Wheels of Aurelia

This is another Ultimate Head to Head (UHH) game that I have to say is one of the most bizarre, and frankly absurd, game concepts I’ve seen for a while. It’s effectively a visual novel game but one where you also drive a terribly handled car down a questionably accurate road.

You follow the story of Leyla, a character whose dialogue options flick between obnoxious, twatish and silent. She is one of the worst characters I’ve ever played as in games and her supporting cast aren’t much better either.

Leyla appears to be some kind of political activist who is against ‘the man’ and demonstrates her being ‘against the man’ by constantly smoking, driving like a reckless dickhead, and having an opinion on everything while appearing not to make any constructive contribution to society while taking whatever liberties she wants. The game was developed by Santa Ragione which is of Italian origin so maybe there’s a translation issue. I don’t know, but it certainly feels like it.

Gameplay wise, there are two functions. Drive the car and select dialogue options. Selecting dialogue options is a massive faff which involves having to press up or down on the D-Pad and read the different options while attempting to drive a car – that’s if you are using the car’s speed up function by pressing the A button. If you don’t press the A button, the car will drive itself – something that the AI is also incredibly bad at. When you are in control of the car, there are also a large number of invisible walls that appear as if from nowhere in the middle of the road. It’s annoying when you are trying to drive without crashing which is key to some of the achievements.

Musically, its fucking horrific. I’m saying this strictly from a ‘having to listen to it over and over again’ point of view. There are sixteen endings in the game and having to suffer through the same three of four clinky-clunky background songs for the whole thing made me wish I had muted it. You don’t even need sound as the dialogue is written and appears on the screen.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 25 Achievements

There are 16 achievements for each ending and another two pointless ones for unlocking 10 endings and all the endings. The only painful bit is figuring out some of the bizarre criteria that determines getting certain endings. This comes down to driving at certain speeds, driving without crashing, winning races against dickheads and picking up some other people who needs lifts to certain places, despite the fact you may be going somewhere different.

Looking outside of the endings, there is another achievement for completing the game in less than 15 minutes. This was the first achievement I unlocked, and I don’t recall many endings taking more than 15 minutes to get. In addition, there is another auto-achievement for completing the game for the first time.

In terms of hitchhikers, there are six that need to be picked up for another achievement and this is gained by exploring all routes, which you will have to do anyway if you want all the endings.

There are two very strange achievements that are quite similar and can be earned together. One of for completing the game without making any dialogue choices, effectively remaining silent for the game, and also… for not touching the controller. That’s right, there is an achievement for actively choosing to not play the game.

The last two achievements I unlocked were for getting all of the cars and the reason for this is that not all of the cars are connected to endings so you have to play in different ways towards the same endings to get them all. I know I said two achievement and that’s because there is an achievement for unlocking all other achievements.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Wheels of Aurelia is another one of those games that doesn’t seem to understand what it is to be a game. It is filled with characters that are not likeable and the story itself doesn’t feel like it has any substance – which isn’t surprising considering it can end in 16 different ways. I can’t recommend playing it, but it is an easy and relatively quick completion, albeit one that took me 7 hours. However, I did fall asleep several times while the game was running.