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The Verge
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Wheel World is the feel-good game of the summer
Momentum is what Wheel World does best. It is the feeling of reaching a downhill section of road, a pristine Sega-blue sea stretching out in the far distance, and letting gravity, the weight of your bicycle, and slope do all the work. Release the right trigger, the button used to peddle, and simply careen down the gently curving asphalt. It's as if you're flying — the wind in your hair and shirt fluttering on your back, coasting to wherever the road takes you. Wheel World is an undeniably feel-good video game. But this wasn't always the case. It started life with the title 'Ghost Bike,' casting you as a deceased cyclist making their way to bicycle Valhalla. One name change later (and probably a lot of behind-the-scenes wrangling), it arrives as a game about the unmitigated joy of riding a bicycle through a Mediterranean island. The roads here are lined with cypress trees, the beaches are white and sandy, and you'll come across many chic cyclists lounging in cafes. The atmosphere is so vividly rendered that I can practically taste the vacation Coca-Cola as I play. Summer itself seems strewn across the screen. You play as Kat, a rider chosen by a cycling spirit named Skully to enact an ancient ritual. This is achieved by accruing parts of a so-called legendary bicycle: frame, wheels, chain, and more, which have fallen into the hands of rival cycling gangs. So you race these teams (which have superbly off-beat names like the 'Nude Dudes' and 'Shimmy Squad'), moving across a mix of dirt and road tracks. You encounter other cycling spirits residing in gigantic sculpted bike bells along the way. Ringing your bell at one of them causes the stonework to crack, thus revealing said spirit. You chat and gain an extra few bars on your boost gauge, before a portion of the map is revealed with tiny little icons indicating where you should pootle to next. That's right: Wheel World, from California-based studio Messhof, maker of the excellent Nidhogg sword-dueling games, is structured like an open-world behemoth from Ubisoft. But expectations should be kept in check. There isn't a blockbuster's worth of content here. Rather, across the roughly seven hours of playtime, you'll take part in races, duke it out with lone cyclists, and meet cute little dudes with boxes on their heads who point you in the direction of new gear. Oh, and there are strange hovering drones which dole out rewards for classic checklist completion stuff (like finding hidden jumps and lost members of cycling crews). You could argue the game is a little slight in its array of things to do. But that's not quite right. Rather, Wheel World requires you to rethink traditional definitions of content — to move beyond markers on a map. Content, for example, is every highway and path whose varying terrains cause your bicycle to handle differently. It is the shaky, unstable feeling that is channeled from screen to hand to brain via the controller when you veer onto the little slip of gravel next to the road. Content is also watching Kat as she strains to surmount a hill with a gradient that would cause a heart attack in most. Our hero remains stoic: I marvel at her thighs of steel! Wheel World is filled with many more beautifully animated details. You're able to hop off your bicycle and push it around on foot. Maneuvering in a tight space, Kat does a kind of swivel trick with her handlebars, essentially spinning the bike frame around in one effortless motion. Another deftly rendered moment: when Kat dismounts, lifting her right leg over the bike, resting it next to her left, and then freewheeling to a gentle stop while standing upright. If you're a cyclist, this move will likely already be familiar to you: it means every journey ends with nonchalant cool (or so you likely imagine). I've never seen it reproduced in a video game before. All this serves to make ambling around the island an exquisitely elegant thing. It's a shame, then, that the racing is a little more chaotic, a little less refined. Showdowns on wide open roads are, for the most part, a joy. Those that take place in tight city streets can be finicky, Kat bouncing awkwardly off AI cyclists, world geometry, and oncoming traffic. The difficulty also feels a touch wonky: races are too easy for much of the game before an unexpected spike arrives in the last hour or so (exacerbated by a chugging frame rate on the PlayStation 5). Still, these moments of frustration only made me pine all the more for the relative serenity of the open (world) road. Upon rolling credits, I dived back in to check off remaining objectives while soaking up the picture-postcard vibe again. This, I think, is the true mark of a game like Wheel World: the extent to which the core mechanics might cajole you back. Galavanting during my post-credits session, I thought about another notable racing title with light open-world design: Mario Kart World. The latest in Nintendo's flagship kart racer is a cascading stream of serotonin hits induced by cotton-candy skies, soaring backflips, and delightful wahoos. It is a pure pleasure machine. Wheel World, on the other hand, doles out joy with a little less machine-like efficiency. It is more languid, massaging your eyeballs, ears, and brain with great blocks of warm, cel-shaded color, nostalgia-tinted electropop, and, of course, beautifully tactile cycling. What mileage there is in simply ebbing and flowing across the gorgeous sun-kissed land, carried along by both cool breeze and smooth tarmac. Freewheeling, it is practically impossible not to break out in a smile. With every descent, those smiles only widen. Wheel World launches July 23rd on PC, PS5, and Xbox. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Lewis Gordon Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Games Review Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming
CBC
07-05-2025
- CBC
Winnipeg cyclists decry delay of Wellington Crescent safety report
Some Winnipeg cycling advocates questioned the priorities of city officials, as they gathered outside city hall to protest the delay of a report on safety improvements to a stretch of road where a driver hit and killed a cyclist last year. Council ordered city staff to come up with a plan to improve cycling safety on Wellington Crescent last year. On June 6, 2024, a driver going 159 km/h hit and killed Rob Jenner on Wellington, near the intersection of Cockburn Street. Last month, the public works committee approved a 60-day delay of that report, meaning any changes likely won't be ready in time for the summer cycling season. "The city has ignored the call from the community to do something about the racetrack-like speeds, the racetrack-like infrastructure and design of Wellington Crescent," said Arielle Villarin, who lives near Wellington. Ahead of a regularly scheduled public works committee meeting Tuesday, Villarin and more than a dozen others rallied outside city hall. Beside the speakers stood a white bike decorated with flowers — a "ghost bike" in tribute to Jenner. "It's almost summer and everyone's out on their bikes, but nothing has been done to change how our roads and our streets function for people who are more vulnerable on the road," said Villarin. After the rally, the protesters packed the public gallery inside the committee meeting room. The Wellington report wasn't on the agenda. Instead, the committee was discussing a report looking at speed limits on active transportation paths. In January, council ordered city staff to write the report, after a motion from St. James Coun. Shawn Dobson, who said he had received complaints from residents concerned about safety risks posed by electric bicycles and scooters. That report concluded the Highway Traffic Act prevents the city from setting separate speed limits on paths running next to roadways, and it would be difficult to enforce on paths in other areas. After the meeting, the protesters installed the ghost bike near the spot on Wellington where Jenner was killed. Rachel Alguire wishes the city spent more time improving Wellington rather than studying active transportation speed limits. "The city continues to delay things to no end. And I look at this white ghost bike and I think, who will be the next person that will be killed by a motorist on this street?" she said. Public works chair Janice Lukes says councillors have many competing priorities, and city staff want to make sure that the changes they make to Wellington Crescent are the right ones. "Sure, a person could slap in something, but if it isn't proper, that's not good," the Waverley West councillor said. "So they are taking their time to make sure what they put in is adequate." The public works committee will take up the matter again on June 12, more than one year after Jenner's death. Winnipeg cyclists rally at city hall to demand safer streets 3 hours ago Duration 1:59 It's been almost a year since a driver hit and killed a cyclist on Wellington Crescent. On Tuesday, bike advocates gathered at city hall to urge officials to act faster to make streets safer.
