When Sony lined up storefront shelves with the PSP back in 2004, it was a generation-defining move. The PlayStation Portable became the portable gaming experience, and it was definitely not just blocky sprites and 16-bit visuals and soundtracks. A tiny media powerhouse right in our pockets, the PSP played movies, songs, and games that felt dangerously close to PS2 quality.

Plus, Sony gave it a lot of TLC with a massive gaming library that you'd be spoilt for choice when choosing from, and these masterpieces shone the brightest among the others.

Midnight Club: L.A. Remix

What I wouldn't give for Rockstar to bring this series back

I wish Rockstar would bring back their Midnight Club franchise, and I'm definitely not alone. This was a series gave us pure, uncut street racing, and still provided a vastly different experience from Need for Speed, which was in its heyday at the time. While Midnight Club: Los Angeles ran on the PS3 and the Xbox 360, it was L.A. Remix that came to the PSP. No, it was never a "lesser" version, because it still gave you a big open-world city to tear through, a plethora of cars to run around in, and that slick Rockstar polish that made you feel, every minute, that you were playing the best the console in your hands had to offer.

Races in L.A. Remix were fast, chaotic, and tense, all of which nailed the whole street racing vibe. Plus, it retained its neon-soaked vibe, which, even on a handheld screen, made the game feel massive. Remembering playing this game makes me truly wonder how the PSP handled full-scale open-world chaos at the time.

Ridge Racer

The go-to arcade racer on the PSP

This is the game I played the heck out of on my friend's PSP — the flag-bearer of the PlayStation Portable. I'll never forget that opening screen yell until the day I die. A fantastic launch title, this was a near-perfect arcade racer, condensed into the PSP. The drifting was simple as it should be in an arcade racer, the frame rate never faltered, and it wasn't the least bit bloated with unnecessary modes or distractions.

All you got with Ridge Racer on the PSP was pure bliss. I spent hours mastering each corner, nailing perfect drifts, and waking up late nights before school to somehow beat my own lap times.

God of War: Chains of Olympus

The power of the Spartan in the palm of my hand

When Chains of Olympus dropped on the PSP, everyone was shocked. After all, this wasn't a PS2, was it? Developers Ready at Dawn and Santa Monica Studio really did some magic to bring Krato's angry rampage to the handheld while never sacrificing the scale or the spectacle of the God of War series. The combat was just as brutal, and all my friends took turns gawking at the graphics while we mashed buttons to make the Blades of Chaos run havoc among enemy hordes.

A prequel to the original God of War, Chains of Olympus had fluid combos, satisfying finishers, and boss fights that threatened to jump out of the PSP's screen. Yes, it was much shorter, but for a portable, handheld experience? Zero complaints, lest I catch the ire of a scorned Spartan. Chains of Olympus on the PSP was — dare I say — pure cinema.

GTA Chinatown Wars

A visually unique, deep Grand Theft Auto tale

Oh boy, this was all the rage on the PSP, and very rightly so. The GTA experience that we used to host our friends for during our turn on the family computer was now playable in the park, and that was all we needed as young teens. It took the game all the way back to its top-down roots, but it still carried with a depth and style that only a modern game could have had at the time. Liberty City in Chinatown Wars absolutely shined and felt alive, with a drug-trading economy, hilarious side missions we never fully understood, and fantastic writing we quoted to each other during school lessons.

The game's cel-shaded art style stuck out to me back then, but today, I have nothing but appreciation for what Rockstar managed to achieve with Chinatown Wars on the PSP. Running a quick mission or making a few hundred dollars before recess ended was the challenge in school, and that memory alone puts GTA Chinatown Wars in the highest echelon of PSP games.

Monster Hunter Portable 3rd

The co-op element was the best thing ever

When Monster Hunter Portable 3rd came out, it became a lifestyle in and of itself. Friends huddled together in cafes and train stations, all hunting massive beasts cooperatively over 'ad-hoc' multiplayer. On the PSP? It was an absolute phenomenon, with its stellar weapon variety, monster variety, and sheer amount of content.

This was the kind of game you chipped away at for months, and it's a shame I never got to play it, never got to learn the monsters' patterns, never to perfect my armor sets, or pull of great hunts with my friends. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd demanded patience and skill, but the payoff? Immense.

God of War: Ghost of Sparta

It made Chains of Olympus look like a proof of concept

When it felt like nothing could ever top Chains of Olympus on the PSP, out came Ghost of Sparta, making the former look more like a proof of concept. This was one of the best-looking games on the PSP, period. Ghost of Sparta decided to be even more impressive than Chains of Olympus with bigger set pieces, better combat flow, and a far more emotional story.

Kratos' story with Deimos added such an unexpected weight to all the carnage, that I remained just as engrossed during the cutscenes as I did during the combat encounters. This game took us from Atlantis to the very depths of the Underworld, and by god, every frame looked incredible. This was the game you would show to your friends to prove just how insane a console the PSP truly was.

GTA Liberty City Stories

A fully 3D GTA story we carried to school

Before Chinatown Wars, the GTA franchise gave us Liberty City Stories in the PSP's first year, and by god, it was a technical marvel, with a full 3D open-world GTA experience right in our pockets. That addictive 'just one more mission' flow? That's what Liberty City Stories nailed.

Along with that fantastic mission structure, Liberty City Stories also gave us the classic story of Toni Cipriani. It was a narrative rife with crime, betrayal, quirky mobsters, and so many explosions. The fact that you could roam freely, cause mayhem, and hop into missions whenever? That's what made Liberty City Stories feel like you were right at home, playing GTA on your living room TV and hoping your parents don't walk in.

Gran Turismo PSP

This amazing handheld racing sim took its sweet time

Man, Polyphony Digital took their sweet time to release Gran Turismo on the PSP, releasing it five years after the handheld's release. Still, what we got after all that sweet waiting was a pure driving sim experience that felt shockingly close to the console entries. The car roster was mind-bogglingly massive, with over eight hundred vehicles on the handheld console! Even the tracks were faithfully recreated with all the precision you would expect.

Sure, there wasn't a traditional career mode, but who cared? Not me — I got all the racing I wanted from the console itself. This looked and felt completely like Gran Turismo, and for racing fans, this was the portable dream, and the kind of game you could get lost in for hours, perfecting lap times and collecting your dream cars one by one. Gran Turismo titles have always been some of the greatest titles on each PlayStation, and this one was no exception.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7

A brilliant prequel that became a fantastic RPG in its own right

A prequel to one of the greatest RPGs of all time, Crisis Core was a love letter to the game that defined the PlayStation 1. Zack Fair, our protagonist in Crisis Core, was little more than just a flashback in the original game, but 2007's Crisis Core turned him into one of the most memorable heroes in the franchise.

The combat was fast and engaging, and the story came chock full of emotional gut punches, and that ending? Well... it's the kind that sticks with you long after you put down the handheld. Even if you hadn't played FFVII at the time (like myself), Crisis Core became a heartbreaking, beautiful RPG in its own right.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

All the political intrigue and depth in our jacket pockets

There's a reason Peace Walker stands as one of the greatest games on the PSP — the Metal Gear series proved to the world that it could run with the big boys on a handheld just as well as it did on consoles, and Kojima made sure that the game never compromised on the franchise's trademark storytelling, rich stealth, and all of that bizarre yet political intrigue. Despite being on a handheld PlayStation, Peace Walker was never a watered-down MGS.

Heck, it even had co-op missions and base management, and the mission structure was just perfect enough to remain balanced for a portable play session while still carrying the same narrative weight as any of the other Metal Gear games. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was most definitely one of the greatest pull factors involved in getting a lot of us to buy the PSP, and rightly so.

The PSP gave us our entire gaming world in our pockets

Look, the Nintendo DS may have outsold the Sony PSP, but in terms of sheer variety and quality of games, and pushing handheld hardware to its very limits, the PlayStation Portable was downright untouchable.

These games defined an entire era of portable gaming, and even today, firing up an original PSP or even a PSP emulator on RetroArch, it feels like you're stepping back into the golden age where your entire gaming world really did fit into your jacket pocket. It's a shame that its successor, the Vita, never worked the way it should have.