25 essential sports games to fill your Android collection
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Updated 16 August 2019: New entries added
We've been playing sports-themed video games ever since the days of Pong. So, from the very beginning, then.
As the decades have progressed, so our sports simulations have grown more complicated, more nuanced, and generally closer to the real thing. There's always been space for radical flights of fancy too, thank goodness. Video games have got the whole future sports thing locked down.
You'll find a good spread of sports game experiences on Android. From in-depth simulations to knock-about arcade blasts.
New Star Soccer takes a sideways leap into new territory. This time you're responsible for the running of an entire football club, not just a player, resulting in an even deeper and more enthralling casual simulation of the beautiful game.
Undoubtedly the deepest, most involved sports game on the Google Play Store. Football Manager 2019 Touch is a dauntingly complete management game with countless variables.
This charming game lets you train up your very own MMA fighter, as well as handling his humdrum life outside of the ring. There's no actual hands-on fighting in Punch Club, but you'll feel thoroughly involved all the same.
New Star Soccer, in which a footballer's career is broken down into entertainingly bite-sized mini-games, is a footy game that even non-football fans can enjoy.
Real golf is has a reputation for being slightly stuffy and elitist, but Super Stickman Golf 3 supplies a welcome sense of silliness and accessibility to the sport.
With expert ball physics, stunning graphics, and a water-tight control system, you'll be surprised at just how thrilling a game of digital ping pong can be.
Touchgrind Skate 2 makes you feel like touchscreen phones were invented so that you could use your fingers in place of your feet to flick your way to skateboard trick nirvana.
Like the Stickman Golf series? Golf Blitz takes those proven arcade-golf mechanics and funnels them into an online multiplayer putt-off. It's really rather brilliant.
Here's another skateboarding game that asks you to stand your fingers on a virtual board. Indeed, True Skate also gets you to push yourself along with your finger.
Super Soccer Champs 2019 harks back to the time of the home computer footy game greats like Sensible Soccer and Kick Off. Which basically means it's a deceptively deep and nuanced arcade kick-about.
One of the loosest takes on the beautiful game we've seen, Kind of Soccer 2018 sees you playing tiki-taka football in a bid to take out the fleeing ref with a power-shot.
This is another Colin Lane joint, which means that Touchdowners only superficially resembles its host sport. Who cares, though, when getting the ball into the end zone is this much fun?
Bike Unchained 2 plays a bit like a 3D version of Tiny Wings, but with downhill mountain biking taking the place of cutesy birds and psychedelic hills. It's pretty darned fun, too.
Sega has ruled the mobile tennis roost for years with Virtua Tennis Challenge. You can thank its peerless engine, which expertly approximates the sport's various components whilst remaining highly accessible.
Another hilarious wrestling game from Colin Lane, the creator of Wrassling. It's got the same pumped-up 2D physics-based action, but this time with a proper career mode to enjoy.
Pixel Cup Soccer sees FIFA's attempt at realism and laughs a 16-bit laugh. It's a return to the arcadey joy that used to run through footy games before they went all serious.
If True Skate and Touchgrind Skate 2 are too much like hard work for you, check out Skateboard Party 3. It'll make you look like a boarding ninja with minimal effort.
Golf Peaks is isn't really a golf game in the traditional sense. Rather, it's an isometric card-based puzzler where you must play the hand necessary to convey the ball to the hole. What matters is it's brilliant fun.
Want to illustrate the rapidly closing gap between mobile and console games? Show your basketball-loving friend NBA 2K19. Even if you don't like basketball, it's a deeply impressive sports game.
A deeply silly made-up sports game that feels like a mash-up of Nitrome and Colin Lane. You're essentially playing a medieval take on 1v1 football, but with the court jester taking the role of the ball. And flaming goals. And swords.
Who would have thought there was space for two epic table tennis games on mobile? Power Ping Pong is less majestic than Table Tennis Touch, but it's more flamboyant.
You would have thought that playing any sport by rolling dice would make for the most boring game ever. Bottom of the 9th is nothing of the sort, though, thanks to a streamlined ruleset and charming presentation.
PGA Golf Tour Shootout sits firmly between arcade golf and golf simulation, and stirs in fancy 3D graphics and online play. It's the kind of game golf fanatics and total noobs alike will love.
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