Tour de France 2016 is one of the biggest surprises I’ve ever come across. I’ll be honest, I was expecting this game to be mediocre given the quality of the prerelease materials. The trailers were uninspiring and only catered to fans of the sporting event. However, the Tour de France 2016 game is somewhat amazing. It has charm and lives up to high technical standards. It’s definitely one of the most interesting racing games I’ve ever played due to its scope and unique mechanics.
Let’s start off by talking about the various game modes. There’s single-player and co-op, as well as local multiplayer. You can create your own tournaments or play the standard career mode. Unlike other racing games, team management plays a vital role in the experience. Every race features multiple players on your team and you can actively take control of any rider. You can either choose preset characters or make you own team. Tour de France 2016 features a lot of variety and it can be a little overwhelming at first. This is definitely a game that requires patience to master because if you don’t understand it you’ll keep on losing during the races.
As stated earlier, the gameplay is quite distinct from your average racing game. As you can deduce, cycling is quite different than competing with a motorized vehicle so you have to take into account factors like stamina, energy and much more. You also have to master attacking, sprinting, counter-attacking, picking the best trajectories and making the best tactical decisions. It’s not just you who’s competing, it’s your whole team. At first racing during the events was quite challenging because I’ve never had to worry about anyone other than myself in a racing title before. The complexity of it all was daunting but the in-depth tutorial helped a lot.
The tutorial features a hilarious narrator that guides you from the basics of managing energy to advanced team coordination. The main mechanics can be broken down into two categories: personal management and team management. Personal management requires you to utilize aerodynamics as well as energy supplements to prevent blowouts. Blowouts are basically bouts of extreme exhaustion which result in an inability to move swiftly.
Managing how much you peddle by evaluating the incline of the road and topping up when appropriate is necessary. However, in order to win the race you have to conserve your energy supplements and use hilly areas to your advantage. Why pedal when going downhill? Why not adopt a more closed posture that’ll help you go faster and recover stamina? These are all choices you have to constantly make during races. It’s pretty hard at first but you’ll get used to it eventually.
The team management portion involves commanding teammates to either distract opponents or engage in certain actions. For example, have one teammate race to the finish line, distracting your opponents who use more energy to combat him. Meanwhile, the rider you control can use the draft created by the competing riders—chasing the first-place teammate—to use less energy to progress. When the other riders slow down you can easily overtake them because you have more energy reserves and stamina. Tour de France 2016 is as much a strategy game as it is a racing game.
The races don’t last a few minutes like in games such as Forza Motorsport 6. They are grueling competitions with dozens of riders who all want to win. I think one of them latest twenty minutes for me and required so much planning and management I was genuinely exhausted at the end of it. Despite the length it was exhilarating. I don’t think I’ve ever had to think so much in a racing game. It’s definitely a new subgenre for me.
Everything isn’t all peaches and cream though. There are technical flaws when it comes to the graphics. First of all, while the visuals are better than some motorcycling games like MXGP2, they still don’t utilize next-generation hardware well. They still seem last-generation when it comes to the overall look. Apart from that, there is also annoying texture pop-in. Luckily, Tour de France 2016 doesn’t have any game-breaking problems and is quite impressive technically. The frame rate is steady and makes racing a pleasure. The controls are great and precise.
I have to go on a tangent for awhile now. I have to say, the controls for a bicycling game are better than many racing games out there, especially all motorcycling games I’ve played. It’s quite shocking to say the least. You would expect the opposite to be true. I was blown away by the polish which other bigger studios aren’t able to achieve when it comes to two wheels. Cyanide Studio have done an amazing job.
Summary
Overall, Tour de France 2016 is a great game despite having a somewhat steep difficulty curve for newcomers. The great tutorial helps but it’s quite a radical departure from what we’re used to. Despite the visuals problems, it’s a phenomenal experience due to its expansive game modes and options. If you’re looking for a racing game with a twist, this is the one for you. I was pleasantly surprised by the experience and I’m sure you will be too.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.