The Pro Cycling series has a long and (mostly) distinguished history on the PC. Generally year after year Cyanide have built on the previous incarnation to bring a deeper and more accomplished cyling management sim. Yup, "cycling", "management" and "sim". I won't be offended if you close this window right now, but if the concept of spending thirty minutes to an hour gently and strategically lining up the smaller named riders of Rabobank, CSC, Milram or T-Mobile for a sprint finish in a small race out in Qatar then this is the game for you. Of course, you can also power Oscar Freire or Tom Boonen to victory in a vicious and aggressive sprint finish down the Champs Elysses in the final stage of the Tour de France or send Michael Rasmussen or Denis Menchov powering away on a lonely break across the Alps, but the joy of Pro Cycling Manager is that you can race Qatar to the Tour de France and everything in between before spending your earnings on training camps, bicycle parts and contracts. On the PC, Pro Cycling Manager was every bit as deep and involved as Football Manager or Cricket Captain.
Of course on the PSP much is going to be lost, however as with Football Manager '07, overall it's been a major success. Yes, of course there is a shallower feel to the management side but instead of cutting out swathes (such as bike development and training camps) and leaving gaping holes, the developers have instead brought in a very smart and surprisingly deep approach to choosing when your cyclist will be peaking during the season, and how much. This itself causes problems for a would-be-manager who has to juggle his riders, as I'd imagine would happen in real life, to make sure he can always provide a team for each race that has a chance of winning a stage, or a jersey, or at least put in a good showing for young up-and-coming riders. Contracts are also pleasingly simple-yet-effective as is the youth scouting (points are awarded with which to scout - more points on individual riders providing more information about their abilities and specializations - whether mountains, hill, time trials, sprints or the flat).
You don't just have to play a season though. With a wide variety of races, classics and tours available, the player can choose a one off race, or a classic, or one stage of a tour, or a whole tour, or choose the stages of a tour to race to make up a "smaller tour". Of course this can only scratch the itch for so long and it won't be long before you launch into the five season career mode, choosing a team out of the full line up of first string teams (only Unibet and Astana have "fake" names due to liscencing but for the riders, only the odd vowel have been changed, making the "real" name obvious - example Baden Couke is of course Baden Cooke.)
So, you've trained your team, chosen your five riders (teams are limited to five for each race, making an impressive field of 100 riders on screen) for the race ahead and the race begins to unfold in front of your eyes. The race screen is very similar to the PC version with the 3Dish footage. The stages generally take around 10 minutes to 20 minutes instead of an hour which is much more reasonable for handheld "on the bus/in the car" action. This can be made even shorter by using the 2X or 4X speed options. As with the PC version you don't control the riders themselves but instead give them "orders" such as "relay", "hold position", "attack", "feed" (drink water) or "cycle at a certain effort". You can choose four cameras (including one useful free camera which you can move around with the PSP's nubby stick) and can watch any cyclists in the race. There's a load of attacking, counter attacking and sprinting going on throughout stages with a wider variety of tactics than the PC game sometimes offers along with two very pleasing differences - sometimes there aren't attacks from the very start of the stage unlike the PC versions, and also long attacks can sometimes work!
There are two more "nods" to the PSP's handheld console nature though, both of which have caused some uproar - namely sprints and time trials. With both of these, the player actually CONTROLS the rider, hitting the circle button to speed him up, and steering him manually. While I didn't like them to begin with, I now find the time trials can be pretty exciting, with the perfect braking and steering lines pretty important (time trials were also pretty dull on the PC). Sprints have more to compete against as sprinting on the PC was extremely well realised, ordering your cyclists to shelter behind another sprinter who would have to do all the work before pulling out as late as they dared to sprint for the line. On the PSP if you're directly behind another rider you can follow them without using up your sprinting bar, before pulling out to attack in the last few metres which is great, but it's far too easy to get trapped behind the front row of cyclists who create an impenetrable wall, and also it makes team lead outs and deeper sprinting tactics almost impossible, which is a real shame as this brought life to the end of a long flat stage on the PC.
Ultimately though this game is a hidden gem. One that will get no coverage in the UK and will be horribly underrated, partly due to the awful sound and workmanlike graphics, but mostly due to the general and gaming public's disinterest with cycling. One Spanish online store has this rated at 9/10 from 250 votes and as a country they generally know more about cycling than the UK. This should tell you something about the real quality of the game.
So then my (obvious) advice. If you have no interest in cycling then don't bother (you'll not enjoy the experience) but if you have even a passing interest then I urge you to track down this excellent little pocket rocket. Football Manager '08, Cricket Captain and Pro Cycling all on the PSP - the three best ways to pass those long car journeys to your extended families this Christmas!
