Personally, I’m in love with Rampage, where I make sure to find a huge semi before starting the mission and then drive over everything.The vehicle control is actually handled differently than in most games. Yes, that last sentence is simply a long list, but it was necessary – the side missions are a huge part of the game, with over a hundred of the damn things, and they’re incredibly varied.More to the point, they’re incredibly fun, and there’ll be at least one type that appeals to you, whether it’s the Burnout-style carnage of the Street Showdown, or the perfect control required for Hot Potato. There are various types – Rampage, which tasks you with causing as much property and vehicle damage as possible in a period of time Fugitive, in which you have to get from A to B while under constant attack from heavily-armed goons Contract, where you’re the heavily-armed goon after some poor vehicle Hot Potato, which asks you to pick up a few packages in a hurry Street Showdown, which is a street race which is more than happy for you to simply kill your rivals rather than come first and Made to Order, which asks you to steal a few cars and get them back in good condition. The early story missions, naturally, introduce you to the various concepts of the game, acting as a tutorial, with the majority of them also acting as a simple introduction to a particular brand of side mission.Those side missions are rather spectacular. The game itself can be nicely divided into two halves – you’ve got main story missions, and side missions, with little overlap between the two.
And while you can’t use the virtual Barcelona as a street map of the real one, it looks like most of the districts and landmarks are in the right place, so it feels reasonably accurate to me.The city, of course, is just the backdrop to the goings-on of the game. Don’t expect to see any street crime or burned out cars here, unless you’re the one doing it. Where Liberty City is grey and grim, and Stilwater is gritty, Barcelona is bright and beautiful. The contrast between Wheelman’s virtual depiction of Barcelona, and the towns of Stilwater and Liberty City from Saint’s Row 2 and GTA4, is striking. The city itself is a bit of a star, though. There are, thankfully, a few good characters – some of whom, like Scottish information broker Adrian, I suspect may turn up in the forthcoming film – and the cutscenes are reasonably slick and interesting. Before long, he’s working his way up through the three gangs that rule the city, and playing them off against each other to get what he needs.The story isn’t really one of the game’s few strong points, though, as the game opens with little exposition and to really understand what’s going on you have to pay a fair bit of attention.
It just doesn’t quite live up to our hopes.Vin takes the role of Milo Burik, an undercover CIA agent who’s sent in to Barcelona to recover some documents, as the information within could kill thousands.
Vin Diesel, we salute you for your services in removing part of the stigma against games.What we don’t salute you for, sadly, is Wheelman. He had input into the rather good Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, he’s an admitted fan of WoW, and he spent a fair bit of his youth playing Dungeons and Dragons. He’s publicly spoken about how much he likes his games.