Wheel World combines a contrived mythic narrative with bicycle-racing mechanics centered on a skull-like bike spirit called Skully. Players must win seven lost parts of a Legendary Bike from rival cyclists so Skully can enter the Soul Sewer, reach Mount Send, perform the Great Shift ritual, fly to the moon, and save the universe. An earlier Ghost Bike concept featuring roadside memorials for fallen cyclists was abandoned in favour of lighter lore. Developers left the lore optional, but the story feels clumsily attached. As a racing game, Wheel World does not provide nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat excitement expected from the genre.
I have spent a week trying to save the universe. Not by leading a hardened team of oddball veterans in an assault on a despot's intergalactic outpost, nor by completing a series of well-written tasks to build up my warrior mage so they can defeat some ancient malignant omnipotent deity. I have done it by completing easy races on a bicycle. Sounds ridiculous? Welcome to Wheel World. It seems the epitome of arch to criticise a video game for its ridiculous plot when I am happy to have plumbers save worlds by stomping on mushrooms, or hedgehogs doing similar while wearing snazzy sneakers. I even took Arbroath FC to the European Cup final in Championship Manager once. But the plot of Wheel World seems so clumsily stuck on I suspect 10% of the code is pure Blu-Tack.
There is a spirit in your bike who looks like a skull and therefore is called Skully. Because it's that kind of game. You need to win the seven lost parts of his Legendary Bike by beating the cyclists who have them, so Skully can enter the Soul Sewer to reach Mount Send and perform the Great Shift ritual to fly to the moon and save the universe. Just typing that plot makes my fingers vibrate with the clunkiness. It's lo-fi hipster hippy claptrap.
The original plot of what was initially called Ghost Bike involved memorials placed by the roadside to mark the deaths of cyclists. That sounds much better but it was ditched in favour of lighter fare. Now, according to the Messhof studio boss Mark Essen, There's some silly lore in there, and there's a creation myth, and deities people pray to, but it's like, take it or leave it. If the people making the game aren't bothered about the story, how am I expected to be?
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