Is there anything more therapeutic than golf games? Throughout the life of the PlayStation brand they have been a staple of relaxed gaming, inspiring self-improvement in countless gamers with their unwavering simplicity. Everybody’s Golf has always been among the best of them too, and the PSP version doesn’t disappoint, retaining all the charm and untroubled grace of its big brother. EA’s gamebreaking Tiger Woods licence is on the way, but the uncorrupted beauty of Sony’s title is the first choice for golf purists everywhere.

If you’re looking for a game to show off how crisp the PSP’s screen can look, then Everybody’s Golf would be a good choice. The mountains and forests that surround each course are magnificent, while the number of varied angles you can view each hole from, enabling full camera rotation from any fixed position, really add a sense of a 3D world existing around your cutesy golfer. Playing each shot is aided by an elevation meter that shows the position of the pin in relation each club, and it’s testament to the power of the PSP that it’s drawn in real time as you alter your shot. Actually hitting the ball is a start-stop-stop power meter affair, which seems awkward with the PSP in your hands for a couple of holes, but then suddenly all makes perfect sense.

And this is the aspect of Everybody’s Golf that makes it most suited to a handheld: unlike many sports games, you can pick it up in a matter of minutes and within half an hour you’re playing like a pro. It then becomes a personal quest to get better and earn all of the 250 unlockable items, increasing your performance stats with each successful round. It’s also a deeply satisfying multiplayer game for up to eight local swingers (you are forced to play WLAN, you cannot share one PSP), though the very nature of the sports means you spend a fair amount of time waiting for opponents to take their shot. And though it’s not as bite-sized as some games (a round takes about 25 minutes), Everybody’s Golf is perfectly suited to the handheld format and is a fantastic launch title for the PSP