Pro Cycling Manager Tour De France 2012 (PC DVD)

The game is definitely enjoyable, though the out of race management aspect is barely existant. But the game suffers a number of bugs, and despite a selection of patches. The developers know several and just accept them, but they make some elements of the game unplayable... you won't be enjoying a stage along the sea, those are too jerky to play. There are features in the game that also don't seem to be relevent (and web forums seem to agree with my observation) - equipment can be changed, but it makes no obvious different to performance (I ran a sprinter bike up an Alpine mountain and still got the result I'd expect on a more suitable bike).

All that said, I have had a lot of fun with the game, and will continue to do so. There's a good online community which you really need to learn the game, the manual is useless and there is no tutorial.

All in all, if you enjoy road cycling and particularly the tactical element to it, you'll enjoy PCM2012. But if you like management games, buy football manager... even old ones make better manangement games.

This is not a game for the feint hearted....

Pro Cycling Manager is insanely difficult and confusing if you have no background in cycling, and I don't. I couldn't tell you the difference between Team Sky and the Giro D'Italia (obviously 1 is a team and 1 is a race!)

Other review have marked this game down based on its difficulty, complexity and isolation but I don't this is not a pick up and play game, like Call of Duty, Sim City etc, this is a challenging simulation of team management. The two closest reference points I have are Football Manager and Grand Prix Manager 2, and even they only have passing similarities.

The Good

You get thrown in at the deep end here there is no tutorial or tip boxes, and I love that.
The 3D races are good graphically and can be fun to watch and participate in
The sheer amount of data is immense, once you get your head around it, but like Football Manager (& enigma), it becomes invaluable to you
The tactics involved, having no previous experience of the series or pro cycling I have no idea if I am genius coach who should replace Dave Brailsford or just a slow learner, you position your pack / rider where they need to be to get the maximum result for the team leader/ team / sprinter and it's great fun. I learned early on full power doesn't always equal a good result
The supporting community are great and friendly

The Bad

Random desktop crashes occur for no apparent reason other than bad code, though not as often as other games it does happen.
Gameplay length can be frustrating due to the time taken to complete stages, depending on your granularity, but then it is a simulation i just have no attention span
Installation was a pain I had problems with one if the many DRM codes in my game and the distributor where not very helpful at all, even after receiving all relevant proof of purchase

All in all this is Lance Armstrong playing Football Manager. If you have played management sims before you should pick it up, but please bear in mind there is NO spoon feeding in this game if you don't like complexity don't play...

this was a very good game that i thourlghy enjoyed and it was very fun. ten out of 10 i loved it.