Top 10 PlayStation franchises that should be ported to the PlayStation phone

The PlayStation phone is looking more and more like a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if.’

Game developers have told us that it’s happening. Heck, even Sony has dropped a few major hints that a Sony-Android collaboration is in the works.

Which has got us thinking: what would we want to play on it?

The obvious answer is 'everything,' but for the benefit of this feature we thought we’d be a little more precise. Which of the franchises currently gracing Sony consoles would be enhanced – or at least made more interesting – by the likely features of an Android-powered PlayStation phone?

The main additions over the PSP would be – we expect - touchscreen and accelerometer controls as well as the obvious 3G connectivity and a healthy boost in polygon-shifting power.

As such, we haven’t necessarily gone for the triple-A franchises like God of War or critical darlings like Ico, but for titles that would make best use of this new technology.

What would you like to see making the journey to the PlayStation phone?

It’s an obvious one, really. After all, the poster boy (blob?) for iPhone’s early push towards gaming credibility – Rolando – owed a huge debt to Sony’s LocoRoco.

The aim is to guide a group of grinning blobs across a bunch of undulating levels. Everything looks like it’s been made out of jelly, squishing and swaying joyfully.

It’s the control method that would make it so well suited to a Sony phone. I was never entirely comfortable with the shoulder-button controls of the PSP original (or its sequel), and a tilt ‘n’ touch setup would be far better suited to this type of game. Just ask HandCircus.

Mark added Pixeljunk Monsters to his Top 10 PlayStation Network games that should be ported to the iPhone feature. But let’s face it: it’s not going to happen.

A PlayStation phone version, on the other hand, is quite possible. Q-Games’s excellent tower defence game has already made its way to PSP, and we can see it being even better with touchscreen controls.

There’s a reason tower defence has been so successful on iPhone: the genre’s tightly focused brand of strategy marries beautifully with the touchy feely input method. All of the Pixeljunk games are excellent, but Monsters would be the best-suited to a PlayStation phone.

Oh, how very original. Haven’t we had enough conversions of Rockstar’s portable crime epic? Yes, we have, including a PSP version. Why would we want another version on another Sony device?

Because it could be the ultimate version of the game, that’s why. While the PSP version arguably stands as the best in many respects – superior to the DS original due to its technical superiority, better than the iPhone version due to its physical controls – it failed to reproduce the tactile joy of the touch-enabled mini-games and map screen.

A PlayStation phone would roll up all the best bits from the various versions other than the DS’s second screen, but we’re banking on the PS phone’s screen being big and sharp enough to make that a moot point.

Sony’s never really produced its own Mario Kart clone. The PlayStation-exclusive ModNation Racers is as close as it gets.

The game combines traditional Mario Kart-style racing with an intuitive track-building facility, which stirs a little of Sony’s "Play, Create, Share" philosophy into the mix in the same way as Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet.

Again, there’s already a PSP version on the market (developed by Sony itself), but we can imagine the PS phone’s touchscreen being put to good use on the track construction front.

For example, you could fine-tune your creations by dragging and dropping level furniture into play, narrowing or widening sections through pinch control.

We’ll admit this is pretty unlikely, but a portable version of Quantic Dream’s cinematic thriller is an enticing thought nonetheless.

The PS3 exclusive places its dark story of a serial killer to the fore, with any gameplay relegated to QTE-style command prompts. It’s this last element that makes me think it could have a place on the PlayStation phone - touch and tilt controls could really add a layer of immersion to the game.

One of the biggest issues would be on the technical side – the PS3 version is one of the best showcases around for Sony’s powerful console. Creator David Cage likely wouldn’t want his vision diluted. Perhaps a separate side story, then?

The classic strategy series Lemmings has a rather convoluted history, to the extent that nobody seemed to know who owned it until recently. It took one plucky iPhone developer to determine that Sony holds all the cards.

Which leads us to the mouth-watering prospect of a PlayStation phone version. The game – in which you put a crew of suicidal rodents to work facilitating their own escape – would be perfectly suited to touchscreen control.

As with many other games on this list, there’s already a PSP version (courtesy of Worms developer Team 17), but a touch-enabled Lemmings would be the next best thing to the original’s mouse-driven input method.

Yes, that Lair. The early PS3 dragon-flight sim that promised to be a showcase for its graphical capabilities, as well as its accelerometer controls, but turned out to be not very good at all.

No, I haven’t gone mad. Factor 5 had a very good pedigree prior to its PS3 debut, having created the largely excellent Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series of space shooters.

It’s possible to imagine a PlayStation phone version of Lair resembling a more action-oriented Glyder, featuring similarly refined tilt controls for flight and utilising the unit’s likely physical controls for the fiery combat.

Wouldn’t that be worth of a second chance?

The very idea might be sacrilegious to fans of the hardcore racing franchise, but a portable version with decent accelerometer-powered steering could be very enticing indeed.

After all, one thing Gran Turismo on PSP lacked was decent steering, thanks to the handheld’s woeful analogue nub. Actually, that’s not true – it also lacked any kind of structured Career mode, which another portable version could make up for.

It might be questionable whether it’s part of Sony’s vision for the device to have such sprawling, content-heavy experiences on it. Until we have confirmation either way, though, we’re dreaming of a portable GT with finely tuned tilt steering.

The second Valkyria Chronicles was just recently released on PSP after a strong PS3 debut, so a PlayStation phone version wouldn’t be out of the question. With its superb mixture of strategic planning and third-person action, it could even be the perfect home for the series.

Both games see you alternating between an overview of the battlefield and zooming in to manoeuvre your troops and engage the enemy. On the PS phone, the former section could be handled on the touchscreen - scanning, zooming and selecting units with your finger - and the latter on the physical controls as usual.

As a franchise it’s one of the freshest action-strategy experiences since the original Advance Wars, so this ranks highly on our PS phone wishlist.

Sony’s "Play, Create, Share" philosophy is most apparent in LittleBigPlanet, a gorgeous platformer that allows you to create your own weird and wonderful levels and share them online with others.

The Playstation phone would make two of those elements – Create and Share – far easier than on the already excellent PSP version.

As with ModNation Racers, the touchscreen would be a wonderful tool in level creation, allowing you to select, position and resize objects with far more fluency than that allowed by traditional controls.

The always-connected nature of the phone would feed into the community aspect of the game beautifully – far more so than the wi-fi-limited PSP (although we can imagine a fair few price plans feeling the strain of 3G level uploads).