Handheld launches are funny things. On the one hand, sports and racing titles are generally the easiest games to produce for a console launch. On the other hand, handheld game systems haven't historically been known for their sports libraries.

For one thing, handhelds have generally lagged behind their console brethren in terms of available processing power, and the sports crowd generally seems to be of the "more power is better" mindset when it comes to their games, and that power hasn't, until recently, been available.

The PlayStation Portable, then, is an anomaly in at least two ways: for one, while it isn't the first handheld to approximate the graphics technology available from the home market - the Atari Lynx holds that distinction, sort of - it is certainly the first to do so with the sort of serious software support the PSP can almost certainly expect.

Secondly, the PSP is one of the few handhelds to boast a serious sports lineup at, or near, the launch. Between Gretzky NHL, NBA, NFL Street 2: Unleashed and the upcoming ATV Offroad Fury: Blazing Trails, MLB, and MVP Baseball, that's fully 25% of the launch library devoted to sports games of one kind or another. If you factor in the racing titles available, you can add another three or four titles to the mix.

With such a large portion of the PSP launch library devoted to sports games, it makes a certain kind of sense that one such game would be a handheld version of the world's most popular sport. Enter World Tour Soccer. FIFA it ain't, but that doesn't stop it from being a serviceable substitute.

Even so, it ends up feeling a bit like a barebones substitute, at that. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the features we've seen in console sports games during the last half-dozen years or so, but I've come to expect certain things from my sports games. World Tour Soccer delivers on some of these expectations, and yet lacks dreadfully for some of the others.

For example, the key to a good sports simulation - and to any game, really - is gameplay. Here, thankfully, WTS comes through. The controls are a little looser than I'm used to, but I suppose that's because of the difference between the PS2 analog stick, and the PSP analog stick.

Shooting the ball is something of an adventure, though, since the kick meter quickly fills up, frequently sending the ball flying over the bar. This had a tendency to happen even from further out than I would have shot the ball on the console version, which leads me to wonder if the shot power isn't a victim of the difference in scale between console and handheld.

The second thing we look for is a visual representation that's easy on the eyes. We aren't in the early 1980's anymore, after all. Here, too, World Tour Soccer holds its own. No, it doesn't match the graphical prowess of WipEout Pure, but it doesn't need to; twenty men chasing a checkered ball around a green pitch, how much horsepower do you really need? It bears a strong resemblance to the PS2 version of the game, and that's sufficient.

World Tour Soccer runs into trouble in two areas: its sound, and its feature set. I have a strong - and unfortunate - suspicion that the former may become a refrain in the weeks to come, but it nevertheless bears mentioning.

The PSP is capable of incredible sound; the music in Lumines and Untold Legends bears this out. The PSP is capable of games with speech, as evidenced by Spiderman 2. It's unrealistic to expect running commentary, given the size of the UMD discs and the battery issues caused by constant access of the UMD drive, but it would be nice to hear something beyond just the name of the player touching or shooting the ball. The menu music, for example, seems superfluous in that context. I like the crowd chants and all, but I can't help but feel like there should be more here.

My other issue with WTS is its limited number of play modes. It supports ad hoc WiFi play, which is great, but there's no extended play of any kind, either season or career. You have the ability to play a handful of cups, and there's an interesting challenge mode. Strong performance in the latter wins you medals, and can unlock stadia, but it's still not going to hold your attention as long as, say, attempting to win the double in a season mode would.

I'm not inclined to mark off too heavily for that absence, since this is a launch title, but it's something I will watch with great interest for future versions. I just mention it because eventually, and that eventuality will come sooner, rather than later, you're going to see everything World Tour Soccer has to offer. If you must have a soccer fix, WTS isn't a bad way to go.

Just realize that you aren't getting as much in the portable version as you would with the PS2 version. And that is, perhaps, another remarkable aspect of the PSP: when was the last time you felt like you needed to compare a handheld version of a game to its console sibling?