Having failed miserably in my attempts at beach volleyball and table tennis in my desktop Olympics, it was time to try something more familiar in my quest for glory. And what can be easier than cycling? They say it’s just like riding a bike. Having dug my cycling shorts out of the wardrobe I settled down to play Rad Challenge, a polished mountain biking game that looks great and plays even better. You start out with a practice session and the simple controls make it easy to hurtle down the mountain without coming off too much. Then it’s on to the qualifying to decide your start position, before going head to head with the best in the final. I pulled off some gnarly jumps along the way, but ultimately my four nasty crashes ended my chances.
Rather than sitting around nursing a bruised ego, I got straight back in the saddle by installing Pro Cycling Manager. This one gives you the chance to not only race yourself, but also guide a whole team to victory. The road race proved mightily difficult due to the fact you have to keep watch of eight racers at the same time. You need to pay close attention to each team member’s position and set them instructions to help each other through. Unfortunately, this was a little too confusing and eventually I stopped giving the team instructions, left them to their own devices and went for a coffee. They came 7th.
Moving onto the velodrome in Pro Cycling Manager, I felt confident I could still snatch something from the cycling events. This time, you just control one player against five other cyclists in a high speed chase around the circuit. It’s all about maneuvering into the right position and controlling the racer’s level of effort using the cursor keys. I got off to a bad start but my sprint finish saw me fly through the pack and finish second. I won a silver medal – my first of the Games. Bring on the next event…
