In a year chockfull of sport, the Tour de France, one of the most gruelling tests of physical endurance around, is unlikely to get the coverage it deserves. Unless of course a British contender wins it, like Bradley Wiggins, at which point everyone in the UK will jump on the bandwagon and claim his personal triumph as a victory for England, pretending they were behind him the whole time. The Tour de France 2012 game was always going to be a relatively low-key release, but the actual event being sandwiched between Euro 2012 and the London 2012 Olympic Games hasn’t exactly helped its cause.
Craig Anderson: "The yellow jersey. The peloton. Stages. The famous Champs-Élysées. These are all words that mean something to you if you’re a keen road cyclist or follow the most gruelling road race in the world, Le Tour de France. With the recent success of Bradley Wiggins in this year’s tour, when the opportunity arose to don my lycra and review Le Tour De France 2012, it was too good to resist. In retrospect, I wish I had resisted."
Darryl Linington from ITF Gaming writes: Developed by Cyanide Studios and Published by Focus Home Interactive, Le Tour De France 2012 is the latest cycling simulator that has been developed for console systems. While the Tour De France is one of the toughest cycling challenges to date, does its video game counterpart live up to the gruelling intensity of the real life sport? Or is it something that resembles a buckled wheel spinning furiously in an intense dust storm?
Following the recent announcement of an NTSC release for the two titles based on this year’s Tour de France event, publishing label Focus Home Interactive has confirmed an international release for the videogames. Both the PC sports simulation, Pro Cycling Manager, and Tour de France 2012 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will be made available throughout PAL territories this summer.
