Are you familiar with GTA IV or Saints Row II or even The Godfather II? Because if you are you're not even going to need the manual before you're comfortable with Wheelman. And even if you are brand new to the world of Xbox 360, picking up the controls in Wheelman should be extremely easy especially considering the hints that you receive during your first few missions.

One of the real cool features in Wheelman is what I call 'lazy traveling'. What that means is that you can go to the map screen (your PDA) and just click on a desired destination to get there. While that saves precious driving time, at the same time, the 'lazy traveling' mode will not get you familiarized with the city layouts. The game is divided into main story missions (green markers) or side missions (represented by different color markers; for example yellow markers represent Taxi missions). Side missions provide lots of extra gameplay and entertainment as well as bonuses and boosters that you can take advantage of for the "real" missions. Such bonuses include car or weapon upgrades for example.

Most of the action on foot is traditional for this style of game. You move, you aim, you shoot, they dye... you get the point. What makes this game unique and interesting is the driving part. Driving is the main focus in Wheelman and believe me, you get to do a lot of driving in this game. The "revolutionary car combat" really is revolutionary but fore I go into it I want to emphasize that the driving in Wheelman is not realistic bur rather very arcadeish. Anyhow, using your R analog stick you can initiate car combat. Pushing the R stick to the left or right causes you to violently swerve in that particular direction. Pushing the R stick forward causes your car to bump the car in front. Aimed Shot is not really a driving move but you do get to shoot at the target in front of you while driving. The 180 Cyclone move is definitely a driving move; you get to spin your car 180 degrees and take a shot at the pursuer behind you. Airjacking someone is not really a driving move although it is performed from vehicle to vehicle. First of all, Airjacking is when Vin leaps out of his current vehicle and hijacks another. Airjacking works great when you have to maintain a high-speed chase and need to obtain a fresh vehicle. It also works great if you need to "capture" a certain individual. The driving in Wheelman is definitely original and entertaining but it is by no means realistic.