The Collection Chamber: WILD WHEELS

Enter The Arena Of Motorized Mayhem.

The 21st century is a great time to be alive. No more traffic jams; no more pollution. But with gas-engined vehicles banned from the roads, those electric and solar-powered buggies don't offer much in the way of driving excitement do they?

Only in the arena of WILD WHEELS can frustrated new-technology motorists like you experience the thrill of raw power and speed once again, in fantastic customized monsters that would blow the doors off of last century's meanest machines! It's team against team in a deadly sport with the highest stakes imaginable. Some call it game... Others say its brutal car-to-car combat.

The tunnel doors are opening... The frenzied crowd is screaming... Your mechanoid beast's engine is roaring... And the opposition stands ready to blast you into a million speeding, white-hot bits of shrapnel! Are you up to the gut-wrenching challenge of WILD WHEELS?

~ from the back of the box

There's something cool about merging football with cars. We all know about the success of Rocket League, but a quarter-century before that exploded to the market, Ocean Software gave us pretty much the same thing. Released in 1991 for the Atari ST, Amiga and PC-DOS, Wild Wheels is a vibrant, chaotic racer played entirely on a soccer pitch.

View entirely from one side of the field, you control a dinky little car - one of five on your team - against a computer opponent who has a much better grasp of the slippery controls than you do. Like your inept team mates, they are essentially obstacles that get in the way of claiming the ball. When you do manage it, football turns into rugby and everyone and their mother bombards you knocking you off coarse. If you're lucky enough to get ahead of the onslaught, you might travel to the goal on the far side to score a point, but the challenge to get there is a bit of a mixed bag.

Spend your winnings on new and presumably better-controlling cars (left).
You can change to formation and their behaviour (right).

On the positive side, the opponents offer up a decent challenge. They are no pushovers, nor are they an impossibly adept foe. They screw up just as much as you do, often being as dumb as a bag of bricks before switching on to take advantage of an opening. The same can't be said for the rest of your team. Before playing, they can each be assigned a role; killer, blocker, fetcher, guard with the strike car being one controlled by the player. I suppose a personality has been programmed for each, but none are less than useless. You may find yourself halfway up the pitch before the killer pushes an opponent into you making you lose the ball, only for the other team to take it to the unguarded goal for some points. Similarly, the inverse can happen, so it's equal opportunity stupidity.

The ball bounces out from the centre of the pitch, but good luck trying to take hold of it. I found myself circling the damn thing multiple times before stalling only for someone else to swoop in for the glory. It's an incredibly awkward control scheme to master with a large turning curve and frustrating momentum.

There are four different view points, though they aren't always useful.
Far view (left) lets you see more of the foreground while top down (right) lets you see more of the map.

To shake things up, the game will randomly deal out game-changing effects and power-up tiles. Multi-ball splits the ball into four, giving each side more chance to score. Ice-fields will coat segments of the field in ice forcing you to lose any traction you may have had while New Tire pads will refresh your deteriorating grip to maximum. Eventually, weapons and missile become available triggered by pressing the shoot button (Fire on your joystick). This adds an extra layer of stealth, but I was never able to get good enough to unlock them.

The biggest effect to look out for in the early stages at least is those that affect your points. Scoring a goal is not the only way to notch up your tally; every second you keep the ball on the other side of the pitch you will add one to the total. Do so while Bonus Points appears on screen and it will be double, though you lose them during Minus Points.

Chaos ensues when Multi-Ball randomly hits (left).
Keep the ball on the other side to earn points. Double Points, surprisingly, doubles them (right).

The game was originally designed for the Atari ST, and it show. That version is by far the best way to play. The graphics are smooth and the controls tight. The sound design isn't the best for any version, but it's good enough here too. The Amiga, surprisingly, fares the worst. The screen has been shrunk with a nasty grey border surrounding it. Even that doesn't free up enough resources to smooth out the the noticeable choppiness. While the DOS port does display in fullscreen, it still isn't as smooth as the original, but you can appreciate the technical wizardry it took to get it running on not just VGA machines, but EGA and Tandy. In the end, none are truly awful versions, but I still recommend sticking to the Atari ST. It's not often I can say that.

Wild Wheels hasn't changed my opinion of sports games, but it is an adequately fun time waster that rather surprised me. The cars controls atrociously (though the more expensive ones you can unlock may prove better) and the random nature of the power-ups are frustrating, but it's incredibly inventive for a sports game from this era. Worth a punt.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses Steem SSE to emulate the Atari ST original, the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox to bring the PC version to modern systems and FS-UAE to emulate the Amiga port. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Text manual included. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 41.3MB. Install Size: 180 MB. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download

PC-DOS

AMIGA

ATARI ST

VGA