I got it so why not writing about it..
And it's very weird that this is my latest PCM as my most actual PCM is from 09
Graphics
Can't say a lot about the graphics just they are decent in my opinion for the PSP, there are also some effects like heavy fog, starting to rain etc. which is cool
It's nice to have the podium after each stage/classics which is looking great (for the PSP) whilst the rider is a 3D model, the podium girls are 2D, but nevermind they are looking better then on the PC for some reasons.
Also at the Tour of Australia, the leading rider wears the TOA leader jersey (orange with some black writings) and orange pants so thats great to have not just default jerseys but for every stage race their own jerseys.
Sound
Also decent, the music in it is known from the earlier PCM games like 05-10 I guess
Gameplay
The gameplay is good and playing on pro (hardest difficulty) is a tough challenge.
AI behaviour
Even though Pro is very tough, I like the AI behaviour chasing down groups.
I think on the PCMs on the PC, you are going with the breakaway of the day, they start everytime to reel the breakaway in and whilst your rider is tired, the same riders are attacking again.
Here you can even win with the breakaway on pro but sprinting on pro is very very hard as you have to be at a very very good position to sprint from.
Sprinting
Sprints are very good but on pro it's like you need to have the 3rd position before the sprint breaks out. With a bad position you might win on beginner (easiest difficulty) as they let you win, but on pro you will fail a lot with bad positioning (like Greipel). I think while it's possible to ride a bit through the riders at the very beginning of a stage to attack, at sprints it's not possible so if you are stuck behind don't think even about sprinting as you can't go through the peloton.
Time trials
There are team time trials (I guess thats new?) but you aren't controlling them like at the single time trial. You have to tap O to start the team time trial and at the end as a sprint to the finish line thats all you are active in it, otherwise you have to set the effort and have to tell them, when they should let the next rider lead out the team. On pro even with Saxo Bank it's very hard.
Individual Time Trials oh well.. I have to say I play a lot of racing games so finding a good line and drive fast isn't really a problem but here..
I don't know a lot about cycling like everyone else here and can imagine that a time trial bike isn't easy to steer with but it seems to be very inconistent navigating through the stage with it as it's like bus driving. And even though I managed to ride very fast with Cancellara (on Pro) on the Rotterdam ITT of the Tour, I was 8th or 22 seconds behind the winner (FDJ rider, but can't remember the name) and Jose Ivan Gutierrez (0 seconds behind the FDJ rider).
But it's fun to be the rider at the ITT without any "driving on rails" feeling like at the PCM09 track mode for example. Also the sprinting is controlable without any rails they are on.
Game modes
Normally there are the most obvious game play modes like "stage", stage races, classics etc. but it has got a good career mode and a campaign mode.
Campaign mode
There is a campaign mode, you are given a team (I got Omega Pharma Lotto) and you have to achieve diffrent things and you are given medals named after Aspin/???/Ventoux which is the "gold" medal.
The first goal is at the Tour of Australia and is called "Showing the jersey". You have to be at the breakaway of the day for some kms, whilst it's ok for the Aspin medal to be just infront for some 20?kms, for the Ventoux medal you have to be at least 50kms infront and you have to win the stage.
I guess the team was pre-setted and so the team there was just Gilbert and 4 riders like Delage etc.
I attacked with Delage as he got some "decent" sprinting skills and managed to stay infront with the breakaway group and later managed to take the stage win with him from the sprint.
Career mode
The career mode is limited to 5 seasons I have to say but I think thats ok.
You can take 20 teams from the 26 official teams but I would have found it better that every team could take part at the season with some kind of invitation system taking into account the team/success/teams nationality..
So if you would like to have Radioshack, Cervelo Test Team and Sky in your career, you need first to kick out 3 other teams like Milram, Footon and another team you don't like or don't wish to have them in your career.
You can scout the youth riders.. Each month you are given points (50 on beginner, 30 on amateur and 20 on pro) and with them you have to scout the riders. There are 98? riders on a list from diffrent countries and with the points you unlock informations for them:
1 point for the rider type (like cobble rider, sprinter, time trialist etc.)
2 points for a very vague potential (1-8 like at PCM, but you get informations like 2-6 or so)
And with the points doubling I guess, you could then find out the riders potential, but you don't know how good he actually is and I think thats interesting for the career mode.
There is a fitness system but instead of having 5 columns each month (PC PCM), every month is a column as there are just WorldTour races.
There is also a training system like setting up the intensity for the rider (easy, medium, high) on high the rider will lose fitness so even he peaks in July for example, he won't get a good fitness level if you have him on high every month but he will be a better rider in the future.
There are just 3 training modes like classics, stage race and sprint. So if you would like to train someone for cobbles take classics, if you would like to train a time trialist, you have to train him for stage races I guess.
Track mode
The track mode has every discipline from the PCM PC game I think and they are looking like track rider with long sleeves etc.
There are 8 riders to choose from with 3 categories.. Does anyone know this.. Mike Jensen? Even though he is a midclass rider, I managed to win Keirin with him.
Content
There is a lot of content, the most important races are in it WorldTour races I guess with 2 extra classics (Omloop Nieuwsblad and GP del Lazio) that aren't in the WorldTour
There are 26 actual teams and 40 bonus teams
The 20 WorldTour teams plus RadioShack, Vacansoleil, Team Sky, Cervelo Test Team, Skil-Shimano and BMC
The 40 bonus teams are unlockable if you win something..
Like playing on the easiest difficulty and winning a TDF stage.. You'll get the La Vie Claire '85 team but there are just 5 riders and not the whole roster.
If you win on Pro Milan-San Remo and the Giro di Lombardia, you'll get the Bianchi '03 team, too bad I won't get them as fast as La Vie Claire.
You can play with these teams then on the other modes (except career mode I think and campaign mode) but there are listed in legendary teams 1 and 2 and thats important. If you take a team from legendary teams 1, you will just race against the others from legendary teams 1.
Legendary teams 1 are mostly teams from the 60ies to 90ies.
Legendary teams 2 are teams from 2000-2003 with a weird selection in my opinion. Later maybe I could list every team here.
Wi-Fi connection
You can play with other people over the Wi-Fi connection, but as my PSP E1000 (Street) doesn't have it, you need to have the older PSP 1000-3000 models. I think it has game sharing so even they don't have to game, through game sharing they could play it, but I can't guarantee it as I haven't tested it.
Database editor
I should mention that it got a Database editor, but you can just change the name of the teams and riders (even the legendary ones!) but not the stats, just the names but better then nothing eh?
I think thats enough for now as I can't think of other things I could tell something about as I think I got the most important things.
I would recommend it to everyone who has a PSP and is interested in cycling.
Edited by Rin on 11-01-2012 12:32
Team Bianchi - 2012 Man-Game ProContinental Tour Champions
Here are the legendary teams and as I don't know them all, everyone with a ? is a rider with his wrong name in the game (as every team except one has wrong names):
Legendary teams 1
Once - Look 1996
Jalabert, Zülle, Mauri, Zarrabeitia, Ninkon?
BIC 1973
Ocana, Rosiers, Agostinho, Vietensen?, A. Santy
Banesto 1992
Indurain, Delgado, de las Cuevas, Gorospe, Belonso?
Carrera Jeans 1992
Chiapucci, Roche, Pantani, Abdujaparov, Gharotto?
Cyanide 2009
(thats why "legendary" stands there )
A lot of Cyanide employeesI guess
Festina - Lotus 1997
(somehow except Dufaux, everyone is spanish.. but thats not the single fault in these historic teams)
Virenque, Dufaux, Brochard, Lino, Pascal
Gewiss - Ballan 1994
Berzin, Argentin, Bontempi, Ugrumov, G. Furlan
KAS 1986
Kelly, Leclercq, da Silva, Guston?, Möller?
La Vie Claire 1985
Hinault, LeMond, (called Jeff but its Jean-Francois) Bernard, Bauer, Andersen
As I played it more and more and got used to the game.. Maybe as a feedback for a possible PS Vita cycling game or XBOX360/PS3 cycling game (you never know)
I have to say, oh hell is it very hard to do anything near well at Pro as it's so hard.
Unlike for some at PCM on Extreme, this is just hard/unfair/whatever.
Your riders run out of energy easily while the other riders seem to have a extra turbo tank there. Even if you have the best riders, you won't end up in the Top 10 of a stage, classic or general classification of a Tour.
So the suggestions below are a result of playing on Normal.
Time trials need to have a better steering as you can't get any feeling into it and the CPU seems to ride perfectly.
Time trials should be more like a racing game with a lot more smoothness because it unplayable like this, almost like a spider on acid.
Sorry, normally I don't say these polemic stuff but it's just frustrating the time trails so I will simulate every time trial I have to do.
Team time trials are known from the PC PCMs and are also very very hard to win or finish decent in this discipline.
A big problem is the sprint.
I manage to win sprint stages on amateur but there are some problems.
At first without a "train" option, sprints are very weird as the single riders infront are just rolling and rolling hard and if they are close enough they start to sprint. Sometimes there are also riders behind attacking to get infront and so it's very often that you can't get away and then you are boxed in and you can't do anything about it.
So sometimes there are very weird winners: Milan - San Remo, I went to early with Bennati as the positioning is hard there alone and was side by with with the winner (very close).. Lequatre! I mean surprising winners are ok (thats why in my career are the french teams) but Lequatre winning Milan - San Remo is just wow I think.
Second I think the riders are "too big". Everytime in a flat sprint finish there are too much riders side by side and blocking. Lets say it would be possible on the road to put up 10 riders side by side to fill the road from one to the other side. In a sprint there are like 5-6 riders side by side very very close and won't spread out. Thats frustrating.
Another problem is that just the mountain stages (or tough hill classics like Giro di Lombardia) will result in time differences.
Maybe also the stages are too short for the sprint or (and) time diffrence problem? But I guess the elementary problem for both are that the sprints are very unorthodox with no sprint trains and the hills could be more destroying the peloton.
I tried many diffrent teams and configurations as you have 18+6 teams but you can just have 18 teams in the career mode.
The 6 teams left out (default) are Sky, Radioshack, Cervelo Test Team, BMC, Skil-Shimano and Vacansoleil.
I ended up with playing Liquigas and I kicked out Footon and Lampre for Radioshack and Sky.
I look for a mix between very very good teams and teams that could get surprising wins (every french team).
BMC has got just Evans, Kroon and Burghardt, Hincapie is very old and not that good for me and after them there is.. Nothing.
Cervelo was tough to leave out, even though I liked the team, I looked for teams that got a mix of good riders and young riders. Ok Radioshack haven't got good "young" riders under 23 but a lot of good riders. So I left Cervelo out as after Hushovd, Haussler and an very (good) old Sastre.. Nothing.
Skil is better then Footon (Footon is the worst team there, but are very young) but not good enough.
Vacansoleil is actually a nice team that could achieve something especially Hoogerland, but it's hard to decide which 18 teams there should be taking part in the career as every team will ride every race and not that the other teams could have something like a wild card.
The french teams are my underdogs for surprise wins, you can't kick out Bouygues, FDJ or Cofidis just AG2R would be my team to kick out (as their mix seem to be good just for the first season).
As a german I can't kick out Milram even their management was horrible.
Katyusha has got too much good riders to kick out.
The Tour of Australia (got just 3 stages) the winner was Baden Cooke.
I managed to win with Sabatini the hill stage that was like a flat sprint finish at the end. I have to mention that he was in a perfect form and got a yellow bar in sprint.
There are 3 colours for the bars, green is from 0% to near 40% filled of the bar, yellow from 41% to lets say 70% and orange above 71%.
Cooke won 2 stages where I with Sabatini was twice heavily boxed in. Every finish was a mass sprint finish with every rider in the same time, counting out the time bonus of course.
Paris-Nice.. I simulated the Time trial and the last 2 hill stages and I guess Gadret won it. I managed to grab the green jersey with Sabatini. I had also there a stage win and managed to be just in the points places on the flat stages and the first hill stage (no time difference).
Omloop het Volk was won by Wynants, he attacked at the middle of the stage and managed to stay infront of the 1st large group, I got Quinzato and Kuschynski in that group but wasn't in a good position to sprint and haven't got the red bar to attack, if you run out you can't sprint properly.
Milan - San Remo as I said was won by Lequatre.
You can have just 1 season goal and you get some money for the next year to spend on the riders. My goal is to win the Giro and I will get 60.000€ for that (it's a lot). If you would win the Tour de France, you would get 75.000€. Unfortunetly you get 2 races to decide what you will achieve there.
I got the choice between Giro and Liege-Bastogne-Liege..
I like this game, would like to see an improved game for the PS Vita.
Maybe this game on the XBOX 360 and PS3 but more enhanced with more races etc. but I think the Tour de France on XBOX 360 and PS3 is at least worth a thank you for putting in cycling into the games industry.
Team Bianchi - 2012 Man-Game ProContinental Tour Champions
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