Pro Cycling Manager 2008 review (PC)

You've just been out cycling, donning the whole outfit - curiously shaped helmet, skin-tight lycra one-piece, wrap-around shades - before peddling yourself silly on the roads/pathways of your locale.

At home, though, the cycling urge takes hold once more - where do you then go to get your two-wheeled fix?

That's right, Pro Cycling Manager - Tour de France 2008! Designed to fulfil all your cycling-based needs, PCM offers up a spoke-boggling 400 stages or so to race on, including the whole of this year's Tour de France.

Well, I say 'race' on, it will actually be your team that does (apart from in the track racing mode), because this is a management sim, remember? So what exactly do you manage?

Essentially, you take control of a pro-cycling team, guiding them through various races, stages, tours and even a relatively long-winded career mode using tactics, strategy and a lot of screen-watching.

The tutorials skim over only the basics - you'll have to refer to the manual for the proper, hardcore stuff - so the learning curve is relatively steep.

Trial and error will be your friend at first, especially if you don't already have knowledge of basic team cycling tactics.

Before each event, a team leader needs to be assigned, the actual race squad selected, a sprinter selected and so on.

During the thing itself, you can order your helmeted warriors to hold position, attack, counter-attack, sprint etc.

Each rider is defined by his energy bars, which refer to different parts of a race - green for the whole thing, yellow for high-speed sections and red for attacking - so you need to carefully consider when to try a breakaway from the pack.

The AI is pretty good at reacting to your tactical plans, although it usually launches its own attacks during the latter parts of races. Still, despite a couple of bugs appearing here and there, the actual gameplay is pretty solid.

Unless you don't like cycling, of course - PCM is closer to the mainstream than other cycling titles have been in the past, offering decent graphics and presentation and a general touch of class that has been missing from the series in the past.

It is pretty deep, with the sheer range of cycling-based challenges and modes (including multiplayer) on offer. The question remains, though - how many people out there actually love cycling enough to spend money on a simulator, instead of on, say, actual biking gear.

Still, you have to admire Cyanide for creating a decent management game from the subject matter at hand, and it is bound to sell very well on the continent.

If you can't get enough of cycling and dream of spokes, handlebars and performance-enhancing drugs, then Pro Cycling Manager 2008 will be right up your peloton.

7/10 (5/10 for non-cyclists)

Joseph Powell