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Great action, fun driving, but with a few issues that keep it from reaching the top.

It almost feels odd playing through and reviewing two Vin Diesel driven videogames in about one week, but here I am doing the review for Wheelman, and honestly, I like this game a lot more than I probably should. There are bits of it that frustrate me immensely, and the game itself is a little buggy, but there's a lot of fun to be had by just doing the random side missions, and seeing all the destruction and mayhem you can create with just Vin behind the wheel. Of course, it's also fun to imagine this as a proper Fast and the Furious videogame, but that's another matter entirely.

As the game begins you're introduced to the lead character played by Diesel, who is obviously modeled after him as well. You start off by picking up a young woman and you're instantly taken into a high-speed chase against the police in Barcelona, where you're introduced to the basic driving mechanics and abilities that Milo possesses. Instead of simply outracing the police, you'll have some offensive options with your car, allowing you to perform stylish rams in an effort to cause crashes or simply destroy enemy cars. In this initial encounter, the police don't put up a lot of resistance, and they're fairly easy to take down, but once you begin the actual game you'll find that it's not quite as easy to get rid of bothersome drivers. Still, it's a great introduction to the game, and really prepares you for the rest of the gameplay.

Still, it's a blast to play. It bears a few similarities to both GTA and the Burnout universe of games, in that Milo will typically have to jack a car from AI characters, outrun the cops, and can cause a lot of destruction along the way, like the GTA titles. However, the Burnout sense comes from actually racing around the open city of Barcelona, participating in races, and the obvious Takedown style attacks that are reminiscent of that EA series. It's not really identical to either, but it takes the fun parts from both and mixes them together into a formula that works out pretty well. Crashing into vehicles by using the attacks feels really satisfying, and while I wouldn't call the game realistic, you can create and take damage to vehicles that actually will impact how they perform and drive, which adds a little flavor to the combat.

The majority of the missions you take on are behind the wheel, and you'll have a big map to explore within the Barcelona area that will be peppered with waypoints for not only story missions, but also little side events that you can take on. The side events are mostly run of the mill stuff we've seen in other games, Taxi missions, destruction, races, and so on. They don't add anything story wise, but they do serve as a way of unlocking more garages and safe houses for Milo to use when evading police, along with a way of upgrading your abilities behind the wheel. They're all based on a letter ranking system, and some of them are pretty hard to max out. The story missions are also highlighted on your GPS map, and you can instantly warp to any of these locations by highlighting them and pressing A. Certain side missions will require you to find a vehicle first, but besides that you can hop around the city at will if you don't feel like exploring, which is nice if you're not big on going around to look for jumps or hidden items.

Then there's the odd glitches that take you out of the game and make some of the action sequences seem comical, one of the more frequent instances being that when you destroy an opposing the car, the occupant who should be in less than ok shape will pretty much pop out of the window, land on his feet, and then run off or try to shoot at you, and it looks so awkward every time I see it. Plus, certain objects will inexplicably cause you to get stuck on them whether you're on foot or in a car, and since these objects are usually destructible, and typically small, it's hard to figure out when it's going to happen. Once it starts to happen during a pursuit or race though, you'll end up tossing your controller in frustration over something you can't really control.

Despite these annoyances, I had a lot more fun with the game than I initially expected. The story is bland and doesn't match the fast pace of the gameplay, but actually playing the game is really fun. The glitches occur a bit more frequently than I would like to see, but overall the experience is fun, and delivers on the sense of being a totally badass wheelman. Definitely worth picking up if you like big, dumb action games, and while it's not going to be considered a triple A effort, it's still worth checking out.