Posts Tagged ‘vin diesel’
Wheelman gets free and premium DLC packs
It was recently announced that Ubisoft’s Vin Diesel starring Wheelman has gotten a pair of DLC packs, both free and premium.
The Free Street Showdown Pack will include a single new showdown mission eintitled Showdown in Avinguda Del Paral-lel. The Premium Street Showdown Pack, however, comes with 5 new showdown missions: Showdown in Museu Nacional, Showdown in Passeig De Gracia, Showdown in Grand Theatre De Liceu, Showdown in Cathedral De La Seu, and Showdown in Placa De Catalunya and will priced at 400 MS Points/ $4.99.
Both packs are available now on the Xbox 360 while PS3 owners won’t get access to them until May 5th.
Read (Kotaku)
Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena–A Nice Try But Still Lacking
Once again I applaud the sheer business acumen of Vin Diesel and company Tigon Studios for continuing to release second-rate video games at the rate of as fast as they possibly can to perpetrate as many colossal cash-grabs as possible. Perhaps their most recent attempt is to cash in on the phenomenal Riddick license with recent title Xbox 360 title Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, making me wonder how they got it in the first place. Sublet from Universal? Or did Vin keep a bit of Riddick as part of his Pitch Black work? Dunno.
Anyway, like I said, Riddick’s back, and this time he’s taking on a mercenary ship called the Dark Athena (hence the title). He’ll be taking on legions of mercenaries and armed guards and attack drones and whatnot, and he’ll be spending a lot of time sneaking around in the dark to do his killing, taking full advantage of his illicit optical modifications (a shine job in case you’ve forgotten the original Pitch Black).
While it’s always fun to watch Riddick be a sociopath to children as young as five—seriously, Riddick, it’s not cool to be all snarly and threatening toward small children. It’s like taking a sand blaster to a soup cracker. How about just a little variety? Why don’t you just juggle once? Hit someone with a pie? Do something ridiculous for no clear reason—and not kill anyone.
Ironically, this tiny rant directed at a fictional character may well be the best explanation of what’s wrong with the whole concept of Riddick video games and Assault on Dark Athena in particular. There’s no VARIETY. Riddick sneaks around, goes shiny-eyes, kills people, repeat until everyone bows down and declares Riddick the absolute emperor of cool. Okay, we GET IT ALREADY. This whole game smells like dead horse because they WON’T STOP FLOGGING ONE.
I’ll give them credit—they tried. They added on some first-person shooter sort of stuff, gave Riddick access to assault rifles and shotguns and whatnot. This is cool, make no mistake, but it’s also the same kind of thing that you’ve played a whole bunch of times. Yes, it’s cool to sneak around in the dark and jam a hairpin into a guy’s brain stem. That’s innovative, but not a big part of the whole thing. I liked being able to kill enemies by dropping off high places and using them to break my fall. Again, innovative, but too small to be of much use. And I definitely have to give some due props for including a complete port of Escape From Butcher Bay, giving some added value. But the biggest problem remains—while these small additions are welcome touches of innovation, the rest of the package is so badly lacking that there’s not much sense to playing it.
In that sense, it’s a whole lot like that earlier Vin Diesel game Wheelman, because that too was a big steaming batch of More of the Same. Get right down to it, I can’t recommend this one unless you’re a rabid Riddick fan or can’t get enough of the first person shooter subgenre, in which case you’re definitely going to be all over this.
Wheelman Game Review–Go Fast. Turn Left. Repeat Until Disgusted.
Oh, Vin Diesel–you’d cash in on just about anything, wouldn’t you? In all seriousness, though, I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy. He’s a halfway decent actor, most of the time, and I can’t help but find it interesting that Vin Diesel has once again defied standard conventions. We’ve all seen game-to-movie translations, and we’ve all seen the converse, movie-to-game translations. We’ve even seen some movies that we KNEW would eventually be games, and vice versa. But this may be the first time I’ve seen a game that looks for all the world like it was SPECIFICALLY INTENDED to be converted into a movie, and probably starring its lead voice actor.
The game in question is called Wheelman, and it’s all about Vin Diesel, who this time appears as a guy named Milo, who works for a group called the Agency. Milo’s specialty is driving really fast and really recklessly, which makes him an excellent resource for those who need quick getaways and to do so while evading pursuit. And since Milo’s not working for celebrities, his talents seem tailor-made for the criminal element. Thus, Milo finds himself working for the criminal element in Barcelona, Spain…and you’ll have to do a lot of wild driving, recovering stolen cars, making friends and influencing people, and a whole slew of other things just to keep yourself from getting shot by the various criminals you both work for and work against. Seems Barcelona has a LOT of criminal factions, and when you help one, you hinder the other, and these are not guys who enjoy being hindered.
The best part is, after looking up a little information about it, this is indeed the case. Vin Diesel will be reprising his role as Milo in the film adaptation, which was originally slated to be released alongside the game, but since I’m talking about the game and have only just heard of the movie, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Unless, of course, you count Fast and Furious, but I don’t.
The game itself, meanwhile, is fun enough to play. It’s one gigantic adrenaline rush that really took me by surprise. It is a very faithful capture, at least as far as I can tell without actually instigating a high-speed police chase myself, of the way it feels to drive down the streets of Barcelona at a hundred-plus miles per hour while being followed by the cops and taking time out, occasionally, to slam into them. Yes, it’s a great deal of surprising fun to drive through buildings, or to make a preposterous jump from a six-story office window, or pull PIT (pursuit intervention tactics) maneuvers on cops. But let’s face facts, folks—at the end of the day, this is a driving game, only this and really nothing more. Surprising fun it may be, but surprising fun for how long? There’s the million dollar question.
Much like NASCAR, it’s just “go fast and turn left”, though occasionally, in Wheelman, you will be called upon to turn RIGHT. There are different types of missions, of course, but they’ll mostly be accomplished behind the wheel or occasionally handlebars. On very rare occasions you will be permitted to LEAVE THE CAR. So if you’re into driving games, then this one will definitely blow your mind with the addition of an actual plot. Those who hate driving games, however, will find absolutely nothing to like here.
Wheelman Goes Gold
Soon we’ll find out if Midway can pull themselves out of the financial slump they’ve been in for some time. So far nobody has bought Mortal Kombat, so they’ve got to be pinning their hopes on the upcoming open-world action game Wheelman. The game which features Vin Diesel’s gravelly voice and shiny dome has just gone gold, Midway and Ubisoft are reporting.
The game is shipping in North America on March 24th and in Europe on the 27th for both the Xbox 360 and PS3- plenty of time for you to finish Resident Evil 5. Does the typecast anti-hero actor have the pull to get copies of the game moving off the shelves? Has Midway successfully blended shooting and driving action into a delicious gameplay cocktail with hints of axle grease and gunpowder? Or will this ambitious effort simply crash and burn?
Wheelman Demo Now Available
Today Xbox 360 owners can get their first glimpse at Wheelman, Midway’s action driving game that is likely one of their biggest hopes for getting back on track. Playstation owners have to wait until March 12th. While racing games are a dime a dozen this title hopes to mix it up a bit by focusing more heavily on Hollywood style stunts and car-based gunplay along with more standard action. You can do the classic move where you go off a jump, turn over in midair and then blast the enemies immediately below you, as well as other more complex moves including mid-air carjacks.
The demo features a single level created specifically for this bite-sized version of the title. While the main game will be an open-world adventure where you play an undercover agent (with the looks and voice of Vin Diesel) who seeks to infiltrate the Barcelona underground by posing as a driver-for-hire for now you are limited to a specific mission that is designed to effectively display the game’s impressive mechanics and features. After you complete that mission you’ll get two additional side missions, “Made to Order” and “Street Showdown”. Unfortunately you only get to play the side missions three times before the demo expires, but with the game shipping in North America on March 24th you won’t have too long to wait.
Chronicles of Riddick Voice Cast List
As many point out it’s been quite a while since Vin Diesel’s anti-hero Riddick was in the forefront of public consciousness. Still, Starbreeze has carried on with the remake of the Xbox stealth action title. Recently they released some footage that shows just how well they’ve updated the game for the current generation of consoles. The graphics look fantastic and the new storyline seems just as dark and riveting as the original adventure. Although Vin Diesel has fallen out of most people’s graces (if he was ever really there in the first place) this game looks like it could be just as much of an unexpected hit as its previous incarnation.
To bring the new characters, the mercenaries of Dark Athena to life an impressive team of voice actors has been assembled. British-born actor Morgan Sheppard returns to the game (he voiced several characters in the original) as a schizophrenic prisoner aboard Dark Athena. Michelle Forbes, an actress whose experience includes roles on Star Trek TNG and Battlestar Galactica voices Revas, the captain of Dark Athena and Wade Williams of Prison Break comes on as Spinner, the captain’s right hand man.
Most notably however is sci-fi favorite Lance Henriksen, probably most well known for his roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Aliens and Terminator. He lends his experienced voice to Dacher, another prisoner on Dark Athena who interacts with and eventually aids Riddick.
Wheelman Gets Revised Release Date, Pre-release Demo
Midway sent out word that Wheelman, its upcoming action game starring Vin Diesel, will be released to stores on March 20, several weeks later than the original February 16 launch date.
The game was supposed to serve as a prequel to a movie of the same name – which would also star Vin Diesel – and was set to arrive simultaneously with the film. There is currently no news as to how this will affect the release date of the movie.
However, Midway did reveal an interesting bit of information: a playable demo of Wheelman will be made available on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network before its retail release; no specific date was mentioned.
Wheelman Gets Release Date
Midway today announced that its Vin Diesel-starring action game Wheelman will hit PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 16, 2009.
The game was originally due out last year. It is being co-produced by Diesel himself, with his production company Tigon Studios.
It is expected that a feature film will eventually spin-off from the game; a script is currently in development, too.