 There's now less than a week to the release of Pro Cycling Manager 2012 (21st of June, by the way), and while we have received plenty of information so far, yesterday was your opportunity to ask questions to the developers of PCM and Tour de France (release for XBOX on 28th of June, no date yet for PS3).
Cyanide also used the opportunity to release some screenshots of what we want to see - basically everything that's not just a rider climbing a mountain. They can now be seen in the screenshots section.
Pro Cycling Manager 2012
Multiplayer
I might be wrong on this, but it does seem that multiplayer is what has been the main focus this year with the addition of 'Armada', something along the lines of Ultimate Team from FIFA.
Basically, you can build your own team and race against others online. You begin with a starter pack of 10 riders, and you can then gain points / coins by winning races. These coins are used to buy new riders. You can also use real money to buy coins/cyans. It's not possible to buy riders from each other, though.
All races will be playable in Armada Mode. 4-20 human teams can take part in a race. If there's less than 20, the race will be filled with inactive AI teams.
Players / teams will be equally matched, so your all-new team of useless youngsters aren't up against a team consisting of superstars.
Teams can have the same riders - Example Rider 1 can ride for two teams with the same stats.
AI
This subject has been well-covered in previous articles, but in short, Cyanide have concentrated their energy on creating more various race scenarios. Outsiders are more willing to attacks, GC riders who have lost time might try their luck from far out, riders with a bad form of the day will be less offensive and try to conserve energy etc. etc.
It's also said that the issue with the AI chasing down anything you (a human) do has been fixed. Only "dangerous riders" will be chased down.
Cobble classics should have improved - as with other races, outsiders are likely to attacks, and in general, attacks will happen from further out.
Sponsors
The sponsors feature was introduced last year, and a lot of people have felt it wasn't properly implemented. Cyanide say they have done a lot to fix bugs, but it's still not possible to renew a sponsor contracts. However, a patch will add this feature to PCM12 eventually.
Objectives should now be more realistic, so you're not forced to win the Tour de France with Bretagne-Schuller.
Stage Reconnaissance
In what mostly looks like some sort of training camp, it's possible to send riders to check out stages/mountains of stage races. If you do this, it's more likely that the riders who participated will have a good form when you reach the stage in the game. Riders should also receive a small gain in the mountain stat.
Like training camps, the AI don't use this feature, though.
Season Planner
A new optional tool is the season planner that will help you manage your season and rider selections. Basically, you can pick the races you want to race, and invitation requests will be sent. You can also pick your riders for the races in the season planner - but it will still be possible to change this selection when the race starts.
Stages
While there are more races in PCM12, the amount of stages is the same as in PCM11 - so there's a lot of recycled stages. Cyanide do say, though, that a pack with more stages will be available for free after the release. This pack will also includes variants.
The 1.8 GB RAM limit has been lifted which means that stages such as Milano - Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix etc. are less likely to crash
As mentioned, there's now three divisions in PCM12. The UCI race categories 1.2 and 2.2 have been added with real life rules that mean that World Tour teams can't take part.
Other
- Cyanide haven't been able to detect any bugs regarding the transfers (top riders being free agents). They think it's a problem generated by the custom databases, not the game.
- There's some sort of team time trial training camp. The riders that take part will get a bonus in a hidden stat that defines their TTT cooperation.
- Two new commands in 3D races: measure gap and follow (or something like that). The first one can be used to measure a gap between to riders - useful if a rider is in A1 and you want to measure the gap to a rider in E3. The follow button can be used to ask a rider to stay near another rider.
- Not a lot of graphical changes, but as we have seen in screenshots, some specific rider faces (e.g. Cavendish, Valverde, Hagen) have been added.
- 61 out of 81 teams have their actual licenses (real names). List here.
- Jerseys and equipment are compatible with PCM12. Stages are partly compatible.
Tour de France for PS3 and XBOX
We have covered most of the changes in this article and another one. New screenshots are available here.
Multiplayer
Unlike the first version that was released last year, there's now a multiplayer option in Tour de France.
It's just for two players, though, and only works online (no split screen).
The way it works is that the two players play the final kilometres of a stage - and then it's simply about crossing the line first.
Races
As last year, just the Tour de France will be available on release. However, days after the release, Criterium du Dauphine and Paris-Nice will be released for an additional price.
Fun stat: 1431 kilometres or 41 % of the Tour de France is playable.
Track
For reasons I don't understand, this was only mentioned in brief - but it seems Cyanide is planning to release a track mode as additional content. In this, it will be possible to play 1 vs. 1 online in events such as sprint, keirin and 200 m TT.
Other
- Camera has been changed - should be more like PCM's free camera.
- It's possible to share your database via USB - it's only possible to change the names of the riders, though, not the stats. |
