Visual Concepts Game Reviews
Review WWE 2K25 (PS5) - Unbeatable Value from 2K’s Dominant Wrestling Series
The Island of Relevancy
As we hurtle down the road to this year's WrestleMania, it's time once again to make a welcome pit stop at 2K's annual simulated grapple-fest. WWE 2K25 boasts new features, even more playable superstars, and a brand new multiplayer distraction in the form of The Island. But does it continue the momentum Visual Concepts has...
Angel fleeced
The life of a sports game reviewer can be a miserable one, but while much of Visual Concepts’ culturally colossal NBA 2K series is recycled year-on-year, it rarely settles for raw iteration. This is a developer that, for all its faults, genuinely appears committed to creating the best sports sim on the market – and it tends to lap...
Review WWE 2K24 (PS5) - Another Confident Entry in 2K’s Robust Wrestling Series
Continuing the story
As the calendar rapidly approaches WrestleMania 40, the eyes of the world are once again trained on WWE’s big house of muscular lads and lasses. With The Rock’s involvement in this year’s shindig raising the event’s profile to even loftier heights, WWE and 2K have pulled out all the stops to try and ensure the latest...
Review NBA 2K24 (PS5) - Stunning Sports Game Wants You to Spend
Dunkin' dough? Nuts
Visual Concepts came to an important but necessary conclusion with NBA 2K24: it needed to dial back the superfluous aspects of the series back. For the past two years, on PS5 specifically, the release’s popular MyCAREER mode has wanted to touch upon all aspects of basketball – including the cultural stuff, like fashion and...
Review LEGO 2K Drive (PS5) - A Creative All-Ages Kart Racer with Irksome Microtransactions
Building up speed
LEGO 2K Drive is so nearly there. This colourful arcade racing title makes great use of its licence, and has laid down a great foundation for fun, chaotic driving. However, for as much as the LEGO brand brings to a game like this, publisher 2K Games clearly saw dollar signs over its monetisation potential. The end result is a super...
Review WWE 2K23 (PS5) - 2K Sports' Wrestling Series Continues Its Steady Rise
Never give up
Minor tweaks and improvements are the usual selling points of annualised sporting titles. Yes, the teams and kits may be updated, player ratings may be tweaked, and 4K beard follicles may now be visible in replays, but that’s usually your lot. Not so with 2K’s WWE series. Standing on the shoulders of WWE 2K22’s solid efforts, the...
Review NBA 2K23 (PS5) - Not Even Microtransactions Can Ruin Revolutionary Franchise Mode
Find out what all the hoopla is about
NBA 2K23 is absolutely enormous. Look, we know that’s not necessarily what you expected to read: you thought we were going to tell you it’s another copy-and-paste basketball sim from 2K Sports – but this is so much more than a roster swap. The game has age-old issues when it comes to gated progression and...
Review WWE 2K22 (PS5) - A Return to Form for 2K's Wrestling Franchise
Head of the table
WWE 2K22 is a better game than WWE 2K20. There, that's the headline. For a variety of reasons 2K20 was released in such a disastrous state that we called it "a comedy horror title" in our review at the time. Surely taking stock of just how much the WWE license is worth to them, 2K and beleaguered developer Visual Concepts made the...
Review NBA 2K22 (PS5) - Basketball Sim Is At Its Best on the Court
That's a rap
For as much as fans complain about annual sports games playing the same, NBA 2K22 genuinely does feel dramatically different. A complete rewrite to the defensive gameplay means no longer can you ghost past 7-foot interior beasts like they’re made of paper, as you’ll have to actually work to engineer open looks and lanes to the...
Review NBA 2K21 (PS5) - An Ambitious Effort That Excels on the Court
Green release
Sports games go hand-in-hand with console launches like LeBron James and retweets. Except this hasn’t been an ordinary year at all: the basketball season only just concluded after being played in an empty gym in front of virtual crowds and NBA 2K21 is the only sports simulation available on the PlayStation 5 for now. That will change...
Review NBA 2K21 - Perfect for Those in the Bubble, Good for Everyone Else
Ballers only
NBA 2K21 captures the see-saw flow of real-world basketball so well that you’ll feel at one with thousands of virtual fans when you nail a clutch corner three with seconds left on the clock. Visual Concepts’ simulation has, along with the MLB The Show series, always been a cut above the competition when it comes to broadcast-style...
Review NBA 2K20 - Brilliant Basketball Sim Soured by Businessmen
Tank for Zion
Republished on Monday 29th June 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of July's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. There has to be tensions at NBA 2K20 developer Visual Concepts behind-the-scenes. We’re not ones to gossip, but the California-based team must be frustrated...
Review WWE 2K20 - 2K Sports' Wrestling Sim Hits Rock Bottom
Undisputed Error
WWE has released a video game based on its flagship brand of sports entertainment every year for close to three decades now, so it may be surprising to some that this year’s entry has veered away from the franchise’s grappling roots in a variety of ways. For a start, all traditional forms of locomotion have been removed, as you...
Find a new slant
It gets lonely at the top. The NBA 2K franchise has been the undisputed king for almost a decade now when it comes to virtual basketball. Long gone are the days of being the plucky underdog who scrapped for years, slowly but surely chipping away at EA’s vast, seemingly untouchable, video game sporting kingdom. NBA 2K is now the...
Swish
The NBA 2K series has always been the most eye-catching of sport game franchises because of its excellent presentation and attention to detail, not to mention its stunningly realised visuals. NBA 2K17 is no different, and ups the ante to make quite possibly one of the best sporting experiences on PlayStation. Sure, it doesn't have any huge...
Review NBA 2K15 (PlayStation 4)
Three-peat
There’s no question that NBA 2K has become the gold standard when it comes to basketball simulators, raising the bar year-after-year with great modes such as ‘My Career’ and ‘My GM’ that allows fans of not only the sport but also the league experience to fashion their own careers. Where this franchise has made its money, though,...
Review NBA 2K14 (PlayStation 4)
Flying through hoops
Visual Concepts’ vaunted NBA 2K franchise has a reputation for its high standards, and the series’ latest entry on the PlayStation 4 continues that sequence of slam dunks by towering over its PlayStation 3 counterpart. Not content with a mere visual upgrade, NBA 2K14 on Sony’s next generation system plays a totally...
Review NBA 2K12 (PlayStation 3)
The legend returns
Last year's NBA 2K11 was a sublime tribute to the league's greatest ever player, Michael Jordan, and one of the finest sports games ever created. This year's follow-up NBA 2K12 takes things a step further, bringing in 14 more legendary players and a host of new game modes. Whereas last year's effort was built around the famous...
Review NBA 2K11 (PlayStation 3)
Truly the greatest
NBA 2K11 arrives with the usual fanfare you'd expect to surround the latest outing of this highly-acclaimed series, but this time there’s a huge, unmissable feather in its cap. Michael Jordan, the titular “greatest of all time”, appears in the game, but we’re not just talking his likeness. This is Jordan’s career: his...
Review NBA 2K10 (PlayStation 3)
NBA 2K10 may be plagued by a choppy framerate and numerous bugs, but it still holds together to provide an explosive representation of basketball
The greatest strength in NBA 2K10's arsenal is the real upbeat, fast paced sense of occasion that NBA Live 2010 didn't deliver. NBA 2K10 is frenetic, and often break-neck. It's hardly realistic, but it's...
