Tour de France 2023 is probably the best Tour de France game so far, but don't expect this one to go ripping up the race. It's still nothing more than a mid-peloton domestique.
Should you be coming to Tour de France 2021 looking for a proper bike racer which will let you replicate the real-world grand tour, this isn't the game for you. And unfortunately unless those behind it take a season out to prepare themselves for future years, it’s hard to see how this franchise can ever begin to appeal going forward.
I just can’t see any reason why any gamer - or bike fan for that matter - would want to fork out on a game that is pretty much a carbon copy of the game that came before it, and of the one before that. For that reason, recommending a purchase of Tour de France 2020 on Xbox One is a seriously hard push.
Tour de France 2019 could well have done with a bit more development time, instead of being pushed out in the current state just in order to meet the demands of the first stage of the 2019 Tour.
I'm not just a gamer, I’m also a cyclist.
I'm not one of those guys who picks up a bike to pedal to the shops once a week. I've got the lycra. I've got the stupid shoes. I've got the expensive bike. I've got the tendency to ride 100kms in the rain, up the biggest hills I can find, for no reason other than the fun it brings.
I also follow the professional sport. I watch the one day classics. I watch the Tour of Britain. I watch the Giro d’Italia. And every single year, without fail, I watch the Tour De France. Religiously.
You could therefore say that Tour de France 2018 from Cyanide Studios and Focus Home Interactive is a game that is pretty much aimed at me. And you'd be right because for the best part of a decade, I've decided to play the official video game of the tour too.
This year is no different. Unfortunately.
Cycling is an expensive hobby. Not only do you have to buy the expensive bike, but you also need to kit yourself out in expensive lycra and with expensive shoes, whilst expensive energy gels will quickly become your friend.
If you're a cyclist who likes gaming, then there is one more expensive purchase that you really do need to also consider. Your annual purchase of the official Tour de France video game. No matter how bad it is.
Here we go again. The sun starts shining, the roads get clogged up with caravans and the vast majority of middle aged men decide that tight fitting lycra, stupid shoes and the shaving of their body hair would be the best look for the summer. It also means the Tour de France is in town.
For those of us who love our cycling, the Tour De France is the pinnacle of the sport. It’s a time when men from around the world don their lycra, hop on their stupidly expensive bikes and battle it out across 21 stages for the right to be named champion of the Tour. The world has gone cycling crazy the last few years and what was once a bit of an overlooked sport, tarnished with drug taking and cheating from all corners, has turned into one of the biggest watched events the world over. The Tour De France encapsulates everything good, bad, beautiful and ugly about the sport and with the release of Tour De France 2015, the same can be said of the videogame.
Think of nothing but slogging yourself half to death across three weeks of some of the most intense of all sporting activities? It's that which you'll be attempting as the pedals of perfection go for glory in Tour de France 2024.
