Top 10 Android games that will play better on Xperia Play

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is coming. You may have read some reports from the console gaming press decrying its abilities as an out and out console, stuck as it is between the two stools of an Android Xperia phone and a PSP.

As avid pocket gamers, we prefer to put a rather more positive (and less snobby) spin on things.

You know all those brilliant Android games you love to play? The ones that are even eating into your console time? Well, they'll be even better on the Xperia Play, thanks to those wonderful PlayStation controls.

Here are some of the games currently selling on the Android Market that we're looking forward to playing again with the addition of physical controls (provided the developers make the appropriate adjustments). Let us know what you're looking forward to replaying once your shiny Xperia Play arrives.

We rather liked Polarbit's technically stunning racer at review, but there's no denying it would be significantly enhanced with physical controls. It's a fairly traditional top-down arcade racer, after all, and top-down arcade racers are no happier than when they're tied to decent set of digital controls.

Plus, the Xperia version will have extra tracks. Want.

It's been confirmed that Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave will debut on Xperia Play, but the truth is we'd be happy with the ambitious original paired with a decent set of physical controls.

The game's always been excellent from a technical standpoint (if played on a decent handset), but its mix of action-RPG and tower defence simply doesn't fit on a touchscreen. On Xperia Play, Dungeon Defenders should finally reach its full potential.

Think that the first-person shooter is the genre that will benefit most from physical controls? How about racers? Maybe, but my own vote goes to the humble footy sim.

Let's face it: even the best examples are significantly compromised on touch-only platforms. Pro Evo 2011 is a fine attempt to bring the beautiful game to mobile, but the addition of physical controls will enable you to knock it around like Barce

It's obvious that first-person shooters will benefit considerably from the Xperia Play's unique control setup, so we thought we'd go with the current Android FPS champ to represent the lot. With the Xperia Play's twin-analogue-aping touchpad, the screen should remain free to show off the action.

Of equal importance, the shoulder buttons should remove the fiddly requirement to tap the screen to shoot, making pin-point gunplay a relative doddle.

Team 17 has done well adapting Worms for touchscreen play, but there's no escaping the game's digital roots. Okay, it might have been designed with mouse control in mind, but for most of its life Worms has been considered a console series.

Being able to manipulate the camera view directly and switching to physical controls to maneouvre your team of invertebrates could prove an inspired combination.

The Zenonia series has always owed a huge debt to 16-bit action RPGs like the Zelda series. Those games were designed around console control pads, so Gamevil's series will logically play even better than they already do once they hit Xperia Play.

It should remove a great deal of clutter from those rather busy screens, too.

Don't get us wrong – MiniSquadron works rather well on touchscreen. Supermono has created a looping, sweeping feel, and the wonderful inertia of the game's flight model plays to this control system's strengths.

Still, it's a shame that these twin-stick controls obscure the action at all, especially on sub-four-inch screens. Xperia Play's twin-touchpads will make it the ultimate way to experience MiniSquadron.

Even more so than MiniSquadron, Meteor Blitz and its twin-stick shooter kind will take to the Xperia Play like a duck to water. Having both thumbs working simultaneously on a touchscreen while the fast-paced arcade shooter action blazes in the background is not ideal.

Bring on those twin-touchpads.

Say what you like about accelerometer controls, there are only two ways to play racing games if you're a hardcore gamer – with an expensive, bulky steering wheel peripheral or with a control pad.

As the former is impractical, we'll look forward to the Xperia Play improving Gameloft's 3D racer series with the introduction of the latter. No more auto-acceleration – hurrah!

Naturalmotion's brutal mix of cutting edge 3D visuals, full-contact sport and casual get-as-far-as-you-can gameplay works well on touchscreen. It'll be much better on the Xperia Play's pad.

Why? It's simple – any game that has to map controls to a virtual equivalent will be immeasurably improved, and Backbreaker Football's balletic, timing-based gameplay will benefit more than most.