Quick Look: Tour de France 2014

This game allows you to cheat, right?

BIIIICYLE, BIIIICYCLE.

@beachthunder Sick burn, bro.

There's so much content this week, it's fantastic. All really high quality too. Loving this new phase of Giant Bomb.

I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE

RIP to everyone who died in the Grenoble Nuclear disaster.

@yummylee: Race.

Was hoping for this! I'm probably one of the biggest cycling maniacs on earth, but there's no way I would ever want to play this :P

BEASTS on bikes :D

LE BI-CYCLE or DER ZWEI-CYCLE?

I'm actually playing the PC game made by the same mob, Pro Cycling Manager 14. It'd be ace if it wasn't constantly crashing. But then I do like sports management sims. I even like Out of the Park & I know bugger all about baseball.

And a couple of uninteresting facts for you: the rider Alex selected, Jakob Fuglsang, his name translates into English as Birdsong. So there you go. And the reason why the cyclists ride in a big group is because if you're in the middle you feel the effects of wind resistance up to 40% less than if you were riding at the front with nobody hiding you from the wind. So that means you can ride at a higher pace with less effort.

I see what you did there.

Amazed by how little you guys know about the the tour de france when you had a great team for years. :D I was never a huge fan of it either, but my dad always had it on and I did like watching the last part of races.

It's three weeks, for the avoidance of doubt. So happy to see them doing this, I'm only casually interested in Le Tour (unlike my dad, who's a huge fan and has been over to France to follow it at least twice - I went with him once, unfortunately it was 1998 and the number one team was a bunch of cheats. As was the winning team the next seven years, but that's a different story), but it's such a goofy video game series, it's perfect for Quick Looking. In all honesty though, why would you play the 2014 edition for any reason other than a Quick Look? You can't play as Sir Bradley Wiggins. So what's the damn point?

Drugs!

Huh, that thing with the sticks opening up menus that kept happening to @vinny, must be a common issue on Dual shock 3 controllers - it started happening with one of mine a couple of months ago, seems like something is short circuiting so that certain directions on the sticks suddenly correspond to face buttons. When playing Battlefield 4 and Defiance I'd suddenly start throwing grenades and open up menus when trying to aim or do melee attacks. Sometimes the controller would get crazy in the XMB just randomly scrolling around and starting apps.

Oh you little round-headed t-word you

All I know about competitive cycling, I learned from an anime.

@jensonb: I dunno, maybe you watch cycling all season long rang than just for one race & so are happy with the chance to get to play as a Fabian Cancellara or Peter Sagan.

Also, pretty sure if you play as Team Sky you can change the riders on the team if you are so desperate for Wiggo.

I just listened Bicycle Race for the first time in a long time because of this video description. Holy shit is that song weird. And there's a bike-bell breakdown in the middle of it.

Is Oprah the final boss?

Finally I know what this game is about! Now I feel tired.

@forkboy: You know, I'm kinda just kidding. Chill out.

@forkboy: The PC version is Cycling Manager 2014 and it is more about the managing aspect, isn't it? I remember trying out the demo for an older version and finding it difficult to get into and lacking a decent tutorial

Also, I found the lack of mankini-wearers running up the hill in the climbing stage disturbing... is that DLC?

I like the change of pace

Daaaaamn I didn't know Vinny was so funny doing quick looks, this should have happen sooner! :D

@vinny the tour de france lasts 22 days and they ride 3700 km.

You must be new here. Welcome to the site.

I commend you both for finishing a race without committing suicide

Then again I watched the whole thing

Lovin all the new content vinnie and Alex

So much content. I love how Vinny and Alex can now freely covering non-triple AAA games.

This is what they've been promising.

I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE I WANT TO RIDE IT WHERE I LIKE

That guy at the end wanted to break free but had no escape from reality.

@jensonb: One can reply without being enraged you know. It should hardly be necessary to point out in 2014 that sometimes tone is difficult to convey purely in text, and you'd hardly be the first person to sincerely declare this year that no Wiggo = no point. Which, yeah, it is like hearing "Belgium are out of the World Cup so why are they even bothering with the final?"

@tng: Yeah, the tutorial in PCM 14 is better than the last one I played (which was 12) but it's still kind of confusing at times. I've apparently totally forgotten how to do team time trials. I usually start off with the difficulty on easy, pick one of the best teams and then use a custom field to eliminate all the other good teams & replace them with crappy Continental teams just while I get my head around the nuances. So I'd say this year is more accessible than the past, but more accessible than inaccessible does mean there's still a steep learning curve.

That guy at the end wanted to break free but had no escape from reality.

I don't know what i like best between the horrible graphics, the lack of collision with other riders or the 20 feet draw distance.

I think the comments broke down.

Yay, racist Vinny is back!

I really like cycling and I really like video games, but I don't think I would ever want to play a cycling-centric video game.

Loving everything coming out of Giant Beast so far. Great job Vinny and Alex!

Loving the complete American ignorance. And I don't mean it in a demeaning way, just, when I think "what would a typical American know about the tour the France", it's pretty much this.

Blood doping mini-game?

Yep, didn't take too long before they just start talking about air conditioning and Tom Cruise.

Two Americans talking about European geography. - Should take that show on the road. lol

Why get some exercise when you can videogame bike?

Queen? Classic, but I would have gone with Be Your Own Pet's "Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle"

"Please let me touch your butt." - Alex Navarro, Giant Bomb

Me suis toujours demander si j'étais le seul francophone à lurker par là?