It isn’t the first time PCM arrives and it will probably sound familiar to most people. Cyanide, the developer, once took its chance and remained the only ones with cycling in the games world. A bit of competition wouldn’t hurt, but they’re doing a decent job and you’ll find out why and how in this review.

As introduction you’ll have to complete a couple of practise sessions that will prepare you for the real work. These tutorials are quite simple and shown in a beautiful 3D world. You’ll quickly get the hang of the game without losing your pedals anymore. As manager you need to pick a team from a list and go to the Tour De France with it. All these teams exist in real life and also the names of the cyclists are correct. Each of those even has a complete profile with his skills and preferences.

Just like in real life you don’t start immediately with the Tour De France but will have to check out some other tournaments and smaller gamers first. Your team will also need training and the terms of these are bound by the seasons. You won’t be able to train somewhere in January for instance if the nearby hotel closes for the winter. These practices of course add to the strength of your team and you’ll notice that.

After training it’s time for the real world and that means competition. Just like the tutorials you get to see the games in a 3D world. Graphically the game does lack some detail as the accompanying cars and bikes are really badly made and also the audience could be done better. Luckily, the cyclists themselves aren’t too bad. The camera positions, from helicopter or motorbike, are well-chosen although they can still use some improvement.

The control panel of your riders is still the familiar one from the previous games. If you’ve played one of thos you’ll quickly get used to this one, but also newcomers to the game shouldn’t have any problems and be able to quickly develop their own tactics.

Unfortunately, the races quickly become repetitive and you’ll easily fast forward until the end of the ride to check out the final sprint. Most of the time, the games end up like this as trying to escape from the platoon rarely succeeds. Only when driving through mountains this sometimes can be different, but in the end this does form a downpoint when it comes to gameplay and decreases the fun factor.

While driving through different countries you see several landscapes but you’ll always have the feeling you’re cycing through the same environment. Here and there you’ll notice some agriculture but most of the time the surroundings are made up of one texture added with a road and some telephone poles, varied with sometimes some houses but those are so badly made and lack so much detail that you won’t want to give them a second look.

It may seem I’m negative about this title, but that’s not my intent. The tension is constantly present even though in the end it always comes down to saving your strengths. The 3D world may not be the best we’ve ever seen but for a game in this genre it’s quite good. PCM manages to keep you interested while passing time and it feels good to do some games with your favourite team.

The biggest positive point in this game is the online possibilities. With Gamecenter from Cyanide you can play against friends or opponents all over the world. This is done smooth and of course can end up quite different from a match against the computer.