The Best PlayStation Game Every Year 1994 - 2024

The PSP is a really interesting bit of kit in PlayStation’s history. Arguably, it didn’t leave quite the level of impact that Sony seemed to be looking for but it had several amazing games make their home on it.

The best of the bunch was Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker which, you guessed it, pushed the console to its absolute limits and made use of what set the hardware apart from its home console counterpart.

For example, the PSP couldn’t do the grand cinematics the series was typically known for so instead the game brilliantly told a lot of its story via gorgeous comic-book style cutscenes in the style of famed MGS art director Yoji Shinkawa. Peace Walker’s campaign acted as an interquel between MGS3 and all other games in the series, with a deep story worthy of the Metal Gear moniker divided into manageable, portable chunks.

Whilst these chunks only added up to a story that lasted a few hours, the real meat of the game was in its base-building mode. This set the stage for MGS V’s central mechanics and, lest we forget, allowed Hideo Kojima himself to sneak his way into Metal Gear canon. And even with these modes aside, there was also a wealth of multiplayer content.

Peace Walker might be the best example of a PlayStation IP transitioning onto the handheld, as everything looked and felt right and offered a worthwhile contribution to the franchise, rather than be optional or missable as many handheld spin-offs tended to be.