Review | Tour de France 2021

LifeisXbox’s Tour de France 2021 Review | Get ready to put your cycling gear on, race against your competitors, and win against other riders and teams in the newest edition to the Tour de France series, Tour de France 2021. Held in France as an annual race for men, It’s time to aim high and keep your eyes on the yellow jersey being the ultimate prize. You will come across twenty-one stages to complete as you progress towards the next race. Of course, this will give you plenty of chances to show exactly how professional cycling is done, with your endurance and style of cycling being crucial for victory. As you encounter different routes, areas, and contenders towards your inevitable success, you will be tested to see if you have what it truly takes to become the winner of the Tour de France. Developed by Cyanide and published by Nacon, Tour de France 2021 will have you riding yourself past everyone and anyone who challenges you for first place. Now, it’s time to get into your lycra, put your helmet on, and begin your journey.

ℹ️ | VicciVulpix played Tour de France for Four Hours (ongoing) on Xbox One S. This game is also available on Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 4/5, Microsoft Windows, and Steam.

What we liked!

• Detailed tutorial | For someone who isn’t used to sport simulation games, I found the tutorial very informative and it definitely managed to show me all the controls and how they should be used to make the best out of my races. Not only does it explain what the controls do, but it did also show some instances you may find yourself in during races with your teammates, against competitors, and with different terrains that you could find yourself involved with throughout your journey. I believe that once you’ve got a grip on the controls, everything will become second nature, allowing you to utilise everything in the best way possible.

• Amount of stages | As with the real-life Tour de France, all twenty-one stages are included and ready to be completed, giving the game a sense of realism. These can be raced by you manually, which does take a fair amount of time, or you can choose to have them completed by the computer, thus skipping all gameplay and having the races completed much faster. I think it’s great to have both options because it gives flexibility. I think having the races as long as they are is somewhat of a double-edged sword as by doing this, it gives us an idea of just how much effort, training, and variants goes into preparing for and winning these races but also how time-consuming each of these races can be. Definitely a sense of realism included for those who want a truthful representation of the event.

• Different modes | Once past the title/load screen, you will be given five options to choose from which include race, training, editor, pro team, and pro leader. Within these choices comes a range of elements to explore. Race is pretty self-explanatory as this is where you will need to go in order to compete. Editor gives you the option to change riders names and composition of team line-ups should you wish to. Pro team allows players to manage a team with the long-term goal of being invited to respectable races and hiring the best riders out there to your team. Last, but not least, we have pro leader that gives you the freedom to create your very own rider. You can then complete different challenges, therefore progressing your rider between seasons. All these modes give users a chance to play around with most aspects that make up the Tour de France.

Somewhere between

• Gameplay mechanics | Although I found the tutorial informative, I did struggle to get the best out of my actual racing experience. I would have liked to see a tutorial race that takes you through a race while explaining exactly how mechanics should be incorporated and used to the best potential. When following other riders and being in a pack, I didn’t have any problems but when it came to stretches where ultimately you were alone, I didn’t know what was best for me to do. I felt like I’d been thrown in at the deep end a little. I know it can take some time to get used to mechanics in some games, and that’s absolutely fine, but I would have appreciated a little more guidance.

What we disliked

• Unoriginal visuals | Unfortunately, I was really dissappointed to see that the visuals in Tour de France 2021 haven’t changed much at all when you compare it to previous games in the series. Don’t get me wrong, the visuals do look alright but it would have been really nice to see more effort being put into them instead of re-using previous graphics. With that said, the use of colour in the game is appealing on the eyes. However, I think they could have been much bolder in places, allowing the graphics to truly show through and enhance the game as a whole.

• Unrealistic gameplay | In real life, during the Tour de France event, you will notice crashes, collisions, riders falling off their bikes along with other possiblities of things going wrong. Now, when playing Tour de France 2021, should you accidently knock into another rider or even the barricade, that seperates the crowd from the riders, you will simply bump off them/it and continue racing as you were. This meant there was pretty much no need to be careful or have much awareness whilst during stages as clearly it doesn’t matter if you collide with anything and everything.

• Repetitive audio | When playing racing simulators of most kinds, audio is definitely key as it gives the race life and atmosphere which is incredibly important to get right. Now, in Tour de France 2021, there is audio where the crowd is cheering you on from the sidelines as it should be but it came to my attention rather quickly that this has been put on a somewhat short loop and sadly became quite unrealistic. The commentator who advises and speaks during races I found to be a little dull. Other than the upbeat menu music, I wasn’t impressed much.

How long to beat the story | Approximately 10 – 15 Hours
How long to achieve 1000G | Approximately 10 – 15 Hours
Similar with | Racing Simulation Titles

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