Nacon Game Reviews
Mini Review Rennsport (PS5) - A Sim Racer That Just Can't Match the Competition
Shifting down
As long as Polyphony Digital continues to release and refine Gran Turismo titles, simulation racers will always have a hard time competing on a Sony console. With Rennsport, developer Competition Company is looking to separate itself from the leader of the pack by creating a cross-platform sim experience that’s geared heavily...
Review Hell Is Us (PS5) - One of the Best Mystery Experiences on PS5
The devil’s in the details
Hell Is Us may be one of the most unique games of 2025. Part Soulslike, part adventure game, part detective simulator, this gargantuan puzzler is dense, immaculately detailed, and devilishly dark. You won’t play anything else like it this generation. You play as Remi, a sociopath that has snuck his way into the war...
Review RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business (PS5) - Standalone Mini-Sequel Just Misses the Mark
Fun in the gun
When RoboCop's beloved police precinct is ransacked by a mysterious mercenary company, he has no choice but to hit up their hideout and put down the population of a small country. RoboCop: Rogue City is back, and it's still good fun — for the most part. Unfinished Business is basically a mini-sequel. It's actually entirely separate...
Beta Test Drive
Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown isn’t just a racing game, it’s a lifestyle game. Developer Kylotonn has endeavoured to recreate Hong Kong Island along with its opulent luxury and underground street scene, and while the driving is where Solar Crown truly shines, it's the lifestyle and technical aspects of the game hold it back...
Mini Review Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator (PS5) - Taxi Sim Stalls on Arrival
No es bueno
On paper, Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator seems like a great time. Leisurely picking up fares in one of Europe’s most beautiful cities, Barcelona. Exploring and finding points of cultural interest, forming and customising your own taxi company — it all sounds like a relaxing experience, right? Wrong. While there’s no denying...
Review RoboCop: Rogue City (PS5) - A Servicable Shooter for Nostalgia Enthusiasts
"Dead or alive, you're coming with me"
RoboCop: Rogue City is an incredibly faithful exploration of the armoured enforcer, a first-person shooter with an RPG foundation underpinning the action. It's a little rough around the edges but manages to tell an original tale in the iconic cyberpunk universe, reminding us why we still love this relic of the...
Mini Review Cricket 24 (PS5) - A Below Par Score on a Flat Batting Pitch
Not so Stoked for this one
With 2023’s Cricket World Cup kicking off in India this month, Big Ant Studios has taken the opportunity to release Cricket 24 alongside. Similarly with EA Sports FC for football and MLB The Show for baseball, Cricket 24 is a yearly instalment in cricketing video games but on a much lower budget than its stablemates. In...
Mini Review Ad Infinitum (PS5) - An Intriguing Horror Premise, Poorly Executed
All average on the Western Front
Ad Infinitum is a survival horror title that sees you play as a German soldier trapped in the claustrophobic trenches around No Man's Land. Sometimes. The game is split down the middle between the horrors of the Western Front and your family's mansion. While the war half of the game is a compelling and refreshing...
Review The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (PS5) - There's Nothing Precious About This
We don't likes it, precioussss
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum poses itself as an epic quest across the treacherous realms of Middle-earth, where an inner conflict will rage inside the mind of one halfling. Of course we refer to the split-personality of both Smeagol and Gollum, an integral character across both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings...
Review Transport Fever 2 (PS5) - Impressively Detailed Transport Sim Hits a Few Potholes
Connect the dots
Transport Fever 2 is a meticulously designed logistics simulator which tasks you with the timely transportation of passengers and goods via trains, trucks, planes, and ships. There is a simple satisfaction in getting something where it needs to go as efficiently as possible, and that sense extends to the gameplay experience as a...
Mini Review Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator (PS5) - Fun But Not Quite Masterchef
You'll always find me in the kitchen at parties
You'd think given the countless hours we've spent watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares that we'd have picked up a thing or two about running a successful restaurant. Alas, it seems the only thing we've picked up is his proclivity for foul-mouthed tirades, which we discovered a mere couple of...
Mini Review Session: Skate Sim (PS5) - A Realism Focused Love Letter to Skating, For Better or Worse
Need's more CKY
This time five years ago, skateboarding games were in a rough place. The last major skateboarding game was the truly awful Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 and EA’s Skate series had been dormant since 2010 despite fervent fan demand for a new entry. Around that time Montreal-based developer Creā-ture Studios first showed off Project...
Review Steelrising (PS5) - French Souls-Like Is Almost Great
Robotic revolution
After years of mediocre RPGs and second-rate detective titles, Spiders Studio finally began to realise its potential in 2019 with GreedFall. A genuinely good role-playing game with rich world building and solid combat, it was proof the French team had the capabilities to produce something special. Three years and a genre change...
Mini Review Tour de France 2022 (PS5) - Tactical Sports Sim Is Overly Familiar
It's two tired
While you may expect a title based on the historic three week, 3,000km Tour de France cycling tournament to be a little like a racing game, this adaptation is actually much more of a strategy experience. Those already familiar with Nacon and Cyanide’s biking excursions will know that, of course, as Tour de France 2022 is largely...
Transylvanian Families
Vampires get a bit of a bad rap, we think. Thanks to a few rotten apples like Dracula and Kristen Stewart we've grown accustomed to seeing vampires as insidious creatures of the night, but there's lots of fun vampires, too. Count Duckula, for example, and the one from Sesame Street that goes "Ah-ah-ah!" Anyway, what we're...
Mini Review Cricket 22: The Official Game of the Ashes - Not Bad But Won't Bowl You Over
A not-so sticky wicket
Ah, cricket. It’s a sport so steeped in tradition that when Australia and England come to blows, they compete not over silverware but a small urn. Cricket 22 has released just in time for the Ashes, and if Big Ant Studios was banking on an exciting series to drive sales for six, well, it’ll be scratching its head watching...
Review WRC 10 (PS5) - Rough-Edged But Robust Rally Racing
Don't cut
Developer KT Racing has found its footing with the WRC series. After last year's WRC 9 made significant improvements to the officially licensed rally racer, WRC 10 iterates on the winning formula, presenting another fantastic experience — even if it is a little rough around the edges. The driving itself is of course the most important...
Mini Review RiMS Racing (PS5) - Attempt for a More Realistic Motorcycle Sim Falls Flat
This bike needed more time in the pit stop
As the racing genre strives towards being as immersive as possible, the added realism can sometimes come at the cost of being enjoyable. RiMS Racing is the perfect example of this, as to simulate what it is like to be a motorcycle racer, the game adds tedious elements of motorcycle maintenance that ruin an...
Review Tennis World Tour 2 (PS4) - A Winner
Match point
Republished on Wednesday 28th July 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of August's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Tennis games tend to be a lot of fun, but even the best ones struggle to capture the intricacy of the sport. In franchises like Virtua Tennis, the emphasis...
Mini Review Tour de France 2021 (PS4) - Nacon Peddles Another Tactical Sports Sim
Battle of Brittany
Outside of fitness software like Zwift and VirZOOM, it’s hard to imagine how you can make a game about cycling entertaining. French studio Cyanide has been trying for several years now, and Tour de France 2021 is the culmination of its efforts so far, delivering a realistic simulation of the world’s third most-watched sporting...
Mini Review Tennis World Tour 2: Complete Edition (PS5) - New Balls, Please
Second service
The wait for a good tennis game has, at times, felt longer than Roger Federer’s career – but Tennis World Tour 2 on PlayStation 4 offered a glimmer of hope last year. This new Complete Edition for PS5 repackages the original sports simulation and all of its DLC, but incorporates a number of key under-the-hood improvements as well...
Mini Review Hunting Simulator 2 (PS5) – An Unexpectedly Tranquil Excursion
A walk in the woods
While the title may suggest violence and shooting, Hunting Simulator 2 is a surprisingly meditative game. Sure, on the most basic level, it’s a shooter – but you’ll pull the trigger so rarely that it barely qualifies, despite the large number of weapons and gear at your disposal. Ultimately, it serves a better role as an...
Mini Review Monster Truck Championship (PS5) - An Enjoyable Simulator
Kind of a big wheel
We’ve not seen many racers based around monster trucks. THQ Nordic recently released a new Monster Jam entry, but that’s more arcade racing than realistic simulator. Launched on PlayStation 4 last October, Nacon’s Monster Truck Championship offered us that alternative, and now it’s back with a next-gen
Review Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood (PS5) - An All Too Brief Adventure
Lots of bark and little bite
For a horror series based around tabletop RPGs, World of Darkness’ shared supernatural universe is making serious inroads on PlayStation this year. Between Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife on PSVR and Vampire: The Masquerade’s two new entries – Swansong and Bloodlines 2 – Werewolf
Review WRC 9 (PS5) - Haptic Feedback Helps Bring the World Rally Championship to the Next Generation
Good vibrations
WRC 9 is a superb rally sim. We said as much when we first reviewed it on PS4 three months ago. Bringing keen improvements to handling, lighting, and graphical fidelity – in addition to a selection of new rallies in Japan, Kenya, and New Zealand – such refinements in key areas helped define it as one of the best rally sims of the...
Review WRC 9 - A Compelling Rally Sim That's Gone from Good to Great
Don't confuse speed with haste
Annual games have a bit of a reputation for rehashing the same old thing year after year with only minor improvements. Some say it’s a license to print money. Rally is hardly in the mainstream, however, and neither is developer Kylotonn’s approach to the FIA World Rally Championship. With significant strides made...
