16 Best PSP Sports Games

Namco Bandai made Smash Court Tennis 3 for the PSP and the Xbox 360, and the handheld got it first, since the Xbox 360 version was held back until the late summer of 2008. It was the series' first game on the PSP, with twice as many racquets and outfits to customise as the game before it. The roster is built around real stars like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

Pro Tour mode is the heart of it. You chase the world number one spot and build up skills like serve accuracy along the way, and a set of mini games breaks up the season. Reviews were mixed on both systems, though in Japan Famitsu scored the PSP version a touch higher than the Xbox 360 one. It is the only tennis game on the list, and it held on to the last spot.

Sony's own basketball sim came from its San Diego Studio, which made the PS3 and PSP versions and left the PS2 one to another team. It came out on October 7, 2008, and it carries all 30 NBA teams and 14 of the 16 NBDL teams, for anyone who dreamed of managing a development league side on a bus.

It is the sequel to NBA 08, and its The Life story mode follows a rise from the D-League to the NBA, with your created superstar dealing with three different characters along the way. How you act in the locker room matters. Being a team player gets you more minutes from the coaches, while a loner ends up pushing the team away. It finished well behind NBA 2K13, the only other basketball game on the list, but its story mode is the deeper one.

EA Tiburon made NCAA Football 10, and it came out on July 14, 2009, for the PSP and the home consoles on the same day. Each version had its own cover star, and the PSP box went to former USC Trojans quarterback Mark Sanchez. It follows NCAA Football 09 in the series.

The series' big new idea that year was TeamBuilder, which let fans make their own teams online, old college sides and high school teams included. That website is long gone, and its link now forwards to the Madden website, which is a very EA way for a story to end. IGN liked the pile of new features but felt the game looked a lot like the year before. College sports get one entry on this list, and it finished a long way below NFL Street 3.

Yuke's built SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 for THQ, and it came out worldwide in October 2009 on the Havok engine. Its storyline editor gives each story room for up to 500 segments on the PS3 and Xbox 360, while the PSP stops at 55. That still leaves plenty of rope. The new single-button reversal system is the change you feel most, because you get only one chance to press the reversal key when the icon appears.

Wrestling fans on the PSP tend to recommend the whole SmackDown run rather than one year, and they have a point, since each game builds on the last. Players put this one last of the four WWE games here, but only just behind the 2011 edition. If you already own a later SmackDown, this one adds little, but it is a solid start.

This was the seventh and last game under the SmackDown vs. Raw name. A year later the series came back as WWE '12. The PSP got it in October 2010 along with everyone else, and its Road to WrestleMania mode is built around story campaigns where your choices decide what happens next. The game has more than 100 cutscenes to push its rivalries and alliances forward, which is a lot of shouting into microphones.

Critics scored the PSP version lowest of every version it came out on. It sold well anyway, with 3.5 million copies across all systems by September 2012. Players put it one spot above the 2010 edition, so if you want only one of the late SmackDown games, this is the one with the most story to play through.

October 2009 brought FIFA 10 to just about everything EA could find, and the PSP got one of the handheld versions. The series' Manager Mode was revamped that year, with an Assistant Manager who can sort out your line-up and rotate the squad for you. That is a nice touch on a handheld, where you mostly want to get to the football.

It was also the last FIFA game to come out in October until FIFA 21 in 2020, so it sits at the end of an era in a small way. It is one of only two FIFA games on the list, and players rate the street spin-off far above it. If you want proper eleven-a-side football with real leagues on your PSP, though, this is the one players reach for first.

Current wrestlers share the ring with old legends like Hulk Hogan in WWE All Stars, which plays as fast arcade wrestling for up to four players. It is part fighting game and part wrestling game, with exaggerated moves and combos in the air. THQ San Diego built the big console versions, and Subdued Software made the one for the PSP. Its Fantasy Warfare mode is a series of 15 dream matches that pit a legend against a similar modern star.

IGN gave the PSP version a 7/10 and called it a bit shallow, and SpazioGames felt it was too much like the earlier wrestling games on the PSP. It was also the last WWE game ever released on the system. As send-offs go, a cartoonishly muscled Hulk Hogan is a loud one.

The Bigs 2 is arcade baseball with power-ups and turbos, and it came out on July 7, 2009, two years after the first game. Under the cartoon physics it still carries all 30 MLB teams and their stadiums, and Prince Fielder is on the cover. Unlike the first game, it lets you play the full 162 game season and run the front office as general manager.

Its best new trick is the Big Slam. You bring up four batters in a row, and if the first three reach base, the fourth one hits a grand slam the moment he makes contact. Become a Legend mode starts your player off recovering from an injury in the Mexican League. Critics gave the PSP version mixed reviews. Baseball got exactly one spot on this list, and this is it.

NBA 2K13 arrived in October 2012, long after most publishers had moved on from the PSP, and it was the fourth and last NBA 2K game on the system. It was also the last NBA 2K on a pure handheld. Rapper Jay-Z was the executive producer and picked the soundtrack, and critics loved the music more than almost anything else in the game.

Its MyCAREER mode got an overhaul, and you can set the best players in NBA history against the new generation, including the 1992 Dream Team against the 2012 U.S. team. The PSP version lost a few things the home consoles kept, like the virtual currency and custom soundtracks. Players rank it the PSP's best basketball game anyway, well ahead of Sony's own.

ECW joined the WWE games for the first time in SmackDown vs. Raw 2008, with The Sandman and CM Punk among its wrestlers. Guitars joined the weapons. The big change is the Fighting Style System, which gives each wrestler a primary and a secondary style, like Powerhouse or High-Flyer, and a special move that comes with it.

Critics did not love it, because the presets sometimes gave wrestlers moves they could not really use. The PSP version keeps the look of the earlier handheld SmackDowns, but it also has unlockable legends no other version got, Eddie Guerrero among them. Of the four WWE games here, this is the one players put first, and for a wrestling fan it is the one to own if you only buy one.

NFL Street 3 came out in November 2006 for the PS2 and the PSP, with more modes and unlockables than the two games before it. Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals is on the cover, and he was the game's official spokesperson too. You play your own style of football, on the ground or through the air, and power-ups hover above the field for whoever gets there first.

Style points fill up your Gamebreaker, the series' trademark power move, and this time you can control it yourself, with new Power moves for both offense and defense. Players who bring it up often name NFL Street 2 in the same breath, so the two feel like a pair. No other American football game on the list came close to it.

Only one game in EA's NHL series ever came to the PSP, and this is it. It brought more realistic stickhandling and more ways to set up the controls, and it carries European leagues from Germany, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic on top of the NHL. The Xbox 360 version got Gary Thorne and Bill Clement in the booth, while the PSP kept Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson.

Players are surprised by how close it plays to the PS2 version, and they call it a great conversion that feels natural on the handheld. Critics liked it too, and every version but the PC one got favourable reviews. Hockey fans on the PSP had no other choice, and they still put it fifth.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 is the eighth game in the series, released in November 2006. Neversoft made the main versions, and Page 44 Studios ported it to the PSP on the engine of American Wasteland. Your career starts at rank 200, and the climb is the whole point, because Tony Hawk is building a team of eight skaters and you want in.

The PSP version is the only one with a Classic Mode, which brings back goals from levels in older Tony Hawk games on a two-minute timer. Critics did miss online play in all three PlayStation versions. Players nearly always name it next to Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix, the other big skater on the system.

FIFA Street 2 shrinks national teams down to four a side and piles on new tricks to pull off with its trick stick. Cristiano Ronaldo is on the cover. Its career mode has you build a player and take him to street tournaments around the world, and old legends like Zico and Abedi Pele are there to unlock. Zane Lowe hosts its own in-game radio station.

Critics went easy on the console versions and hard on the handhelds, which missed the new features, yet PSP players picked it over the full FIFA by a wide margin. Players who name it still talk about it with real affection, as a game they sank hours into. Defending is the weak spot. One critic said trying to stop a trick feels like physical comedy, and he was not wrong.

EA Canada made SSX on Tour under the EA Sports BIG label, and it is the fourth game in the series. It added skiing next to snowboarding and let you create your own rider. The whole thing looks like a sketchbook, with menus drawn in a scrappy style the art director said was meant to look like it was made by a 15-year-old kid. The soundtrack swapped the electronic music of earlier games for punk and rock, and Iron Maiden plays over the intro.

The PSP version is a different game from the console ones, with fewer ways to customise your rider and levels borrowed from SSX 3. Nobody seems to mind. Players tend to recommend it next to Burnout and the Tony Hawk games as a quick pick-up-and-play game, and it finished a close second.

Fight Night Round 3 is EA's boxing game, the sequel to Fight Night Round 2, and the PSP got it on February 20, 2006, the same day as the home consoles. EA Chicago built it. In career mode you build your own boxer and take him from the local gym to the big venues, and the analog stick throws your punches, so there is no button mashing. It won the first BAFTA ever given to a sports video game.

Critics gave the PSP version only average reviews, where every other version got favourable ones. Players see it differently. They talk about it with real warmth, and they love its career mode. As one fan put it, "Not even a huge boxing fan, but I love that particular fight night." They put it above every team sport on the system.