Cyanide’s latest entry continues to nail the simulation of energy management and finally adds real-time, online races. But largely, the franchise’s lingering blemishes are difficult to ignore.
Tour de France 2024
Platform: PC, also on PlayStation and Xbox
Developer: Cyanide Studio
Publisher: Nacon
Release date: June 6th, 2024
Price: $39.99 via digital download
Availability: Steam
Players are frequently able to accomplish previously unheard-of athletic exploits in sports titles. The genre may have the sense of an interactive highlight reel, with moments like tossing a game-winning pass in Madden or smashing a fastball deep into the centerfield stands in MLB: The Show. However, games generally fail to capture the intensity of sports. And Cyanide Studio is unique because of this. The developer has been imitating the Tour de France’s physicality since 2009.
Every year since its inception, the goal has been to replicate all 21 stages and 2,081 miles of La Grande Boucle. Managing your virtual athlete’s stamina is the true task, although directing your riding over a real-time 200-kilometer stage simulation can try your resolve. The Tour de France 2024 cyclists may possess amazing endurance, but they are still only human. It is imperative that you start with the game’s tutorial if you haven’t played any of the earlier installments. Many of the subtleties of managing your stamina are covered here.
The “Team”
Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to navigate your virtual Cannondale, Trek, or Canyon (sorry, don’t expect licensing; “Team” still seems to be the popular brand). With TdF 2024’s color-coded racing line that signals when to brake, the steering feels a lot like a racing car game. You will be introduced to the concept of drafting, which is the practice of a rider closely following another while utilizing the slipstream. Thankfully, there are visible cues that let you know when you’re making minor energy savings. Taking an aero posture, which stands for “aerodynamic,” is one of the simpler but no less crucial fundamentals to learn. The two main strategies for restoring stamina are doing this and consuming revitalizing “feeds.”
You ought to be prepared to fight for the yellow jersey in the game’s Race mode after finishing the lectures. Here, you can compete in the Tour, the seven-stage Critérium du Dauphiné, the dangerous Liège–Bastogne–Liège hill climbs, or the Paris–Roubaix day race on cobblestones. You have the option to choose your own order for the stages, adjusting a variety of parameters before to the excursions.
If you’d rather to take on management, there’s a Pro Team option where you may create a two-wheeled legacy with a limited budget. It functions as a sampler for Cyanide’s stand-alone Pro Cycling Manager 2024 and doesn’t go too deep. Pro Leader mode in TDF 2024, on the other hand, takes a light role-playing approach as you advance a bright rookie to a career that can equal that of Greg LeMond.
You Can Lose an Hour of Work in a Matter of Seconds.
Energy management is essential for success in the Tour de France in 2024, regardless of mode. Cyanide cleverly reduced everything to an on-screen meter including red and blue gauges. The former indicates your rider’s total endurance. Naturally, increasing the intensity of your pedaling will decrease your endurance proportionately, so be sure you have enough gas left for any impending climbs. Your “attack energy” is represented by the red dial on the meter, and it is depleted each time you sprint to separate from the pack.
Gel consumption and quick downhill coasts can help you regain some energy, but you shouldn’t rely only on them. Achieving success requires careful power conservation and reducing drag, or air resistance, especially in mountainous sections. If not, you’ll have a “breakdown” in which your rider will surely fall behind. At that point, color will disappear from the screen and your fellow athletes will pass by, signifying how unstable your physical condition is.
Similar to a Fish in a School, Moving Forward in Perfect Harmony
Although it may initially seem intimidating to ride in the midst of the race, the game’s crash modeling isn’t very good, so you won’t have to worry about starting a pile-up like to the 2021 Tour de France. Nevertheless, the immersion is disrupted by the inadequate collision detection. You’ll run into phantom walls if you stray too far from the path. For better or worse, you are required by TDF 2024 to follow the rules of good sportsmanship. Should you choose to increase the collision setting, the game will only show one drab animation for that event.
That is by no means the only letdown. There is some audio commentary, but it is monotonous and devoid of any of the information that announcers in real life would provide. The game’s soundtrack sounds like license-free, sports-sim filler, yet it also periodically crescendos into a rhythm. Expect to see a horde of clones since TdF 2024 visually makes less effort to replicate the likeness of real athletes. Positively, the jerseys used in the game sometimes include real logos and accurately depict the jumble of hues that make up a racing peloton.
At Last, Live, Virtual Races
With the addition of a new Criterium mode this season, Tour de France 24 enhances its asynchronous rivalry even further. Up to six players can engage in a real-time race that can span anywhere from thirty to fifty kilometers. Unfortunately, there are still some problems and long matchmaking delays that detract from the experience. Even still, it’s a positive move for the series because these kinds of contests may add excitement to a road cycling simulation.
Although TDF 2024 introduces teamwork into its races, it’s still possible to be an ardent individualist. While there isn’t much interaction amongst teammates, there is an intriguing twist to the stages when you exchange control with one of them. As an alternative, you can allow the CPU to take control of your rider, in which case the AI in the game will compete fairly well. It appears that the game’s aptitude has been improved, which is beneficial when you let go of the handlebars and also results in more realistic behavior from CPU-controlled opponents.
In summary
Cyanide’s Tour de France franchise is looking very tired, like a rival crawling up the infamous Col de la Loze. This year’s release is essentially the same as the 2023 version, with the exception of adding real-time competition mode and real riders in Pro Team mode. Tour de France 2024 is a good enough simulation of road cycling to satisfy your cravings for something close to the real thing in terms of the intricacies of managing your stamina. Beyond that, though, this is a series that has taken far too many days off.
The publisher’s review code was used to play Tour de France 2024 on a PC.
Review Overview
Gameplay – 65%
Controls – 65%
Aesthetics – 55%
Performance – 60%
Accessibility – 55%
Value – 50%
58%
OK
Summary : The pursuit of the yellow jersey in the Tour de France 2023 is sustained by energy management choices. However, the game’s mediocre graphics and crude physics modeling undermine the impression of realism. This season has both simple online multiplayer racing and real athletes in Team mode. However, Cyanide is obviously coasting.