14 DAY TRIAL // The second rest day comes after a few pretty hard stages in the mountains and I am happy to report that I like Pro Cycling Manager 2011 more and more after experiencing some high altitude finishes and seeing how the game handles the slopes.
In PCM 2010, which I played with various mods for more than 9 months pretty much every week, the big mountain stages had a pretty set scenario: a break would be established early on and would go on to hang on to a pretty big advantage, take all the intermediate climbs and sprint points, with the big teams pushing up the pace in the last third of the stage.
The strongest team would sacrifice all its men at the front, trimming the number of members of the peloton and then the favorites will attack on the last climb, pretty much in the order of their chances, with the strongest ones going last and managing to take the win and gain time on their adversaries.
In Pro Cycling Manager 2011 the stages are much less predictable and a number of upsets can happen when the player is not paying attention.
This is, yet again, mostly linked to the new physical presence of the cyclists and to the time and energy it takes to get from the back of the peloton to the front.
I managed to lose more than 20 minutes with Frank Schleck purely because I got caught too near the back and the group slip, leaving me alongside riders that were too weak to bridge the gap.
I managed to lose time wins because I was blocked by a team just as their leader launched the final decisive mode.
I saw the breakaway take the stage because the favorite's teams refused to work at the front and allowed the escapees to gain too much time.
There's more variety and more excitement here and the experience of playing a stage is very close to what you get from watching one on television or, if you are lucky, in person.