Gerald James reviews Tour de France 2019…
The first thing I need to say about my review of this game is that I’m not a cyclist nor do I keep up with cycling as a sport. To me Tour de France is most notably a Kraftwerk single and the only other Bicycle Race I care about is track 4 from Queen’s Jazz album. When I started this game I had hopes that a simulation video game would help me have a better understanding of the complications and strategies that go into endurance racing. What I discovered instead was a video game that was somehow more boring than watching the race itself.
Upon booting up the title it warned me that I would need to complete the tutorials to understand what I was doing. I expected detailed mechanics on things like shifting and cornering but instead learned when it was the appropriate time to slurp a Go-Gurt and that the key to winning was to lose for most of the race. Had this game been bogged down in complicated mechanics and frustrating realism it would at least have something to offer to the sim crowd or they could have dumbed it down and made a fun pick up and play racing game however what we end up with is something that tries to do both while failing miserably at either.
What initially gives away the fact that this is a poorly handled game is your interaction with your environment and the other racers on the track. You have to go considerably out of your way to crash in this game. Even in the downhill time trials throwing yourself into a barricade only brings your racer to a stop and forces you to pedal back to speed. This isn’t to say that I needed a ragdolled model flying over a ridge to be satisfied but it would have given more incentive to play well were I having to avoid a time-consuming crash. As it stands I had little reason not to bounce myself off of barricades to try and maintain momentum as opposed to braking properly.
Which brings me to another game-ruining programming issue with this game. There is absolutely in subtlety in braking. Every time I tried to gently tap my brakes to steady my speed it felt like I was a child putting my foot on the tire because my hands couldn’t reach the brake lever. It is an all or nothing endeavor that will have you throwing your controller in frustration.
I have to admit that when I said there was no incentive to keep you from rubbing the barricade I was stretching the truth a bit. I should have mentioned that it’s an invisible wall that you’re rubbing and not in fact any in game barricades as you’ll clip through anything standing by the road should it be track cones or observers alike. Yet again, I don’t need to run people over to have a good time but even anything such as a race-goer moving to avoid my recklessness would have added at least a nominal amount of consequence.
Ever the optimist I did try to pull out something positive with my experience. When you’re in a team race it feels intuitive to give commands to other racers on your team which becomes a necessity so that you can draft off of them and save your stamina for the final attack. I also found it slightly impressive when I was running rim to rim with a screen full of racers that it never slowed down or gave me any significant frame drops despite rendering quite a bit at once. This may be due in fact to the models used being very simplified and almost ugly to look at.
In summation I feel Tour de France 2019 isn’t authentic enough to please anyone who may be an enthusiast of the sport nor is it engaging enough to draw in a casual player such as myself. You would think that Cyanide Studio would put a little more care into things given that they own the exclusive rights to the tour but they seem to be content releasing a bare minimum title to snag those who are excited for the event itself.
Pros:
+ Functionally handles a large swath of riders on screen
+ Intuitive team control
+ Can skip large sections of a race so that the tedium isn’t carried through an hour long race
Cons:
– Not a detailed simulation where it tries to be
– Not a fun casual game where it also seemingly tries to be
– No real collision detection makes your rider feel like a pile of logs trotting along
– Rider models are downright ugly
– Rendered scenery isn’t much better
Rating: 3/10
Reviewed on PS4 Pro (also available on Xbox One)
Gerald James
Originally published July 19, 2019. Updated July 18, 2019.
