The summer is finally here, and for some people it’s the perfect time to pull out the PSP from under a weight of PS3 games and start getting to know it again. However, after looking forward to a summer of portable gaming, have you looked through your PSP collection and found a high quota of games with grey depressant narratives about grey depressant antagonists trying to save some grey depressant world?

What you need then is a game to really get you into the swing of things, a chipper PSP game drenched in PSone-isms: blue skies, chubby cartoon characters and lush looking greenery. Well, thankfully our prayers have been answered because Everybody’s Golf 2 is a portable gem that’s a sublime little caddy to the PlayStation 3’s fantastic Everybody’s Golf: World Tour and also a great game to really get you in the mood for some sunshine.

For newcomers to the series, Everybody’s Golf is a long-running and very popular golf series from Japan that – using colourful cartoon golfers instead of boring realistic looking ones (although the series has dabbled in the look once before) – takes a more irreverent stance to its golfing. Its courses are also always fantastical... and short, which is a real plus (especially if you’re playing it on the go), because most of its nine-hole rounds can easily be finished in around ten minutes. But to counteract this the developer has ensured that Everybody’s Golf 2 is packed full of features, courses and game modes. Here we’re getting a brilliantly addictive mini-game, tons to unlock and even the odd surprise present awaiting us on the fairway.

So what about the actual golf? Well, the controls have been switched from the World Tour’s swing-based strike system in favour of the more conventional triple-tap power meter. You select your power by striking the X button to allow your power bar to fill up, hit the X again at the peak of your required power, and then strike the button again when the marker drops into the sweet zone. Although this mechanic has been around for donkey’s years, it’s still wonderfully satisfying when you hit the ball sweetly and see it leave a vapour trail of flames in its wake. For those new to the game, there’s also an Easy Shot mode whereby the computer automatically strikes the ball for you, leaving you to just concentrate on the direction and power of the shot.

With only two golfers and two courses made available to you at the start of the game, playing through Challenge mode – which is split into various item cards, split into Tournament or Match Play events – allows you to unlock twelve courses, new characters, clubs, balls and special techniques to improve your driving, approach to the green and putting. There’s also a Jonathan Ross-esque wardrobe available to unlock, which is loaded with all manner of weird clothing and accessories. Within a few hours of hitting the fairway we were the proud owners of a golfer in his underpants sporting a samurai hairdo and chugging around in a vintage sports car. It was quite brilliant. The courses are wonderfully themed and the difficulty perfectly maddening, while the wireless/internet multiplayer and 20 quid asking price are simply the icing on the cake.

Stuart Hunt