Back during the peak of Lance Armstrong mania, I spent one summer absolutely obsessed with the Tour de France. Some kids have a yoyo phase. Some kids have a scooter phase. I had a “wake up at 6am and watching competitive cycling” phase.
The Tour de France is an incredible race. It might be the best mix of both intensity and beauty of any sport on the planet. Riding a bicycle lets you fully experience nature. There’s no windows closing you off like a car, and no loud engines covering up the sounds of the animals and the natural breeze. But it is also absolutely grueling. It’s one of the most physically demanding sports on the planet. That intensity also comes from some of the danger that cycling can have, as a bad crash can cause some pretty serious damage.
Despite this potent mix of attributes, cycling is a mostly ignored traversal mechanic in video games. If there are bikes in an open world city game, they are probably just a throw-in. There are a few extreme sports games that come out occasionally with bikes that don’t really feel much like actually riding a bicycle. There is also a Tour De France video game series that gets bad reviews every single year, and that is about it.
Wheel World feels novel in its own way just because it is a rare video game built around riding a bicycle. It’s a game with a beautiful world and cycling mechanics that actually kind of make me feel like I’m riding a bike. It has enough flaws where I can’t say it fully captures those exciting feelings of watching the Tour se France as a 12 year old, but it’s a pleasant enough experience that at least reminded me of those beautiful early mornings on occasion.
If The Tour de France Was This Easy, Lance Armstrong Wouldn’t Have Had To Roid Out #Livestrong
Outside of maybe Riders Republic, where bicycling is just one element of the game, Wheel World might be the first open world bicycle racing game ever made. You play as Kat. There is zero effort put into this story, so I’ll just say that she has to win a bunch of races in order to retrieve some legendary bike parts and save the world. The game even makes fun of how unmemorable its characters are at one point and with good reason. There’s no reason to think about this story, and I won’t spend another second on it.
After the quick introduction, you are placed into the open world to start finding races. The open world was probably something like 25% of my time with the game, but it could easily take up way more time if you really tried to find everything and didn’t mostly focus on races like me.
The races are easily the highlight of the game, as you’d hope from a racing game. The main upside to these races is that riding the bike just feels right. The physics with how speed builds and how you take turns feel a lot like actually riding a bike. Taking a turn at just the right speed is a thrill that never goes away throughout the five-ish hours I spent with the game. The racing also has some added strategy elements with its boost mechanic. You have a boost that recharges whenever you “draft,” which is when you ride closely behind someone. So as you work your way past your competitors, there can be some strategy in building up your boost gauge, and then using it when you are in a straight enough section. You can also build up this boost with other actions like nearly missing cars that are driving on the road.
I thought the track design was also pretty nice overall. There’s a solid variety of races that keep you on your toes. Some have different types of terrain, some have you dealing with a lot more traffic and are in city areas. One race is just on an oval race track. Some races are more straight lines, and others have laps and lots of twists and turns. In addition, the game is gorgeous, so taking in the views during these races is pretty nice. Wheel World has a cel-shaded art style with vibrant colors that make everything pop. Although, there is a second biome in the game with decidedly less attractive colors that took away some of the visual appeal that the first area has.
As good as it can feel to bike, there are a few design elements of the game that hold back the races from achieving the highs that I think they could have. The biggest issue is that the difficulty balancing is very poorly done. Up until a few of the last races in the game, I was winning most of the races by very wide margins. I’d be crossing the finish line with no one even near me, and I’m certainly no racing game pro. There were almost no exciting moments where I crossed the finish line with someone right on my tail, or where I managed to pass up 1st place within the last few meters of the race. The very endgame does a little better job with this, as some races have a bit more car traffic that is harder to dodge while going fast, but it was very disappointing how long it took for any races to get more competitive. It also makes the open world elements of the game that much less interesting (which we will get into later).
I also think the physics when you interact with riders are a little off. Anytime I bumped into someone, occasionally, I would kind of go through them if I did it from the right angle. If you bump into someone from the side, it almost feels like if you place the same sides of a magnet next to each other. The riders will kind of repel from each other. The AI rarely seems to get all that bothered by this, but as the rider, it’s very easy to go flying into something after this happens. I guess that adds a little extra difficulty that is missing from the game, but it still always felt a bit off. Despite these issues, I still did find myself enjoying every race, even if I was cruising to victory in a lot of them. The core mechanics are strong enough to carry it through the poor difficulty balancing.
Maybe These Bike Parts Were Abandoned In Random Spots For A Reason?
Unfortunately, the open world doesn’t fare quite as well as the races. The open world is about as basic as it gets in Wheel World. You are plopped in pretty smallish areas (the game is probably more “open zone” than “open world), and have to explore around to find shrines that unlock all of the icons on the map. From there, you can bike to each of your races. You can also find parts to upgrade your bicycle in random spots on the map by exploring or by talking to NPCs that will show you where certain ones are.
As I talked about earlier, the world is beautiful, so biking around can be pretty chill and fun for a little bit. The more I played, though, the more things bothered me within the open world.
First off, the world is very twisty, and the game doesn’t have arrows on the road that point you where you need to go when you set a navigation marker. The world is like this because races also take place on these roads, but it can be annoying with navigation. If you just see your objective marker on the screen and start cycling in that direction, it’s easy to actually end up going the completely wrong way, as sometimes the roads will be going one way, and then turn and lead you in a totally different area. I wanted to just vibe out and explore the world, but I had to double check my map more than I’d like whenever I got on a road to make sure it wasn’t going to send me somewhere completely different.
There also is almost no real reward for exploring the open world. Increasing your boost meter is nice, but it’s not a huge deal with how easy most of the races in the game are. It also didn’t take long for me to realize how pointless it is to find new parts in the open world. Most of the parts you can find are minor upgrades at best. Also, as you complete the races in the game, you will unlock “legendary” bike parts that are needed for the story. These bike parts are mostly better than anything you’ll find in the open world. For example, once you find the “legendary” handlebars, you likely aren’t going to equip any other handlebar you find, so it’s completely useless to go hunting for new ones at that point. There are a few parts that perform better on certain terrains, but with how easy the game is, swapping out parts for individual races would have been a waste of time.
As I mentioned earlier, the vibes that the game has from the visuals get diminished once you get deeper into the game and get placed into a much uglier biome. This is done on purpose for story reasons (sorry for the spoilers on a god-awful story), but it takes away the one part of the game that gives the open world any appeal.
I Went Through A Tour de France Phase As A Kid. Now I’m In My Game Blogging Mid Life Crisis Phase
One other element of the game that kind of disappointed me was the music. I felt like the game was trying to capture both “chill” and “exciting” vibes with its songs, but because of this, it doesn’t really hit either. It’s funny, because the music works a lot better in the open world, which I didn’t enjoy, but it doesn’t work nearly as well in the races, which I did like.
I think this kind of encapsulates a lot of my critiques with Wheel World. I feel like there was a lot of potential here if the developers just went all in on being a racing game or if they went all in on it being a chill exploration game. Instead, it mixes both, and I think both elements suffer for it. Luckily, the core bicycle mechanics are good enough to cover for a fair bit of flaws. I still had fun with Wheel World. I think the five hour run length ended up being the perfect amount of time, and I can’t say the game gives you all that much to really hate about it. But it can also feel a bit too vapid, and it never reaches any particularly high highs. However, it also never reaches any particularly low lows.
If you want a breezy cycling game, I think there is some good fun to be found here, even if it doesn’t live up to its huge potential in a lot of ways. But still, it recaptured a couple of those 6AM Tour de France feelings at times, and that means something to me.
Score: 7.5/10
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