Pro Cycling Manager 2023 is an excellent case study to try to answer a question almost as old as the video game industry itself: when is a manager so right to want to simulate the management of something that goes from being a hobby to a job? The new Pro Cycling Manager is a product with dozens of parameters, variables and possibilities, so many that sometimes it gives the impression that this title doesn't really want to be played, but rather wants to be taken seriously, almost like a job.
Developed by Cyanide Studio and published by Nacon, Pro Cycling Manager 2023 is clearly designed for a fairly narrow audience segment: cycling and management video game enthusiasts. Anyone who doesn't fall into this double category might have a hard time squeezing the fun out of this rather complex title. Professional cycling lovers will find teams, competitions, impossible climbs and sprints to the last pedal while management fans will be able to make their way through sponsor contracts, search for new cyclists, money management and talent research and development and equipment.
In this Pro Cycling Manager 2023 Review We will try to understand if, under the layers of numbers and some graphics that border on an Excel sheet, there is really hidden that fun or implication that a video game made for entertainment should always have.
A life as a spectator
If your dream is to ride a carbon fiber bicycle and try to win the yellow jersey, Cyanide and Nacon have already thought of you and have developed the official video game of the Tour de France that, like any sports simulator, will put you in the race. to enter the legend of the French stage race. Pro Cycling Manager 2023, on the other hand, is designed for those who find a secret pleasure in making the key decisions that lead athletes to victory behind the scenes; in short, those who love to build the foundations that support the cathedral instead of decorating its rose window. This does not mean, however, that you cannot satisfy your prominence obsessions because both a team mode is available, in which you can manage an entire team, It is a single runner mode in which you will have to impress sponsors, take home increasingly relevant results and climb positions in the world of cycling to become the owner of a team with concrete possibilities of winning the most important races in the world.
If you don't exactly belong to the center of the Venn diagram that unites cycling and management fans, but you want to give this title a chance, we advise you to start from this modality because it is much less aggressive in terms of numbers. statistics and parameters to satisfy. you will start creating your athlete and choosing their area of specialization among those who are experts in sprints, those who dominate the climbs, those who are a workhorse for the entire team (a position that will make you progress with some consistency) and those who give their best . on the flat thanks to the regularity of his pedaling. Then you can choose the distribution of the 13 statistics but you will realize that there are some fairly tight conditions (more or less 3 points out of 100 more or less for each one) so as not to unbalance the game too much. With time, victories and leveling up you will be able to increase these numbers even if the impact of these decisions almost never brings long-term results.
As in the most complex mode, between one race and another the decisions made do not have immediately visible results: Pro Cycling Manager 2023 is a title for those who know how to be confident in their long-term strategies and have a keen eye to make correct choices knowing that they will not pay before two or three races.
The dilemma of time
Like any self-respecting manager, there is one autocomplete function of the key events, in this case the most important races, so you can choose not to follow the race minute by minute, but go directly to see the results. This way of progressing will give you fewer points and less progress than the traditional way of tracking milestones moment by moment. In Pro Cycling Manager 2023, this gameplay structure is repeated with the 3D Racing feature. After choosing the riders to compete, talking to sponsors, managing capital, and doing some research and development, it's time to hit the track and see who is the fastest, toughest, and most determined. You can still choose to complete each race yourself, but your riders are unlikely to do well this way, because the simulation algorithm never takes risks and doesn't know how to think of winning strategies during the competition.
What you will have to do is observe the race and give each of your cyclists the instructions for the race. You will have to decide who "pulls" or acts as a battering ram against the wall of air to keep your teammates upright. You will have to choose when it is best to push and vice versa, when it is best to regain energy for when you need to give your best. For this you will have a series of selectable pedaling modes for each cyclist and an effort indicator divided into three colors, green (where no energy is consumed but going quite slowly), yellow (which consumes energy to maintain the pace, but does not exhaust the cyclist) and red (used when You have to give it your all and it can tire the rider too much). Each racer leads and overtakes automatically, which unfortunately makes the simulation limitations of this game evident. We weren't expecting stellar graphics, but seeing cyclists weaving through corners like they're all ghosts still makes us turn up our noses a little. The main motorcycles, therefore, have very limited animation so as not to bend in curves and look like model trains on rails.
Graphical defects aside, the biggest obstacle we found and that makes the soul of this game more ambiguous is the duration of the simulated races, which can reach peaks of half an hour in which you do nothing more than watch your cyclist pedal and make him change so every time. five or ten minutes. The game wants you to spend time in one mode, 3D racing, that is not very refined and has obvious technical difficulties. The depth and beauty of Pro Cycling Manager 2023 lies, instead, in its multiple parameters, in the relationships between contracts with riders and contracts with sponsors and in the decisions related to research and development. That flow of thought and play, however, is interrupted by these rather boring races to interact and quite ugly to see because they are full of graphic inaccuracies. Yes, there is auto-completion, but if you care about the results and objectives that the game presents to you in each race then you will have to endure this very long process.
Work or play?
Let's say you're precisely the fan Cyanide Studio wants to please: a fan of cycling and management video games. Before launching into Pro Cycling Manager 2023 you have one last dilemma to face and that is that this game can demand too much of you, both in terms of time and concentration, to give you in return an experience that, At best he just gets by. The time spent on the menus is not small and, although rewarding for its depth, it serves to prepare all the resources for a simulation peak moment that, frankly, leaves one lukewarm. When he starts again, he somehow manages to rekindle his spark, even if it's a strange cycle that leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
The crux of the problem lies in the fact that after each race, which certainly lasted too long and perhaps even went wrong, one is overwhelmed by an avalanche of numbers. The game effectively distributes contract deadlines, exploration phases and management of rider and sponsor satisfaction, but sometimes situations arise where two or three of these parameters need intervention between one race and another and here the game tends to happen. really too complex. There aren't many automated features that can help you, and some of these moments completely made us lose the desire to play because they added layers of unnecessary complication to an experience that needed fluidity.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam Holygamerz.com 6.0 Readers (2) 8.8 your votePro Cycling Manager 2023 is a game for those who really love cycling and are passionate about management titles. This small segment of the public will find in their hands a serious, deep and multi-layered video game that, however, presents some technical problems in its racing simulation phases. If you do not belong to this category of players and are a cycling or management enthusiast, our advice is to look elsewhere. Hard-core digital cyclists have the new Tour de France title waiting for them, which has done a good job of modernizing this year. Management enthusiasts have such a wide range of well-made titles that they are spoiled for choice. Unfortunately, Pro Cycling 2023 has failed to find a balance in its gameplay flow that keeps the experience positive for those who aren't die-hard fans. Some races are really too long and have quite a few graphical problems that make them boring to watch and with nothing to do. Therefore, at the end of some events, the avalanche of numbers that hits players is often too dense and makes them unwilling to persist. The hard core of cycling management will find a good playmate in Pro Cycling 2023; Everyone else is better off looking elsewhere if they're hungry to ride a bike or build an empire.
PRO
- Very varied and layered management options.
- Perfect for cycling and management fans.
AGAINST
- Graphical problems in 3D racing.
- The flow of the game is often interrupted by too many numbers at once
- The dead moments in the racing simulation reach 10 minutes.
