Step back on the bike, pedal your way through Europe, and try to win the race. Come check out our Tour de France 2021 review!
New features:
-All 21 stages of the 2021 route faithfully reproduced
– A redesigned My Tour mode with more customisation options
– More realistic peloton behaviour
– Revamped objective system
– A new recovery mechanic
– Official brands (Lazer, Specialized, Vision, Rudy project, Corima, HJC, Canyon, POC, Merida)
– Updated database (riders, ratings)Play as your own rider or manage your team
In Pro Team mode you lead a team that must prove itself to reach the top of the Pro Cycling team rankings. Your team starts at the bottom, but you may be invited to take part in the major races if the organisers see that your results are good enough.
You can create and gradually level up your own rider in Pro Leader mode as you strive to become the next cycling legend to compete with the likes of Primoz Roglic, Tedej Pogacar and others. You can choose from four different profiles: climber, sprinter, puncher and versatile. Your choice will be crucial if your aim is to win a Grand Tour or be a specialist in the Classics!Create your own Tour
My Tour mode has been redesigned to offer you more freedom. With the new interface it is now easier to customise your "My Tour" (rest days, stages, teams). You can now choose the list of participating teams and national teams. Choose from 89 stages to create your race.Enjoy a wide range of content
The game includes the 19 World Tour teams and their jerseys as well as the teams Alpecin-Fenix, B&B Hotels P/B KTM, Team Arkéa – Samsic and Total Direct Energie. There are also many official races (Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Nice, LBL, etc.)
All right, so I’ve reviewed the Tour de France games for the past few years – three entries so far. I initially thought it was novel since it was bringing the feel of biking to gaming. It actually kind of co-aligned with me getting back to biking a few years ago, and while not doing the distance they do in the Tour de France, I was sometimes pushing myself to 50K. However, they kept coming, year after year, and the novelness wore off very quickly in these yearly iterations.
Here is an excerpt from my review last year.
“Tour de France 2020 is a disappointment, last year wasn’t great, and honestly, it’s almost the same game this year. I fired up 2019 during the review and honestly couldn’t tell the difference between them. I’m sure there is a market for a Tour de France game right now. However, the team needs to get back to basics and do a complete overhaul because this is not working. If you have previous entries in the series, then you can skip this year’s since it feels like a rehash with not much to offer.”
I felt that after last year’s entry, the series needed a big revamp, and while they have iterated on a few things… this was not the facelift the series needed. Unfortunately, I think the biggest issue that stuck out to me is that Tour de France 2021 isn’t fun to play. Because the distance races go on forever, you can spend over an hour in one stage of the race. Racing doesn’t mean a lot, and more of your focus is on team management, unless you are a diehard fan, I don’t think this brings in the average gamer in a meaningful way.
New to the series is a Pro Team Mode, where you can manage your own cycling team as you try to recruit and bring on the best cyclists and move your team to the top position. I know there are people who love sports management sims, so I’m sure this will speak to an audience. It operates very similarly to other management sims as you need to spend money to make money.
There are a few small tweaks in the racing as the peloton, a new recovery mechanic, but for the most part, this is the same game you played last year… again. Your focus is not on highspeed racing but methodically keeping a good pace as to not burn yourself out and then do a strong push at the end. You can balance and set your effort that you want to excerpt, but then it feels like you are in auto-drive, there are gels that will refill occasionally that will help you maintain your levels if you excerpt too much energy. It’s really the same feeling from last year.
Graphically it’s a mixed bag, they have recreated this year’s course, and it looks fine, but these races go on for so long that you can begin to tune out what’s going on around you, while every cyclist looks the same, with a different shirt on, and there are lots of cyclists on the screen all at once, but it never seems that impressive.
You guys saw my thoughts on Tour de France 2020 at the top of the review, and honestly, my thoughts are very similar for the 2021 version. I could have probably cut and pasted my review from last year, changing the year, and it would have been almost the same, with the exception of the Pro Team Mode. Once again, I’m going to say there needs to be an overhaul of this series, especially as they should be hitting next-gen next year. Hopefully, 2022 is the year on which it finally happens.
Disclaimer
This Tour de France 2021 review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Nacon.
