One of the most important cycling competitions in the world is about to return in a digital version. The 2023 Tour de France will bring the stages, climbs, rivalries and sweat of the Grande Boucle to the homes of all cycling fans with better artificial intelligence to manage opponents and a more defined and understandable system for consumption and energy recovery. Forget the impressive graphics of other more famous sports simulators, this game wants above all to replicate the strategy, tension and precise management of fatigue that professionals must have to be able to wear the yellow jersey.
Developed by Cyanide Studio and published by Nacon, Tour de France 2023 is a simple game created for a very specific audience: cycling fans. However, after having competed in the Pyrenees and on the Champs Elysées, we can tell you that, having overcome an initial linguistic barrier formed by French terms and a specific vocabulary, even a novice in this world will find a fairly comfortable solution in the game. Access ramp to the world of elite cycling.
In this Tour de France 2023 review We tell you the structure of the experiences and the improvements introduced compared to previous versions, explaining how the title manages to perfectly encapsulate both the peace and the adrenaline of a complex and multifaceted cycling race like the Tour de France.
The 2023 Tour de France is designed for passionate cyclists
Those who follow stage races such as the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France or the Vuelta a España know that their charm lies in an almost alchemical mix of strategy, teamwork, individual physical strength and endurance. The video game we are talking about gets recreate almost perfectly this cocktail full of adrenaline. However, if we were to analyze the individual elements of this shake, several of the most obvious defects of the Tour de France 2023 would emerge because team communications are limited and automatic mechanisms do not always give the desired results. Additionally, there is a clear disparity in the performance of the most recovered cyclists compared to all other statistics. The flaws, however, disappear when we consider the overall experience.
What the 2023 Tour de France does well is immerse those who play in a storm of strategic seemingly insignificant at the time, but with an unpredictable impact throughout a 150 kilometer stage. Is it better to push yourself up and score additional points or save your resistance for the final stretch? Is it better to stay behind and regain strength taking advantage of the slipstream of a teammate or push like crazy to separate yourself from the group and not risk falling in the tightest corners? As professional cyclists have said many times throughout their careers, "there are only right answers to these questions up to a point." Each stage has traps and surprises, and all digital riders can't excel at everything. Cyanide has done a good job of creating a balanced ecosystem that makes players feel like they almost always have a chance of winning if they play their cards right.
How a cyclist works
Making all of these decisions would be a nightmare if there were more than five variables because the combinations and repercussions would be too many. Fortunately, the system created by Cyanide only has three: the blue bar, the red bar and your driving style. The first represents the overall energy of the cyclist, which allows you to accelerate, reduce gears and continue pushing during a stage. The second is its resistance, the brute force of when you jump on the pedals to push in the last meters before the finish line. The blue bar can be recovered on downhills while the red bar fills slowly automatically, then both can be recovered manually using the two water bottles (one of each color) at the rider's disposal.
The driving style is very easy to master and the trajectory line on the asphalt will tell you when you are going too fast. The brake button on the controller is very sensitive and pressing it all the way will almost always cause a collision, so learning how to adjust it is essential, especially on downhills, when you need to adopt an aerodynamic position to recover energy. . A variable that affects only when the level of difficulty becomes very high, then, is the wind, both in the form of the gusts that can arrive during a stage and in the complex wake and group dynamics that the game does not explain very well and you have retroengineering with experience. Simply put, depending on your position at the top of the group, behind a single runner or in the middle of the group, your energy consumption changes because in addition to the slope you will also have to counteract the wind resistance.
Two things left us a little perplexed about the Cyanide cycling experience, but both have a very simple solution. The first is the public: their songs of encouragement They enrich the experience and are also in many different languages (French, English, German, Spanish and Spanish) to represent the entire spectrum of the cycling public. The problem is that there are 25 phrases in total, five per language, and they stick in the player's head during almost every stage. Fortunately, the audience volume is an adjustable and even resettable parameter, although we would have preferred a greater variety or lower frequency of these incitements. The other thing that bothered us is the robotic commentary that accompanies the races. The phrases are poorly connected to each other, not very varied and sporadic with very little information about what other cyclists are doing. In the quieter moments we would have liked to hear some curiosity about the race or the cyclists or the place we were passing through but we remained in total silence.
Great races for great cyclists
Being a licensed sports video game, the Tour de France 2023 will be able to have a wide catalog of routes that run through five mountain ranges (Pyrenees, Central Massif, Jura Massif, Alps and Vosges) divided into 70 stages. The most important teams and more than 800 cyclists from all over the world could not be missing, each with 13 different statistics and a specialization divided between sprinter, climber, hill master and hybrid. All these numbers, then, are the backbone of Different game modes available within the Tour de France 2023. In addition to the most emblematic race on the calendar, in fact, there are two other race modes: one dedicated to the team and another to the individual cyclist. The first is largely inspired by the game TDF 2023 or Pro Cycling Manager 2023 and allows you to manage a team of cyclists, while the other is the classic climb from the lowest leagues of international cycling to the yellow jersey.
We found this game mode particularly useful not only for those looking for a personal and immersive experience but also for anyone who wants Fully understand the team's deep strategies. at stake during cycling competitions. In fact, by pursuing a career as an individual cyclist, you will not start as a super-promising youngster aiming for victory in his debut year, but as a gregarious, that is, a rider whose position and performance serve to protect the promotion of the starter. towards victory. Your goal will be to improve more and more and become the leading cyclist of a team with which to aspire to victory. Here you will study the importance of intermediate positions, points in mid-stage climbs and managing the seconds of advantage or disadvantage in a race that lasts three weeks. Also be prepared to invest quite a bit of time in improving this game, not only in terms of the learning curve which, after a gentle start, becomes quite steep, but also in terms of time, because the longer stages can also take their toll. You straight play time.
Competitive ambitions
The 2023 Tour de France also features an asynchronous multiplayer mode based on best times in what the game calls Moment Challenges. This year's edition, in addition to the classic time trial races, also has a mode dedicated to descents, a part of this game that is underrated and poorly explained in the tutorials. The descent, in fact, has its own dynamics in the control of the bike and in the management of energy recovery, all little-researched factors that, in the first races, cost us precious seconds. Then, every week, every month, and every year, rankings will be drawn up and the most dedicated players will be able to destroy their digital calves to find their name at the top. Competing every week will give advantages in the multiplier of the final score of each race so, as in real cycling, the developers have decided to reward the perseverance of the most passionate.
Given the eminently multiplayer nature of the Tour de France, we are sorry I don't see a true multiplayer mode. to compete against other human cyclists. We understand the population problems, but setting up a single scenario each day and finding 40 or 50 players does not seem like such an unattainable undertaking given the non-negligible numbers of previous titles. There is also a system that equalizes the racers and equipment of all players so that you have a balanced competition. We hope to see this feature implemented in future editions, but it is unlikely.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store Holygamerz.com 7.5 Readers (3) 6.0 your voteThe Tour de France 2023 is a particular creature in the world of sports simulations because its individual components are unstable but as a whole it is solid, fun and manages to recreate both the emotions of the race and the many small decisions that have to be made very well. . The game's tutorials are intuitive, well done, and manage to introduce even a beginner to the world of professional cycling. Several aspects are not explored in depth and must be reverse engineered through gameplay, and this can be annoying, but overall the initial learning curve is very gentle and suitable for everyone. Those who want to jump into this game will have a lot to look forward to between stages, stages, teams, bikes and components, but once you reach the top of the cycling world playing against artificial intelligence, there is not much left to do. Do it except try to beat your online opponents' best time. If you love cycling, this game will make you happy, while those looking for a gateway to this world will find in the Tour de France 2023 a well of knowledge capable of explaining (almost) everything there is to know.
PRO
- Total immersion in the racing atmosphere.
- Good resource management
AGAINST
- robotic comment
- Limited modes
