After it being announced at 2006’s E3 it’s taken us nearly two years to get our hands on Vin Diesel. Errgh, that’s a nasty thought, but one he’d probably like. Anyway, we finally got to play a few levels at Midway’s Gamers’ Day in Las Vegas.

The Wheelman is a collaboration between Midway and Tigon, the Vin Diesel-owned company that helps make all the games that Vin Diesel appears in. In this one Vin Diesel is pretending to be Milo Burik, a renowned driver for the criminal underworld. If you’re looking for an easy comparison think of Driver and how good it was and now think about putting in some shooting and some bullet time.

The first mission we played was the introduction, a fast-paced tutorial that sets you in good stead for what the rest of the game will be like – mainly driving like a lunatic and racing away from police and other criminal enemies. We were helping a mouthy young lady escape from the police after she’d robbed a bank and unsurprisingly her actions have caused an entire police force to descend upon us and give chase. But being an awesome wheelman, Diesel has a few tricks up his driving gloves. You can actually attack cars that have caught up with you using the right stick. Flicking to the left or right lets you ram into the cars and after a few hits it will send them flying into walls and other cars.

Another skill you can use to your advantage is the Cyclone special move. This is unlocked after the first level, and by pressing down on the D-pad Vin will spin the car around 180 degrees, everything slows down to bullet time and if you can line up your targeting reticule with the target on the enemies’ radiators you can blow them up with one shot.

We only got to play two levels and a points challenge where you drove around destroying the scenery, but so far it seems like a pretty good fun, if slightly dumb, game. But that’s dumb in a good way, you really can over-think things sometimes.

Tim Empey