14 DAY TRIAL // The world of sports simulation has spawned incredibly popular franchises like FIFA, Madden NFL or the various NBA series. But there's one sport which, while very well represented in videogame form, has not gained such a big following. This is the Pro Cycling Manager series created by the French studio Cyanide. Its audience might not be the biggest in the world of videogames based on sports but its fans are incredibly loyal and demanding.
Now with the cycling season in full swing and with the classics already behind us, Cyanide has released fresh pieces of information related to how Pro Cycling Manager 2009 is shaping up, ahead of its planned June release.
The game is still very much focused on faithfully recreating the Tour de France, which is the biggest cycling event in the world, while also adding new content and better gameplay mechanics.
Cyanide is announcing that, for the first time, La Vuelta, aka the Tour of Spain, is officially modeled in the game, with input coming from the organizers of the race. There are also 180 other races that players can take on, with one of the 65 simulated teams or by creating their own custom team and guiding it to victory. All the possibilities from the previous Pro Cycling games are still there.
Various aspects of the management side have been improved, with better transfer options, more financial details and with a new ability of choosing objectives for the season. The race part of Pro Cycling Manager 2009 has also been improved. There is better Artificial Intelligence for the cyclists and there are obvious graphical improvements, as detailed by the screenshot attached to this article.
Cyanide has also created more track cycling events, including Scratch races, keirin and even omnium races. Let's hope that the developer manages to quickly complete development and that we'll be able to play the Tour de France in Pro Cycling Manager 2009 just as real world cyclists compete in Tour de France.