Pro Cycling Manager 2024 review

Like most detailed managerial sims, Pro Cycling Manager 2024 is undoubtedly a niche experience. But if you’ve ever wanted to stat your way toward the yellow jersey, the game can accommodate your ambitions.

Over the years, I’ve intentionally shunned playing two different kinds of games: gacha and sports management games. My avoidance isn’t from dislike or even disinterest, but rather because my compulsive personality could easily get entangled in either genre. Whether it’s the lure of obtaining an Ultra Rare ship/waifu in Azur Lane or guiding a group of underdogs to the playoffs in Out of the Park Baseball, I just don’t have the energy for yet another addictive time sink. Knowing that, I dove into Pro Cycling Manager 2024, spending the next ten days as an up-and-coming directeur sportif.

While the anticipated sense of obsession never quite materialized, I walked away from my extended managerial stint feeling like I could coach a real-life team of riders away from a completely humiliating finish in the Giro d’Italia. Undoubtedly, the complex simulation isn’t for everyone, channeling the complexities and frustrations of an average work week. But if you’re looking to dive deep into an involved experience, PCM 2024 certainly has some masochistic appeal.

A Procession of Tough Decisions

The simulation’s complexity is most evident in Career Mode where you’re tasked with leading a team to victory over several seasons. Here, you’ll start by selecting a roster of between thirty and eighteen cyclists, with the number dependent on which of the three divisions you’ll be involved in. Each cyclist is assessed by their age, as well as their aptitude for sprinting, acceleration, racing on cobblestones, as well as hill and mountain climbing.

Although a team with close to a five-star rating provides plenty of talent, PCM ensures that your job is never stress-free. You’ll face tougher objectives and sponsors will have higher expectations. Alternatively, you can form your own team, which involves crafting a synergistic balance of skills and contingencies for the inevitability of injury. If you’re the type of person who enjoys coming up with creative solutions to incapacitating problems, PCM can sporadically indulge. Mostly, it taught me that risk reduction wasn’t always the best method for running a sports team.

Work From Home

When you’re handling office duties, you’ll be gazing at Pro Cycling Manager 2024’s multi-paneled screen. It resembles the kind of user interface that you see characters interact with in movies, with sections for email, upcoming races, finances, and a calendar. The latter two are especially important, as time and money always seem to be in short supply. Whether its waiting for your stalwart hill-climbers to heal after visiting a doctor, ensuring that scouting efforts can replace your pros, or investing enough into research and development to maintain a technical advantage, shrewd resource management is essential.

But getting to the point where you can make shrewd managerial decisions is going to take some time. Sure, PCM 2024 has a tutorial, but it only explains the basics of the game’s components. You’ll have to absorb decision-making strategies on your own, often learning through failure. Discovering the game’s intricacies, such as whether spending to cultivate a development team of young talent hinges on how much time you are willing to invest in the game. But like previous iterations, the complexity of the simulation means you will encounter idiosyncrasies. Sporadically, decisions that should have tangible repercussions just don’t seem to function. Whether the cause is a wrathful random number generator or a coding oversight isn’t clear. But know that you will encounter frustrations that don’t feel like your fault- you know, just like in real life.

In the Peloton

When you’re not on the management screen or opting to simulate the life of a budding athlete in Pro Cyclist mode, PCM 2024 renders each race in three dimensions. While the load times to get to the track are inexplicably longer, undoubtedly developer Cyanide Studio is recycling assets from their Tour de France franchise. As such, you can expect a modest representation of riders and race environments, as well as an outlandishly swerving pace car. Still, it’s gratifying to get out of your virtual office for some simulated sunshine.

Much like the Nacon’s sister series, stamina supervision is the objective here. With gauges reflecting overall energy, attacking strength, effort, and even heart rate, you’ll observe your cyclist with the attentiveness of a cardiologist monitoring an ailing patient. When it comes to interaction, you can adjust the effort level of any athlete or order your cyclist to attack, maintain their position, relay, and consume energy gel. And while you can micromanage things in real-time, PCM 2024 provides the option of slowing or speeding time or simulating the event entirely. But like previous installments, the game’s intelligence can be spotty. Even when there’s a bit of room in the peloton, attack orders tend to push your athlete to the peripheries.

Conclusion

As sporting simulations go, Pro Cycling Manager 2024 is unquestionably complex, demanding persistence and patience from players. Know that the road toward championship is littered not just with intricacy but also small imperfections that can cause frustration. But the near-impenetrability is balanced with involvedness. If you’re the type of person who appreciates intricacy, Pro Cycling Manager 2024 has the potential to keep you busy for months.

Summary: With its skeletal tutorial and complex supervisory tasks, venturing into Pro Cycling Manager 2024 can be overwhelming. Undoubtedly, this is an experience suited for the statistically obsessed, who find enjoyment in seeing their decisions potentially garner advantages. As with simulations this sophisticated, there’s some unfortunate jank, which is perplexing for a franchise that’s nearly two decades old.

Pro Cycling Manager 2024 was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.