Belgian Stijn van de Walle and Limburgian Ruben Lampe (aka camerluca and Ruben) have been able to build the first 2008 DB for PCM06 - just in one month! After their successful projects from PCM Benelux (the Stanosbase for PCM06 and the Stanoscase for PCM07, plus some help with the Womenbase, already reviewed here at PCM.daily), which got 10.000! downloads when it comes to the first one, as well as great rankings from most users, they're coming again with something that will surprise us once more. And we must say they did succeed. First of all, we must say they've achieved their bigger levels ever. More teams than ever (75), more riders than ever (probably not too far from two thousand), more races than ever - this is the first level to a real giant-like project, in the right path! Not too much data which would make the game work slower, and not too little to make it look simple (in a very negative way).

Career Mode: According to the mess the UCI and the major organisers got by splitting out of each other last winter, Ruben and Stijn have been capable designing a stable, realistic and pleasant universe. The race calendar is huge and balanced - but, of course, mainly focused on races from the Benelux, so you'll be able to find some .2 and ProKermesse races, such as the GP Wanzele, the Ronde van Buchholz and MANY after-TdF criteriums. It's a little racelist compared to bigger DB's, such as last year's PCM-Spain DB's though (yes, can't give that as an example since it's mine, but you understand). Results are quite realistic, as well here as in the stand-alone racing modes, thank to a well-built matrix, with higher limits than other DB's, as Ruben made notorious research on how secondary stats affected to the general gameplay in the past. They could still have edited some text strings, such as the ones concerning Cya Top Tour (don't know if they did it just for Dutch/Vlaming, but here we're talking about what concerns to English speakers, so that's not the case) and the racenames (OK, I understand this is mainly a NCL-based DB, and besides, I understand the names). The most negative point is transfers - maybe I'm too hard when talking about DB's since I always look for perfection when building mines - but some of them are not updated, and that's a really negative point for me.

Single Races: As I'm used to PCM07 gameplay, returning over my own steps to PCM06 gaming experience was a blow of fresh wind to the most realistic 3D-races so far in the series. Now you can go forward and backwards! - not like in PCM07, in which you lose the race when you lose the sight of the winner's bike. Starting fields are truly realistic: I got surprised when I saw five spanish teams riding a Vuelta a España-stage.


Conclusion:

The Good: GRAPHICS. Simply can't get my lower jawbone next to the upper one after entering the main menu. Oh man - this looks like another game! And that's what makes camerluca/Ruben's DB different from any other one.

The Bad: The fact that this is a beta-like version, and lots of things must be fixed/finetuned before a second - final release. Considering the amount of time they spent to build this, this may not be a bad conclusion.

The Oh-my-god-why-did-that-happen-qualities-of-horrible: Only one thing: couldn't you just think of alternative routes for the major races, as I did with the PCM.daily 08 DB? Come on mates - I know you can go further than this!

Scores:

Graphics: 4/5 > They put great efforts on approaching to the original 2008 showcase, plus their graphical additions (the backaground, the new flags which were imported from PCM-Spain, the spectators) are good-quality ones and doesn't make the package to weigh too much. I'd have given a 5 outta 5 if they had included updated pics out of those terrific photopacks around Cya, more champion jerseys and such suff - oh god, you have the best graphics team in the CyM-scene, take advantage of it!

Uniqueness: 4/5 > Ruben and/or Camer's DBs are always fantastic, special in any standards of quality. But they're just another male - up-to-date cycling DB. However, they fully deserve a 4 out of 5.

Completeness: 4/5 > They finally went into more complete projects, adding more teams and races than ever before and making it the right way, even though I'd still miss a lot of things. Nevertheless, I'll give them another 4.

Riders stats: 3/5 > Well, maybe I'm too hard with them giving such a bad mark, but saw a lot of things that I'd change if I were in charge of it. Besides, lower teams' stats may need a much better research. But I understand this is a matter of taste, so I won't complain more than that. At least you're the only ones, apart from PlakkerNL, who research on them.

General feel: 3/5 > They put PCM06 again into the map, and that's more than enough to give them a general three.

Verdict: Try it, of course! It's quite of a nice try to give a smell of realism to the 2008 season in last year's game. However, I'd advise you not to criticise them before the second version is released, so they can correct some nasty bugs and make it 100% stable (where it's 99% atm).