issoisso wrote:
OK, so it's been released, so I we can all talk freely about what it is instead of speculating about what it may or may not be
Let's see. What's new? There's a lot of little things, so it's hard to remember them all. Bear with me.
- If you're expecting new features in career mode, go away, there's nothing here for you. This is a local shop for local people.
- The new engine is of course the biggest thing. The graphics didn't seem so amazing to me. Then I went back to PCM09 for a few minutes and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THE DIFFERENCE IS INSANE. I like the rain/snow popping up occasionaly and semi-randomly. I once had snow ONLY on the Gavia at the Giro, stage 20. That was really nice.
- The new stage editor, I haven't tried it, but clearly it's a lot easier to make more realistic profiles. You'll notice it immediately when you compare stage profiles to the ones of previous years. The profiles have a lot more small rises and little variations, instead of long sections at a constant incline. It's great. It also allows partial circuits, which looks really good and makes things a lot easier for stage makers.
- The crashes caused by memory usage. A lot of improvement has been done here. It's still not perfect, but at least it's better. I can run almost every stage at maximum graphics without having any crashes (Only Volta a Catalunya stage 6 gives me problems). Don't know what it's going to be like when DBs with more equipment are released, though.
- AI is far more realistic. It's the one reason I can't bring myself to play PCM09 for any length of time after PCM2010. No gigantic insane time differences on the cobbles/mountains. Riders tend to bunch up in groups as in real life, as opposed to coming in 1 or 2 at a time for minutes on end.
Breakaways have more freedom when they're not GC dangers, sprint winners are more in tune with who is actually the better sprinter (No more Schlecks beating Valverdes in flat sprints at the end of hard stages). And quite a bit more things. Overall I'm quite pleased with the AI. But then again I'm a stickler for realism, so the AI is the most important thing for me.
- The old "Simulation" option is now called "Quick Simulation". There's also a new "Detailed Simulation" mode where you assign simple orders before the stage and watch it unfold in text commentary. The results are surprisingly realistic. I much prefer them to the results of quick simulation.
- The Team leader is now the last rider on the team to start the prologue.
- New "Achievements" in career mode. If you click one, you get the description and who's achieved it before. An example: let's say you win The Giro, Tour and Worlds with Contador (I know, not going to happen. It's just an example
). Go to the achievements page, click on the Triple Crown of Cyling achievement and you'll see an explanation of what it is (winning the Giro, Tour and Worlds in the same year) followed by
Eddy Merckx 1974
Stephen Roche 1987
Alberto Contador 2010
- Prologue stat
- A few more news items about how your team/riders are doing in the seasononal rankings
- In stage profiles, you can now click on the major climbs of the stage to see its profile separately, along with data (incline, length)
- Offline "season" mode. It's like "Career Light". If you just want to play a single season without worrying about money, sponsors, rider contracts, etc. Choose the teams, choose the races, change the seasonal rankings' points scheme (if you want to), set if the teams' squads are the real life ones, completely random, or a fantasy draft! Then go race.
- Improved interface. Nothing major, just a new main menu and buttons everywhere that take you to the home page, quite game, etc. Make navigation a little bit easier.
There might be more. I just can't remember anything else right now
But it`s already playable. Hopefully the next patch will make this game as much bugfree as possible.
