Another year, another bike ride
In the history of sports simulation video games there are those who win and there are those who lose, and Tour De France usually wins. But not always the one who sells many copies of an always identical product every year, sometimes you win even in a more niche sector, simply by innovating the right and making your fans happy.
Let's take cycling. It certainly cannot boast the media success of football, or even basketball: but a small and not too insignificant number of fans are crazy about it. They are enough to justify the existence, year after year, of the same videogame product. On Facebook, the FIFA, PES or 2K17 player is surprised to see the poster of Le Tour De France 2017. A video game where you ride a bike? But seriously?
And yet, if there is a game in which you kick a ball or one in which you put a slightly different sphere in a basket, the video game in which you ride a bike through some of the most prestigious routes in the world will also have the right to exist. French soil, which connoisseurs know well. Focus Home Interactive and Cyanide from year to year try to create a product that will satisfy fans, because it is evident that players who are dedicated (or passionate) to cycling are buying it. And maybe even some curious, from time to time.
A renewed gameplay
Also this year Cyanide and Focus Home Interactive they gave it their all to offer a complete, interesting and improved cycling experience, able to allow the player to identify with the athletes of the real Tour de France. The improvements are immediately noticeable if we consider the gameplay and its management during any cycling stage of the title: the opponents have become smarter and will think more at a tactical level, just to name one about the climbs they will not start to launch like madmen since start and in the plains they will give their all only starting from the last kilometer.
This naturally reflects on the tactics of the game: the ascent phases have become more calculated and reasoned; if we then add that with the new addition of the "maximum time" the cyclists who do not finish the stage in the fixed time are disqualified, we understand how the anxiety factor has been increased, for the benefit of identification with the experience.
Even the graphic design of the title has been renewed: if you don't understand it immediately with the game menus, just go down the paths and grind a few kilometers. First you can forget the old HUB, which has now been made much cleaner and simpler. On the one hand there are the circles that represent our cyclist, with his energy and the parameters of the sprint and effort (as well as the usual map with the current race course).
We can then call up the menu to give orders to the team by pressing a specific command. In short, we are at the same time real cyclists, but also with functions as sporting directors, and we will be able to give orders to teammates. Orders can be given to the individual cyclist but also to the whole team, for example to make them collaborate against dangerous opponents or to perform an action from a distance.
Tour of France, but not only
From the point of view of the contents, as has already happened in the previous versions of the title, Le Tour de France will be playable both in the version of the past year (2016) and of the current one, but we also see the addition of new races and new stages . In fact, the Triptyque Tour, the Critérium International, the Critérium Du Dauphiné and the Circuit Des Grimpeurs, names certainly known to enthusiasts. In Pro Team mode, these stage races will serve, in addition to earning money by unlocking our sponsor's achievements, to obtaining the invitation to the Grande Boucle.
Once the team has been created and the sponsor chosen, we can draw from the database to complete the roster. At the beginning we will only be able to buy young promises and second lines, once the budget has grown we will be able to draw on luxury wingmen and captains, ending with the legends of this sport, once again included. Among the various modes, the challenge mode also remains as a cornerstone, in which we will have to beat pre-established times along the most famous descents. Finally, we will also be able to create our personal Tour with the My Tour mode, in which to draw from the stages in the database to create our personal stage race.
Interesting details also come regarding licenses, which often pose a problem for sports titles. The database of Le Tour de France 2017 can be almost completely modified, and here too Cyanide has taken a good step forward: we will be able to change the name of individual cyclists, and also the characteristics of all of them. In this way the database will remain up to date, almost perfectly corresponding to the real performances.
