Tour de France

We're confused about lots of things: The fact that Orlando Bloom is still cast in films, for instance, that Marmite can be bought in squeezy containers, and why the Tour de France might be started in Britain one year. Call us stupide, but shouldn't it be the Tour de Europe? Or even the Tour de Chunnel?

Then again, to be honest, we don't really care. Which, as it happens is also the way we suggest you should feel about the game of the Tour de France.

Based on the 2005 event, you can either dive straight in to try out a single section of the race or prepare yourself for the demands of the whole Tour itself. Either way, you should expect a disappointment as, when you finally get through to the racing itself, its only real claim to being a cycling racer is that you appear to be pedalling something that looks vaguely like a bike.

Each stage scrolls in from the right and you're free to move up or down, speed up or brake. There's an onscreen stamina indicator and, much like the old Track & Field 1500m event, you have to keep a close eye on it. You're free to speed along at 60kph, but this obviously knocks huge chunks off your energy. Conversely, slow down and it will recover slowly but the rest of the pack will soon start to overtake you.

It's working the balance out that adds the strategic element to the game, of course. This is complicated by the addition of large white blocks with red crosses on them that restore stamina, and grey blocks that give you a short-term turbo boost. (Although it has to be said that neither does little to add to the game's authenticity.)

Cheekily, the developer claims that the game's made of 'exciting and real stages', but as they're all just variations of sideways scrolling levels, it's impossible to verify this – unless there really is a series of road sections in France that are littered with traffic signs and large white blocks with red crosses on them. Which is doubtful.

Playing through the actual Tour (as opposed to the Quick Start mode) enables you to select a team and therefore skip between riders during a race. There is some enjoyment to be found here, admittedly, and we had a mild amount of pleasure battling through the first few stages. Yet ultimately our lasting impression was that we felt we'd probably do better and last longer if we tried to race in the actual event itself.

We genuinely believe that it's possible to make a decent and fairly realistic cycling simulation (and with the Tour de France regularly coming around, we're sure that there's someone with a 'proper' game in development for a high-end phone or PC). But Tour De France is neither fun nor factual gaming – it's ultimately just rather flat.