There isn't much Vin Diesel can't do. He's a long way from releasing prose worthy of best-seller status, but there's no doubting that, lately, whatever Vin Diesel touches turns into a rather enjoyable romp. Having reprised his role of Dominic for Fast and Furious, Diesel lent his likeliness to video game Wheelman, intending to have a feature film release simultaneously. Originally being developed by Midway Australia for the last generation of consoles, Wheelman was transferred to the Newcastle studio and rode a string of delays over three years until finally seeing release in March this year.

In what is essentially a motion picture trapped inside a video game; you play Vin Diesel playing Milo Burik, a driver who is led to Barcelona, Spain, in an attempt to aid a woman from his past though, of course, finds himself lodged in the middle of a gang war. As you can plainly see, it reads as a fairly serviceable Hollywood action romp. The production values of Wheelman are surprising, and are the main reason the game feels as though it were picked straight from the silver screen; heck, at some points, you'd swear a lousy crew member was about to lower a boom into the shot. I was also impressed that the developers managed to keep the plot grounded, and focused for the duration, rather than letting it skew off into numerous XXX-esque action set-pieces simply due to having Diesel's reputation in hand; as said action sequences would have, no doubt, been far out of context.

Don't get me wrong, kids, Wheelman is splitting at the seams when it comes to action, after all this is practically a driving game with a slight facelift that suggests it's an open world sandbox, when that's clearly not its strength. It's actually quite a rock solid driving experience. One thing you'll notice straight away after buckling up is that Midway haven't taken themselves too seriously here, as not a hint of realism exists in this world. It's over the top, it's paced well and it's fun. As the driving component is essentially an arcade style experience, it's so easy to pick-up and master and yet doesn't take away from the experience. The selling point that sets Wheelman apart is the vehicular combat that, with a simple flick of the right analog-stick, allows you to send your car into your pursuer's vehicle, battering ram style. The result renders any foes car wrecking in spectacular explosions; which is, obviously, damn cool. You may find your ride a touch beaten-up after dealing with your sorry victims, so that's where another one of Midway's ridiculous ideas enters on cue; the air-jack. This incredible trick will see Milo, with a little timing, leap from car to car while travelling at ludicrous speeds; it's very cinematic and does well to keep you behind the wheel, which is the game's clear strength.

But wait, there's more, folks... as if Milo needed any more help in being a wrecking force on the road. On screen you'll have a gauge that fills up the more you bash, and crash your way through traffic. Once this ‘special' bar tops up, you're free to use one of two moves. The first is the ‘aim shot' where you take out your gun and begin to fire through your windshield at cars ahead of you for a period of time until the bar depletes. Now, I hear you thinking ‘what about the cars behind me, Brodie?' and my answer to you is ‘cyclone shot'. The ‘cyclone shot' is your second option, in which Milo expertly, without losing a hint of speed, sends the car 180˚ so that you're driving backwards whilst free-aiming at cars that were tailing you seconds ago. It sounds outrageous, and it is, but it's something we've not seen before, so kudos to Midway for taking a risk and having it enhance the fun of their game.

Sadly, Wheelman begins to lose points when it forces you to take to the streets on foot. If there's one thing this game does on barely an average par, it's the ground travel. The controls feel as though you're never in full control of Milo, and (with aid from an average on-foot camera) that he could skew off screen at any second, never to return. Fortunately for gamers, a large majority of the missions force you to use a vehicle, so the on-foot gameplay that tends to hamstring the natural pace of Wheelman isn't an overly constant threat to your good time. Also utilized is a standard ‘I think I've played this before' cover system that sees Milo nestling up to nearby, conveniently placed, crates or ledges and then casually popping shots with whatever bullet-hose he's got in his mitts. Speaking of Vin's arsenal, there's a healthy amount of weaponry to make use of in Wheelman, although it can tend to be rather generous when it comes to finding ammo; I was constantly full up and dreading the sight of it on rival gang's corpses.

As is a built-in standard to these sandbox titles these days, you'll have your pockets full of side missions, and activities, to occupy your time when taking a break from the story mode (over one hundred in fact). These can border on ridiculous in concept, but that's what makes it such an enjoyable romp. One of the said activities will see you driving through a section of the city intent on, simply, causing as much carnage as possible; perfectionists will have their work cut out for them as some of the goal times can be fairly ludicrous – but hey, it's all fun. You'll also have the taxi job (a sandbox staple) to keep you busy, as well as a few others.

Wheelman is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to looks. Any action set-piece that involved a car looked pretty damn good, and the presentation was often on par with some of the better games out there. But sadly, these little pluses didn't prevent the game from looking a touch bland. The city, while exuberantly coloured, is dwarfed by cities that came before it, namely Liberty City or Stilwater. The character models aren't too shabby, and are reasonably believable in the scheme of things. Unfortunately, the game suffers the occasional case of texture popping during the cinematic scenes, and also frame rate slowdown during heavily populated action scenes; which obviously does take away some of the joy of looking at Wheelman.

The audible side of things is actually one that Midway has done a commendable job. Wheelman has serviceable voice acting accompanied by archetype action flick dialogue. There's something about Vin's bass-heavy vocal chords that just make me want him lending his voice (but not likeness) to more video games; or maybe it's the fact he rattles my couch through surround sound, who knows? The soundtrack also does its job in keeping your ears busy, and it may even distract you from the aforementioned fits of frame rate lag or texture popping.