave me a boost of adrenaline during missions, the Wheelman so far (without completing it) wins it hands down. I am an 'older' gamer of 39 years, and in many games, if I fail a mission in a game that has taken 10-30 minutes to do I tend to put it down and come back to it the next time. Wheelman keeps me at my PC and I have incentive to complete them because they are so much fun. Add into the mix, an amazing Soundtrack that fits in perfectly with the action going on, and you will be impressed. Listen to gamers views, not these so called experts who write biased reviews in their magazines and websites. This game should easily have a few scores of 90+. A big thumb's up from me. Oh, and on a last note, I run a q6600cpu, an 8800gtx with 4gb ram. On Vista x64 running at 1680x1050, forcing 16xAF and 2xAA via control panel I achieve over 80fps average. The game has never crashed ONCE since installation, and it is the only game in the past 12 months I've bought where I can remember never having to scrounge around forums trying to find fixes. The game is extremely stable and optimized for PCs.

Carlos D gave it an8:
Yeah...the people who are getting paid to review this game really got it wrong. This game has a variety of challenges you can do. The driving portion of the game is extremely fun air jacking just to boost your focus and use it to your advantage is a really great concept. This is truly the games strong point The thing that really holds this game back is the on foot combat. Also the side missions could've been been been tied into the story. But Wheelman delivers as a simply fun game the replay value isn't soo high but you will have fun with it i'm sure.

Sarah L. gave it a9:
I don’t know what the pro reviewers were smoking. Reviews on this game have been mixed, so I’m glad I didn’t read any of them before buying the game. Anyone giving this game less than high 8’s is out of their mind. If you distrust the pro reviews, pick the forum of your choice and talk to real gamers about the game. Most people I’ve chatted with who have played the game love it. Who do you trust more…someone who’s job it is to review games whether they like them or not, or a fellow gamer who has actually played the game because they wanted to? I know who I trust more.

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Wheelman, The

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