Pro Cycling Manager 2014
in its current state (version 1.1.0.1), it is not worth buying. ive only had a few hours of playtime, had several crashes, and have run into multiple bugs, one of them being that im completely locked out of multiplayer.
asking for support on their official forums if you dont speak french is also a completely pointless pursuit, since their staff does not speak enough english to provide assistance. case in point, i was told to “Please send your PCM14 to the technical support for investigation: support[at]focus-home.com”, i still havent figured out if they want me to send them the client files, or whatever. on top of that, i was told this by a staffmember in their own technical support forums, which is where you’re supposed to go for technical support.
– Real player with 488.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cycling Adventure Games.
Making an update to the review since I’ve been able to play the game more and see more details.
Below are my general feelings about the game.
Positive:
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Graphics are improved and quite good.
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Gameplay is nice.
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Different skill levels to make it easier for casual gamers.
Negative:
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Game crashes alot (Like around every second race - this is also reported by others)
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Major bug at August 2015 which makes the game crash. According to developer this means you have to start a new career once the bug fix is implemented in order to proceed. The bug fix has not been implemented yet( Ref: http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumPCM/viewtopic.php?f=123&t=16550 )
– Real player with 175.3 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2015
Well, generally i like this game, it is a lot of fun. A good simulating game. But Cyanide dissapoints me again. Now after over a year it is still a lot of problem after countless updates and patches. U get the feeling u buy an unfinished game with pro Cycling manager. And its not the first game that has major problems. Its a shame because the career mode is generally a lot of fun. But Cyanide shoudl improve and make games that actually works. Suddenly it crashes. Sometimes u cant proceed to the next day or year in career. And all this happens for no reason. Some satges simply wont work. Like the time-trials. All this is totally ridiculous. And i cannot understand why cyanide cannot fix this with all its updates. Also they should make the game with real names of teams and riders. Not come with a new database u have to install to get this, which also creates more crashes. When u buy a product like this its fair to expect that it actually will work. Here Cyanide disappoint time and again. A shame for the nice game. It shows that it creaters dont value the customers. As said i like many things with the game. But seriously cyanide should make games that crashes a lot more rare. EA Sports manage it and many others. Why is this so hard for the creaters of this game?? Therefore im not sure if to recomend it, because its many bugs. FIX IT AND SELL GAMES THAT WORKS WHEN RELEASED!!
– Real player with 480.6 hrs in game
Even though this game crashes a bit, it is still fun to play. The pro cyclist mode is fun, it is actually my favorite mode, but not totally complete because even if you are the team leader, you cannot tell your teamates to get bottles, relay at the front, protect you, or not relay at the front if you are tired (which they sometimes do). The AI in this mode sometimes does not understand that you may be going onto a climb, which makes it easier to bring back a breakaway group. For some, the mode looks bad as you “cannot” control your rider as you can only tell him to pace and other actions and move from side to side with the number pad. The normal manager mode is fun but if you are only looking at that mode, the only difference between pcm15 and the older games in the series is the ratings, age, and teams of the riders which you can chage with downloading databases off sites like pcm.daily. The track mode is unchanged and is fun to play if you have nothing to do. The one-off race is like last year and is basically unchanged. The game is very fun, but if you do not understand cycling, then the game will feel very strange and awkward.
– Real player with 289.9 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2016
Since 2012 I have about 1000+ hours of gaming experience each year with Pro Cycling Manager. I play career mode, pro cyclist mode and multiplayer.
This is the most exciting cycling game on the market. Despite the fact some of the features are not working yet or need some improvements.
Pro’s:
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Multiplayer allows people to rejoin the game after a crash. This wasn’t possible in earlier editions.
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Multiplayer: No more teams with Pantani/Armstrong, Contador, Froome, Nibali and Quintana in one team versus 5 copies of that same team, but they use the actual teams.
– Real player with 958.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cycling Multiplayer Games.
First time playing this game other than a quick trial a few years ago. A little glitchy, occaisonal crashes, but good fun. Mixes my two favorite activities: bike racing and video games. Like Zwift but without having to pedal:)
Rider stat’s are suspect in a few areas - I know what they can and can’t do.
Races seem to play out the same way every time so far, pretty predictable, early break gets chased down in last kilometers before sprint or mountain finish. It doesn’t always go that way in real life. Where are the mid and late race attacks? I imagine it’s different online playing other people, though. If I could just find a way to connect for more than a few minutes.
– Real player with 347.3 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2017
The game overall is good, a solid contiuation on previous editions, but new features are limited other than the fundamental changes to planning a riders training program. I do however, have a few areas of criticism.
1. Sprint finishes are much worse than they have been in previous editions. The sprinters energy levels go down way too slowly. For example, in Milan-San Remo my sprinter can sprint for the entire 3km the game allows you to sprint. This is obviously ridiculous, as in reality a sprinter can only max out their sprint for around 200m. This means having a solid lead out train is pretty pointless. You just make sure your rider is at the front at 3km to go and then its near impossible to be beaten irrespective of your riders stats (provided they are a sprinter). I don’t even bother with flat stages in stage races anymore, but it does ruin the classics that often end in a sprint such as Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix etc a bit.
– Real player with 793.4 hrs in game
Well, too much things go wrong. I’ve now spent enough hours on it to say with confidence: it’s not my fault…
Not working well:
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“press the space bar to stop simulation”. 7 days later, it finally stops. By now, contract offers are gone.
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Be a pro: DO NOT BE A SPRINTER. It will make you go mad. The worst breakaways (5 guys wit 64 Ryding and no stamina on a flat stage of 160k) are impossible to catch with my entire team (Ryders of 65-74-) going after them. Meanwhile, other teams with better sprinters than me don’t even seem interested in catching the breakaway. So the breakaway that got 4 mins max is not caught. If however, on occasion you do succeed to catch the breakaway, and get a good train on the road, in 1 out of 3 times, the leadoutguy just doesn’t even begin his sprint when pressing “S”. Het just let’s go mid screen and you lose 20 positions straight away. In other times when it does work, your sprinter of 75 in the shape of his life gets beaten by a nitwit with 68 sprinting, when you let him explode at the 1k mark.. it’s rediculous!
– Real player with 381.4 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2018
Ok, long story short, I have played the PCM games since 2005…
13 years, and this will be the last one I buy…
1: they have used the same glitchy and quite dull commentary for 12 editions of this game only piling more glitchy commentary on top a couple of times as certain races got layout changes, not even fixing it’s glitches or bugs along the way is unacceptable.
I learned to ignore it along the way, but it has actually gotten worse because they added more on top which didn’t make it better at all, just worse and now it has reached a level so low it is no longer acceptable.
– Real player with 1301.5 hrs in game
The premise of this game is unique to this franchise, but improvements could certainly be made if there was competition.
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Career and pro cyclist modes are detailed and enjoyable, but almost exactly the same as previous editions, the only difference being slightly more detail to the race preparation aspect. Some identities of riders and teams are inaccurate but a real names DB can be downloaded easily.
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The track racing mode seems pointless unless the devs improve it for PCM 2019, as only sprinters are included and the majority of events are endurance based, whilst none of these riders have their real names and DBs that correct this are harder to come by. The gameplay for this mode is contrastingly simplistic as the only control is direction and power using the arrow keys, making it feel more like a cheap minigame rather than one you pay £40 for.
– Real player with 992.0 hrs in game
Tour de France 2020
Few things to say:
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No energy management by AI - They either go full out until blow up, or basically stop riding so they can regain energy. Simply stupid to see on some mountain stages where peloton goes hard for like 15 km only to basically stop for final 3 km before summit.
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Predictible - after riding like 3 TdF you can easily tell where breakaway is going to be caught, where breakaway can actually go away, what time will breakaway have at specific moment of stage(!)… (amazing “blockade” on some stages on 5 minutes mark, like 50 km of racing when time difference neither goes higher or lower than 5 minutes). Heck, on almost every single stage there is a certain “scenario” going on. And it repeats every single TdF. Fun, for sure…
– Real player with 199.8 hrs in game
I have owned several different versions of these games over the years. I was super excited when they announced that they were finally bringing it to PC. It is a cycling game through and through, if you are the type of person who will watch stages of the Tour live on TV and you like gaming then you will probably enjoy this game. However if watching hours of the peloton sounds boring to you maybe look elsewhere :P
With that being said, yes the game has some glitchy animations and moments and the graphics are definitely on the sparse side. These things seem to be there every year but for the only real game of its type its not a deal breaker by any means.
– Real player with 39.8 hrs in game
The Cyclist: Tactics
It looks like a boardgame and it plays like a boardgame, a boardgame for those with large rooms in their houses, or small rooms but with a corridor or hallway to place all those tiles. The roads are divided in nodes, hundreds of them. The nodes/turn on flat terrain is 10. It takes some turns to get your 4 or less riders from start to finish. Tne time is expressed in turns, partial turns, did loose with a 0,01 difference. Yep it can be close. Your riders have different traits making them better and if you add the same trait again makes them worse too. Flat Mountain and Recovery are some of the traits to go for. It’s core mechanic is energy consumption and fatigue if you use it to the max. Thinking about tomorrow is for me the hardest part of this game. Go for that jersey and burn those reserves or move deeper into the peloton to get more slipsteam.
– Real player with 364.0 hrs in game
Just one more stage…
I had the chance to play the physical board game prototype of TCT with the producer of the game back in ~2013. Already then it was a very intense experience and we forgot to eat the whole day because we have been sucked into the game so much. So I very much was looking forward to the digital version of it and was able to support a bit during the beta test.
The Cyclist: Tactics is for everybody who likes bicycle races, strategic team building, tactical decision making and board games. It really catches the vibe of real-life bicycle racing well and the results of your actions feel natural. If you dive deeper into the game and have some experience, you can create some really tense situations which decide about winning or losing the race. There are many different ways to play: specialize in flat/hilly/mountain/time trials, build teams suitable for single stage races or for longer tours. So in my opinion there is a lot to discover and many hours of exciting gameplay. With the procedurally generated stages no game is like another and often requires different tactics.
– Real player with 150.2 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2019
I love playing this game on my mid-spec laptop. The publishers haven’t marketed this, but on low-mid spec machines the graphics smoothness and simulation speed is MUCH improved.
The new traits in Pro Cyclist mode are a much needed strategy layer to a mode that has become slightly stale (or as the in-game commentators would say, “monotonous”). Perhaps video tutorials/clearer UI can be added to explain the effect and limitations of each technique upgrades (e.g. What does teammate transcendence actually do? Is it a stat buff?)
– Real player with 1095.1 hrs in game
In recent years, the release of the Pro Cycling Manager games were always overshadowed with launch problems. (e.g. bugs, steam issues)
This year is the first year we had full communication between the larger communities and the developers and publishers. We were up to date throughout the whole process which makes the experience already much better than in the past.
When it comes to the game, annoying issues like 80 riders being involved in every crash are fixed. There are atleast 3 or 4 other AI improvements I noticed so far.
– Real player with 488.1 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2020
PCM20 is an great update. I do recommend moving to the new game from ‘19.
My favorite improvement is the in-race graphics: PCM20’s are a step or two above the ‘19 game. You might not notice it at first. But I saw pretty quickly that some of the 3D textures – on buildings and other surfaces – are nearly photo-realistic. It might just be the result of using the latest Gamebryo utility, but it’s definitely a bigger step than the upgrade between ‘18 and ‘19. The rider faces are also sharper and more realistic.
– Real player with 616.5 hrs in game
Another year, again another version ;-)
This year there are again some changing extra’s in the game, giving it a bit more challenge in managing but helas.. not the (bigger) changes my friends and me where hoping for.
Never the less, we enjoy this game every year again.
We would like to see some changes in CARIERE mode.
- For now the rewards from sponsors are out of balance in many ways : unrealistic demands for winning races (certainly for continental and pro continental teams) + errors and no good system to satisfy the sponsors (need a complete reworking there) + no extra money for going up in grade (from conti to pro conti and later to cya team).
– Real player with 430.3 hrs in game
Pro Cycling Manager 2021
The first version I’ve bought since 2016. It is a great game, career mode very addictive if you’re into that sort of thing. I like the new interface (although I don’t know how new it is!), the way the races run is different but just as enjoyable and I think more realistic, and if there were no bugs then I’d be over the moon with the game in general. However…
I always play career mode and start with a custom team, and there are always bugs that come in after a few seasons that make the game incredibly frustrating (riders you’ve signed get double-signed by another team so you end up a few riders short in your squad, team sponsorship just stops working after a few seasons, change in nationality of team sponsors not accounted for in objectives, training schedules of lesser riders no longer editable etc etc). I am interested to see whether any of these have been fixed for this new edition, as they don’t become apparent straight away and I’m only 2 seasons into my game.
– Real player with 1230.3 hrs in game
I buy and play this game year by year, with positive or less positive changes from an edition to another. But PCM21 mess up things in ITT and TTT, making time trials competitions PCM’s “cinderella”.
First, the producers introduce the red bar, I guess for sprinting in TT competitions, which is crazy. I don’t know when to use this energy from red bar. In TTT with 99 speed all riders of my team look like a bunch of amators (they accelerate and stop all the time).
Second thing is that in prologues and short ITT’s (until 15-20 km, depending on type of profile) with 85 speed the rider will finish the stage with energy left. If you go with speed over 85 you lose red bar. Crazy changes!
– Real player with 354.3 hrs in game