Pro Cycling Manager 2015

The Pro Cycling Manager series has been bringing the excitement of professional road racing to PCs for many years and game developer Cyanide doesn't really have any competition for this genre, which usually results in many bugs and patches. The main issue is that they try to release a "new" game every year for cash-grabbing reasons, a business strategy made popular by a very famous and successful giant of the gaming industry. Sadly, this results in games with minor improvements and the usual bugs, because the release comes always rushed, since a deadline needs to be met. It's why I hadn't bought a new game of the franchise in about 10 years, but reviews for the 2015 version sounded okay, so I thought I'd give it a try. What was new? Well, the game hadn't really changed much in those 10 years, but then again: It's cycling. And yes, I remember Cycling Manager 3 and how much fun the game was back then already. So basically, they never really needed to change that much in the first place. Just get rid of those nasty bugs. Oh, and there were two new things: You can play a career as a rider and there is track-racing. I haven't tried any of these modes so far, because I simply didn't want to. I'm competiting in real cycling races as a rider, so why play as a rider? Nope, I'm all in for the classic manager mode, where you get to manage a professional cycling team to your own taste. As far as bugs are concerned: They're rather few in this game. Material development seems to be broken after the first career season and sometimes, after a rider has already finished a race, he shows up as DNF in the result list and is out with a serious injury. I've also had it that a rider signed with me for the new season, but then suddenly also signed with another team. Only happened once though. I guess these few bugs could have still been patched, but that brings us back to that aweful business strategy of cash-grabbing. The devs simply had to focus on the new game version and stopped working on patches for the "old" game (if a game can be considered "old", only because it's been out for more than a month already). And about the management part: I basically like it. In the off-season, you need to plan the highlights for all riders so that their training can be adjusted accordingly. Also, you should choose the goals for your sponsor wisely - at least that's what Captain Obvious suggests. You get to choose the right personal trainers for your riders and you make sure you get invited to all the races that any of your riders want to compete in. And in mid-season, contract negotiatons for the following season start. The financial limits are tough at the beginning, so you hardly get any top riders, but it's a career management game, so you gotta deliver good management work over a couple of seasons. The more successful you are, the more money you get to spend on new riders - and so the contract negotiations make more fun every year. ;) About the racing part: You need to get the hang of the individual controls, but once you've done that, it's very intuitive. Heart rate seems unrealistic at times, but that's mainly because I'm a competitive rider in reality. If you're not, you probably won't bother. ;) AI is a bit boring, but then again, so are team strategies in real pro cycling races. No big surprises, all the favorites usually wait till the final climb and go all-in then. You can still manage to score some surprise wins, especially with sprint and climbing jerseys during stage races. Oh, and you also have a very good chance of becoming national champion, because the peloton often doesn't have any team control, so once a group escapes, the peloton doesn't know how to catch up and the winner comes from that small escape group. Make sure you are part of that group and you can start collecting national champion jerseys. Winning one of the big grand tours, however, proves very difficult and keeps you going from season to season. All in all, it's a good cycling management game that can be fun when you play it a couple of seasons. Wouldn't work on multiplayer, which is available, but unless you have friends who play this game, you're better off with the single player modes. And you absolutely don't need to buy a new version of this game. Not just yet. Development is slow, so enjoy your version of this game (mine is the 2015 one) and check back in 5 years to see, if there was enough improvement (especially AI) to buy a new version of this game. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with playing the same version for a couple of years. I still enjoy playing the 2015 version and it's almost 2018. ;)