Wheel World

For many of us, the humble bicycle will have represented our first taste of freedom. An opportunity to strike out on our own, unsupervised and untethered from home, across fields, into town, or (depending on where you grew up) around an industrial estate. While Wheel World combines the fantastical trappings of haunted bikes with the lingo and Lycra of modern cycling enthusiasts, more than anything else it plays as a tribute to that youthful feeling: here's a bike, here's some open space — go nuts.

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The machine itself is simple enough to control, with acceleration on the right trigger — a consistent press, no need to manually pump the pedals — and braking on the left. There's a bunny hop controlled by pulling back on the stick, plus a boost fuelled by tricks and near misses, but the majority of your time will be spent with the core mechanic: turning the handlebars with the stick and balancing brakes and pedal to match the turn ahead.

For all the simplicity of this interaction, care has been taken over its feel. There's the right sense of weight to the bike, hefty on the corners, light as air as momentum carries you downhill. As a steed, a bicycle is like a horse spliced with a giraffe, elegant at top speed on a downhill straight, ungainly if you slow down — and Wheel World captures that, for good and ill. Despite the spectral energy powering it (remember, this bike is haunted), the speed boost is a convincing expression of how it feels to be in the saddle with the wind whistling in your ears and the pedals unable to keep up. Equally, getting back up to speed after a crash feels clumsy — just as it should. But this can become frustrating when said crash was a result of your bike clipping on something it shouldn't have or the camera failing to keep up, which are both common occurrences.