Review for Pro Cycling Manager Season 2020: Le Tour De France. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 04/06/2020
Cyanide e nacon, after having consolidated the partnership with the last edition, return to the videogame market with the new chapter of the famous cycling sports series: Le Tour De France 2020. Gaining more experience, this new iteration arrives on the shelves and digitally on Steam with several new features, a sign of how the software house wants, edition after edition, to improve a niche product and increase its sales pool.
The Tour De France 2020 review we are writing takes into account the official patch that needs to be released. The vote, therefore, is based on the complete final version of all licenses.
The title arrives, as usual, in distinct versions: a simulation version, Tour De France 2020, on PlayStation 4, Xbox One e PC; a management version, Pro Cycling Manager 2020, exclusively on PC. In this edition, Cyanide wanted to do things big, in fact, for the first time even the Team Ineos is fully licensed. Some UCI World Tour teams, such as Deceuninck Quick-Step, however, remain unlicensed. The editor of Le Tour De France 2020, however, allows you to change the characteristics of teams and cyclists, giving gamers free reign as regards the updating of licenses and attributes of individual riders.
If the full license of Team Ineos adds an extra touch of realism, the real big news of the simulation lies in the new stopwatch mode. In fact, during the time trials, we can decide to use the appropriate button and put ourselves in a more aerodynamic position. This leads the cyclist to push considerably during the pedalable sections and especially in the straights. This increase in power, however, turns into a more difficult control of the bicycle, thus forcing the player to vary on several occasions between an aerodynamic position and a more fluid one. Another novelty lies in the new first-person view, which can be activated with the appropriate button. By pressing the command, we can decide to change the camera and move it from the cyclist's shoulders to a first-person view, certainly more immersive which however does not allow us to have a global view of the action around the character and, therefore, to respond to any attacks.
AI is where Cyanide has focused the most on improving the title. The difficulty is divided into four categories, each with its own characteristics. They range from a rookie level to a professional level, from a champion level to a legend level. The general difficulty of this chapter is considerable: if as a rookie it is possible to win using almost all the outsiders, going up in difficulty the level of play becomes impassable at times. In fact, at the highest difficulties, it becomes a titanic undertaking to try to win without using a cyclist specialized in the route in question. The Paris-Roubaix, for example, falls prey to the usual pavé champions such as Peter Sagan or Greg Van Avermaet, just as the Ronde Van Vlaanderen requires powerful cyclists such as Zdenek Stybar or Philippe Gilbert. The same goes for Liège-Bastogne-Liège - great news of this new edition - a hunting ground for cyclists such as Alejandro Valverde and Michał Kwiatkowski. The addition of this Classic will surely please lovers of this sport, who can try their hand at the climbs of the Ardennes.
The challenge level of Tour De France 2020 as mentioned, rises as the set difficulty increases. At higher levels, managing the team as a whole becomes fundamental, from wingmen to captains and if you want to win a stage race you need to create solid tactics and exploit every strength of the team. In the long climbs cyclists such as Primož Roglič and Geraint Thomas become literally impregnable if we have not dosed the captain's skills well. The management of the cyclist's stamina is essential if you want to compete for the high ranking positions.
One of the features of the title on which the great work of the software house is noted is precisely in the long climbs. Pressing the appropriate button allows you to choose the cadence of the pedaling, from a softer one to a decidedly tighter pace, in fact, climbing mountains is definitely tiring whether you are using a climber or a complete cyclist such as a climber. Increasing the slopes increases the fatigue of the cyclist which is also reflected in the effectiveness of pedaling. Climbing the mountains of Tour De France 2020 often turns out to be a real undertaking, so much so that you can feel the heaviness of pedaling simply by pressing the appropriate button. Furthermore, by choosing a sprinter, reaching the brow becomes almost a war between gamer and video game.
The AI in this almost borders on perfection. Using a climber, such as Adam Yates or Simon Yates, you can decide to attack to try to distance the opponents while if we decide to use a cyclist not accustomed to climbing, we will have to try as much as possible not to lose much ground, perhaps recovering in decidedly more congenial stages. In this, the AI behaves exactly like in a real stage race. In fact, the sprinters often gather in a small group to complete the stage on time, giving each other regular changes, to try to reach the finish line without being disqualified for exceeding the maximum time.
What has been told leads us to open a specific paragraph for the management of stamina and shooting, determined by a blue circle and a red circle always readable on the HUB. Each cyclist has a certain amount of stamina at the beginning of each stage, which is calculated by the video game based on certain characteristics such as recovery and goals achieved. In fact, during a long run, completing individual goals such as going on the run and getting certain points for one of the rankings, the amount of energy recovered between the stages increases. Using a cyclist who has a greater recovery is reflected in the amount of stamina available in the next stage, so much so that sometimes it is better to give up winning a few stages to try to remain competitive throughout the entire race and remain anchored to the top positions of the race. general classification.
To the stamina is also added the trigger bar that allows the cyclist to carry out powerful attacks to distance the rivals by a few meters as needed to launch a solitary escape or win a group sprint. These circles are consumed during a stage and can be filled using supplies, energy gels that are filled in certain fractions, thus forcing the gamer to precisely manage the resources available to each individual cyclist.
As usual, we can decide which cyclist to control and change at will between one member of the team and another, as at the same time we can divide ourselves between sports director, captain, wingman or even hunter of stages. Using the appropriate button we can open a menu that is used to assign specific commands to one or more cyclists, such as going on the run, pulling, staying at the wheel, using a refueling or following an attack. Team management is therefore not limited to using the captain: using Team Jumbo-Visma for example, we can decide to use Tom Dumoulin for a climb and in the same stage change to Dylan Groenewegen to win a sprint.
Another novelty lies in the aforementioned game HUB: in addition to showing the complete elevation profile of the stage and during a climb the specific slopes, which allow you to calculate the exact point in which to attack to distance the rivals, Cyanide has added a new profile during the descents , thus allowing the interface to adapt according to the characteristics of the specific stage.
The game modes remain anchored to the cornerstones of the simulation. You can decide whether to select a single Classic or the World Championship, but rather whether to compete in a single stage race, such as the Tour De France or Paris-Nice. Added to this are the challenges, a series of short routes in which to achieve certain objectives, such as completing a descent in a certain time or recovering from a puncture and winning a sprint stage, managing the advantage of an escape or winning a mountain sprint. . In addition, training is affected, a mode that allows you to learn the use of each key and how to perform the actions.
The management modes of Tour De France 2020, Pro Team and Pro Leader are also unchanged, versions that combine the simulation experience of the title with a more management one. These are modes that differ slightly: the first allows you to build a team from scratch, choosing a sponsor and offering contracts to cyclists, while remaining within the available budget; the second that allows you to create your own alter ego and build a winning team around it. Once the initial team has been chosen, composed mainly of wingmen and outsiders as the sponsor does not offer a large amount of money, we will start participating in the various stage races and obtaining good results - such as the conquest of a climber's jersey but rather as a sprinter - we will increase the reputation of the team and we will be invited to participate in increasingly prestigious stage races and with an ever higher cash prize. This allows the sponsor to increase the available budget and to buy more and more complete cyclists up to the great champions. Furthermore, using the digital alter ego, the video game offers various objectives - obtainable over several stage races - which allow the player to increase the characteristics. It is basically a career mode that follows the growth of the cyclist throughout the UCI World Tour championship, from wingman to captain.
We close this review of Tour De France 2020 with a hint of the graphics and the sound sector. Cyanide has used the same graphic engine of the previous editions, without adding new elements, therefore the conformations of the stages remain decidedly pleasant, as well as anonymous the cyclists, who are not distinguished by all using the same polygonal shape.
Definitely captivating, however, the new soundtrack accompanying the game menus which differs considerably from other editions. Cyanide has shown that he wants to improve every aspect of this simulation.
The new iteration of the Cyanide series, Tour De France 2020, manages to improve some of the key mechanics of the videogame series. The additional licenses also show the interest of the software house to be able to improve edition after edition. Cyanide, after adding significant new features to the gameplay, should focus on the graphics sector and improve the creation of cyclists without further recycling the same polygonal models. However, it is always a very realistic simulation, net of some small defects that we highlighted during the review phase, which make this chapter the best cycling video game available on the videogame market.
► Pro Cycling Manager Season 2020: Le Tour De France is a Management-Sports-Simulation game developed by Cyanide and published by Nacon for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 04/06/2020
