Cyclry

Cycling news and humor from industry veterans

On Sale: PS4 Tour de France Games

Are you in the part of the Venn diagram that LOVES pro cycling and video games? Or, like us, are you so ingrained in pro cycling that you can’t look away, and playing video games constantly because you’re in lockdown? Well, either way, here’s some good(?) news: Tour de France 2019 and Tour de France 2020 are both on sale until December 22 as part of Sony’s End of Year Deals promotion.

Tour de France 2019 is just $11.99 now, while this year’s edition is half price at $24.99.

Thinking of buying? They’re both extremely similar, so unless you want FUT and this year’s riders, 2019 is the better option. Here’s our verdict.

The Good:

  • It’s a cycling game. Made by people who understand the sport, which is rare even among the handful of cycling games we’ve had so far.
  • It’s fairly arcadey while being reasonably in-depth – more accessible than a deep tactical experience that has you planning the intricacies of training plans and secret l-carnitine doses, but not just involving mashing buttons.
  • There are multiple game modes, including individual races, challenges, multiplayer, team management, and a Be a Pro mode.
  • There’s a FUT-style game. We’d count this as a negative, but the amount of hits on our article about it suggests a lot of people wanted it. (2020 only)
  • Mostly real riders and teams. You can probably edit their names if you care.

The Bad:

  • Every rider has the exact same face. Worse, it’s some weird 40 year old Leonardo Piepoli face.
  • The only update it ever received caused a bug where the landscape would grow over the race route, so you were riding directly through mountains. (2019 only)
  • The difference between winning and losing is mostly just learning the mechanics. Seriously. Don’t expect a challenge once you know when to attack or chase the break.
  • There’s a bug that makes it so the breakaway always wins mountain stages unless you chase with your entire team at 100%. Yes, you can exploit this. (2019 only)
  • Pro mode is some weird cart-before-horse situation where you only get better by winning, meaning you get caught in a catch-22 until you can reliably win, and then you immediately get so good you’ll win all the time. And on all terrains. How does the ancient 2003 PS2 version manage to do this better?
  • It’s interminably boring. You won’t want to play it. We were going to review it but just didn’t want to boot it up any more.

The Verdict:

Uh, I don’t know. It fucking sucks ass, but you should support the company since it means we’ll keep getting TdF games (that suck ass). Or you shouldn’t buy it because it sucks ass and they delivered one game-breaking update to the 2019 edition before ditching it to focus on their next game, so these people shouldn’t be rewarded.

Do you have $11.99? Is your time worthless? Would you like to make Nairo Quintana win the green jersey at the Tour or some shit? Go for it.

Whatever. It’s on sale. That’s the news. We’re not writing about the 2021 edition unless their new publisher sends us a free copy like their old publisher used to.