Top 5 best sports games on Android (2010)

It might stagger you to know this, but not everyone on the Pocket Gamer team is what you'd call the sporty type.

Shocking news, I know.

Yet every one of us appreciates a good sports game. Why? Because the best examples transcend their subject matter and stand apart as excellent games in their own right.

The Android Market is home to number of sports games that fit this description, so even if you don’t know your cricket bat from your tennis racquet, you’ll find much to enjoy here.

Is bowling a sport? It’s something that many people doubt, but as I come from a country that televises darts I think I’ll keep my mouth shut on the matter.

One thing’s for sure – no game on this list makes you feel like a sportsman as well as I-play Bowling does. The reason for this is the controls, which require you to mimic the bowling action fairly accurately.

With the possibility of adding late flicks to affect spin, I-play Bowling is a surprisingly nuanced take on the questionable sport.

Golf is one of those curious sports that, in video game form, manages to attract people who couldn’t care less about the real thing. I should know, I’m one of them.

Let’s Golf demonstrates why. It’s one of those brilliantly bright, accessible games that Japanese console developers tend to excel at - except it’s made by a French mobile developer. Go figure.

The swing mechanism is easy to pick up, there’s an involving character development element, and the art style is gorgeous (if derivative). Hacking your way around this sunny golf game is never less than an absolute delight.

Backbreaker doesn’t so much replicate a sport as zoom in and embellish one particular part of a sport. The subject is American ‘Gridiron’ Football, and the focus is running around like a lunatic.

Your goal is to get to the end-zone by sprinting, twisting, and jinking past successive waves of opposing defenders. You’re awarded extra points for running through bonus areas and showboating your way across the finishing line.

This is all achieved by an excellent combination of accelerometer and touchscreen controls. The key to its appeal, though, is the phenomenal animation, which shows every crunching tackle and skilful twirl in gloriously fluid 3D.

Like Backbreaker, Homerun Battle 3D hones in on a specific area of its sport. As the name suggests, this is all about knocking the ball out of the park.

The key to its success is its control system, which sees you tilting your handset to line up bat with the ball before touching the screen to swing. The timing of this latter stage is the difference between a scuffed hit and clearing the stadium.

It’s enhanced by some gorgeously stylised 3D graphics, which make every ‘homer’ feel like a major triumph courtesy of some neat particle effects and a fantastic slow motion replay facility.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a well realised (not to mention popular) online multiplayer mode, which pitches you against a fellow player in a bid to climb the global leaderboard.

Gamevil’s baseball series takes a very different approach to its subject sport from both Homerun Battle 3D and Backbreaker. Rather than presenting a hyper-detailed study of one particular element of the sport, it pans back and offers a far wider experience.

Baseball Superstars plays as much like an RPG as it does a baseball sim. In the case of My League mode, you take control of a rookie player and lead them through their career, training them, helping them to relax, and – ultimately – impressing the coach on the pitch.

The baseball action doesn’t let the side down, as you take partial control of batting, pitching, and fielding. Crazy special players ensure that even non-baseball fans have something to get excited about.

No other sports game on Android offers as much sheer content as Baseball Superstars. It transcends its subject sport (which, let’s face it, is of limited interest in most countries) by wrapping it up in an attractive RPG-lite shell that everyone can get on board with.