Nacon Revolution Unlimited Pro

Today I will be reviewing the Nacon Revolution Unlimited Pro PS4 controller (a bit of a mouthful I know). Now I don’t claim to be a gamer and up until recently I’d only ever used a controller at friends’ houses, however I realised about a month ago that my laptop is more than good enough to allow me to play most games and I decided to take advantage of this. Given that the one game I’ve always wanted to play is Halo, I downloaded The Master Chief Collection via Steam and shortly afterwards received the Nacon and a standard PS4 controller as early Christmas presents so that I might use the Christmas holidays to set things up and play around a little. In this blog post I will explain the things that I like and dislike about the Nacon while comparing it to the normal PS4 controller…

Let’s start with how the controller feels in the hand – heavy, is the first word which springs to mind; not heavy in a bad way though, heavy in a well built way. This weight can be augmented by three sets of mini dumbbells which fit behind the rear grips (weighing 10, 14 and 16g respectively) – I thought the 14g weights gave a perfect balance of both heft and comfort. Added to this element of customisation is the ability to change the columns and grips for both analog sticks: you have three options for the width of each column and two options for the grips (either domed or concave). I like the feel of the thinnest column for the right stick and the thickest for the left, in-game movement requiring a lower range of stick motion while aim benefits from a higher range. The concave grips felt most comfortable and my fingers stayed firmly attached to them thanks to their dimpled surface, but it’s nice to know that you have the domed option if you so wish.

Something important which you’ve probably noticed from the pictures is that while this is technically an official PS4 controller it has an asymmetric design similar to that of an Xbox controller. Having compared the standard PS4 controller to the Nacon I can say that I prefer the asymmetric design – it somehow feels more natural – but again this is down to personal preference. Another difference between the Nacon and the standard PS4 controller is that every button on the Nacon feels responsive, as if it’s in the right place. The sticks move more smoothly, the buttons on the right are slightly larger and raised higher, as are the option and share buttons which were previously quite hard to find. I cannot comment on the touchpad’s precision seeing as I’ve only used it as a button, but I understand that it has been criticised as imprecise; it is worth noting however, that the standard PS4 controller suffers from similar criticism and that the Nacon’s touchpad is still larger in surface area. The triggers feel more ergonomic and the bumpers have significantly better feedback making a satisfying clicking sound that I spent longer than I’d care to admit testing. There are also four additional buttons on the back of the controller which, while initially a bit too flush for my liking, feel great now that I’ve got used to their placement.

The Nacon is almost limitless in terms of its ability to be customised allowing you to easily remap anything you want as well as add controls to the rear four buttons, adjust the colours of the glowing circle and change the sensitivity of the triggers as well as that of each analog stick. The hardcase (while containing a heavy-duty cable, bluetooth dongle and being quite nice in and of itself) fails to contain any worthwhile instructions while the Nacon website is partly in French (leaving Google as the best manual I could find), however once you’ve figured out how to download the software and upload any changes you want to the controller the rest of the process is reasonably straightforward. The bumpers can be adjusted via a simple slider while the graph mapping the deadzone of each analog stick as well as it’s sensitivity curve is fairly intuitive to use but may take a bit of messing around with to get right, you can always use the pre-existing profiles (or Youtube tutorials) as inspiration. The main reason behind changing the sensitivity curve is that in FPS games you can set the right stick’s inner sensitivity to be low for scoping, while the outer sensitivity can remain high allowing you to still turn around quickly – you can probably see how this customizability is useful. Up to four profiles can be created for different games which can then be switched between using the button on the back meaning that if you take your controller to a friends house or use it on a different device all your settings (no matter how complex) will be saved.

To conclude, the Nacon Unlimited Revolution Pro is a really nice controller. I love how it feels to hold, the rubberised finish is much more comfortable that the normal hard plastic, all the controls are in the right places, it seems meant to sit in your hands and the build quality is leaps and bounds ahead of the standard PS4 controller. While actually setting it up is a bit faffy, requiring perseverance and a free couple of hours, once completed it performs at a very high level. The controller usually retails for around £110, compared to £45 for a normal PS4 controller. It’s obviously a major step up, but is it actually worth more than double the price? It will not (of course) make you a better player, but gaming will be more comfortable and it will make it much easier for you to improve rapidly. If you’re looking for a great PC or PS4 controller then I could certainly recommend the Nacon. I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful, if you’d like to be emailed next time I post be sure to sign up below!