I used to love the PCM series. I moved away from the games a few years ago during uni/buying a house/getting a job in the real world. I brought last years edition and was incredibly disappointed with a game that was completely unplayable for a real cycling fan. I've been on the site today for the first time in a while and it seems that the same problems persist with the AI and general gameplay.
At first I was angry that the makers of the game appear to have yet again completely ignored all feedback and continue to release games with a few more frills but no real improvement.
However, after thinking about the issues I started to think that cycling may simply be too complicated a sport for developers to code for when producing a game.
Normal team sports involve 2 teams, both of which have one goal, to beat the other team. As such games such as FIFA can seem realistic much easier.
Cycling can involve 20+ teams all with different goals and aims for each individual race/stage/sprint etc. Even within 1 team there may be individual riders with different goals and ambitions. There could be 100+ riders all with different goals for the stage.
Do we have to accept that cycling is too complicated to ever allow a truly realistic game without each individual rider having some kind of consciousness as to what is going on around them?
I agree that things such as break-aways not workings and no other teams not helping chase are simply poor developing on the makers part. However for a game where each team/rider rides to it's own objective, makes decisions based upon what happens on the stage and acts as truly a realistic cyclist, are we asking too much of the makers to make a realistic cycling games seeing as how many factors need to be considered.
Personally I would be happy to see the developers not release any further games for the next 2/3 years. Concentrate on the gameplay and release patches for the current game. However, given the current technology, does anyone really expect a realistic cycling game no matter how much money is put into the development of the game.
It's a shame because this game could be amazing. However with the current levels of technology available it will only ever be an annoying waste of time.
If the player really understands how cycling as a sport works then yes PCM makes a very good game, if not then it's going to be quite hard to master.
I disagree with each riders individual goals in a race, the AI treats a team as having one or a few aims for the race/stage, as depicted by its leader etc and terrain. If a GT team puts a rider into a break then its usually for a later plan to be executed.
Sure there are some AI problems with certain teams not chasing down as they should or other teams chasing down a rider for no real reason, so the AI is far from perfect but I'd say since I've been playing this game it's been getting more andr more realistic each year.
A lot of people complain about not winning in a breakaway, I play on hard and often win from breakaways but I usually have to work at it and employ the right tactics in the break and a bit of luck as well, in fact just like in real life as winning from a breakway is a hard thing to do.
The complexity of the sport with all the teams that you're talking about is actually what makes the game very addictive as you can never quite precict what will happen, much like cycling in real life.
I found PCM is not a game to play now and again and to be good at it and master most of its attributes you have to play it almost on a daily basis, it's not like picking up a football and just having a quick match.
Too complicated to simulate properly? You could say that about any real life activity a game tries to simulate. Football in FIFA doesn't much look like real football most of the time, for example. You just cannot simulate every nuance, no matter how much effort you put into it. Having said that, sure, PCM could be better, but on the whole I think it does a decent job of simulating professional cycling. Also, a game has to be fun to play and too much realism can become a nuisance. Imagine for example, every rider's pockets were simulated and you'd have to choose what to put in every pocket, when to eat, when to put on and take off a rain jacket, unzip jersey uphill, zip up downhill, etc... a small fraction of players might love it, but most of us would think that's just too much micromanagement.
Ripley wrote:
Too complicated to simulate properly? You could say that about any real life activity a game tries to simulate. Football in FIFA doesn't much look like real football most of the time, for example. You just cannot simulate every nuance, no matter how much effort you put into it. Having said that, sure, PCM could be better, but on the whole I think it does a decent job of simulating professional cycling. Also, a game has to be fun to play and too much realism can become a nuisance. Imagine for example, every rider's pockets were simulated and you'd have to choose what to put in every pocket, when to eat, when to put on and take off a rain jacket, unzip jersey uphill, zip up downhill, etc... a small fraction of players might love it, but most of us would think that's just too much micromanagement.
I would LOVE these features, but I would also love to play 1:1 stages.
