The best free sports games for Android
Our favorite free Android golf, football, tennis and extreme sports games.
Rocket League Sideswipe
Rocket League Sideswipe asks what would happen if you combined soccer, cars and rocket boosters – and then played everything out in fast-forward. The result: a hectic, ridiculously fun game that bridges sport, breezy arcade fare and outright silliness.
Matches are side-on, with teams of one or two aiming to score the most points. The base game has you attempting to bump an outsized ball into a massive goal. Seasons add alternative modes, which have included a bizarre take on basketball and an absurdist vehicular volleyball.
It is, perhaps, not the most immediate of games. The controls and physics can be tricky to master – although there are training modes. When it does click, though, Rocket League Sideswipe is a joy.
Super Arcade Football
Super Arcade Football is, as its title might suggest, an arcade-oriented football (soccer) game. It harks back to overhead titles that were once the mainstay of the genre on 16-bit computers like the Commodore Amiga – most notably Sensible Soccer. This means that realism is booted aside in favor of frenetic pinball-like pace and absurd curling shots.
It’s a boatload of fun. The sheer speed of gameplay takes a little getting used to, but pitch-perfect controls soon lead to you belting the ball around and making superb moves that’d make a World Cup winner gasp.
But there’s more to this game than a mere kickabout. It’s packed full of modes and modifiers, making it ideal whether you want a quick game of vanilla soccer between two national teams, or fancy a game on an ice rink that’s being pelted by meteorites.
Rowdy City Wrestling
Rowdy City Wrestling is Colin Lane and Brad Erkkila’s third crack at wrestling on mobile, after the retro weirdness of Wrassling and the manic Rowdy Wrestling. This follow-up is a little more conventional - although only to a point.
Career mode is the meat of the game - an ongoing mission to win the world championship. The snag: you start from scratch with a weedy fighter. That means you kick things off lugging chairs about for extra cash and partaking in dodgy dockside brawls. Hulk Hogan would be very disappointed in you.
The actual fighting is immediate but with enough nuance to develop tactics. And although the madcap bouncy physics and whirling arms found in other Lane/Erkkila wrestling games are absent, this one wins the title when it comes to depth, fun and longevity.
Pocket Run Pool
Pocket Run Pool rethinks pool games for mobile. It gets away from having you sink balls in standard fashion, or play against a computer AI you know is hobbled to go easy on you, or that plays like a pool god. Instead, you get something akin to a high-score chaser, where it’s just as important where you sink a ball as when.
This all works by assigning scores to each pocket, which change positions after each shot. Sink the 12 ball in the bottom-left pocket, and you may get anything from 12 to 120 points, depending on the multiplier lurking there at the time. Scratch and you lose a life; mess up three times and it’s game over.
This risk versus reward approach really freshens up the game. Coupled with phone-friendly controls and multiple modes, this free Android game is well worth a shot.
Grow in the Hole
Grow in the Hole is reminiscent of Android favorite Desert Golfing. You get the same side-on viewpoint of minimalist courses, and drag an arrow to determine each shot’s strength and direction. The main difference is that the ball’s size increases whenever you don’t get it in the hole.
With bouncy physics and a ludicrous premise, the game becomes quite comical when you’re smacking a gigantic ball about – and oddly intense when you realize one more shot and it will be too big to fit in the hole.
Matches play out as nine- or 18-hole sessions, or you can tackle an endless mode of procedurally generated courses. Whichever you choose, this one’s an amusing diversion, and a good example of how compelling gameplay can more than make up for rough visuals.
Golf Blitz
Golf Blitz builds on the frenetic speed run multiplayer races from Super Stickman Golf. You battle to get to the hole first, fending off three other players by all means necessary – whether that’s making use of power-ups to speed your ball along, or unsportingly using a grenade to blast their balls off of the screen.
As in Super Stickman Golf, the courses here bear no relation to real-world equivalents. There’s no Cypress Point or Pebble Beach – instead, you get caverns carved into the ground, floating islands, walls covered in sticky goo, and clockwork wooden contraptions.
Despite some issues with shot accuracy (a bit random) and player match-ups (occasionally unfair), Golf Blitz largely avoids the rough. It’s a fast, breezy title, and regular unlocks (courses; abilities; hats) should keep you coming back for more.
PGA Tour Golf Shootout
PGA Tour Golf Shootout is an interesting golf game, sitting halfway between simulation and the many ‘flick’ golfing games that litter Google Play. The viewpoint echoes the latter, with you directly interacting with a ball rather than an on-screen avatar getting all swipey with a club. But the level of control the game affords is a novel, intuitive and fun mash-up of arcade and precision.
Although there are plenty of challenges to delve into, the meat of the game is ultimately its multiplayer offering, which is quickly and easily unlocked. You then find yourself in tense, short matches against real people, and can over time gradually improve your kit and skills. Naturally, there’s a whiff of freemium shenanigans, but this one’s closer to a hole-in-one than a bogey in the fun stakes.
Touchgrind BMX 2
Touchgrind BMX 2 is a BMX trials sports game. In other words, it’s not enough to just be fast – you also have to be a massive show-off, catapulting your bike into the air, before performing all manner of stunts. However, unlike the majority of trials games on mobile, Touchgrind eschews a side-on view for something far more tactile and ambitious.
Your bike is seen from above and behind, and you’re invited to park two of your fingers on it – one on the handlebar and one on the seat. Subtle movement allows you to steer, while flicks let you perform the aforementioned stunts.
Success and high scores rely on mastery of stunt combos and committing courses to memory, and then stringing together bike-based choreography that’d make your hair curl if you were to try it in the real world. Great stuff.
Rowdy Wrestling
Rowdy Wrestling manages what some people might consider impossible: taking a sport that’s already full of spectacle and the ridiculous, and making it even more so in every conceivable way.
Bouts involve absurdly bouncy physics and fighters whose arms whirl about their person. Buttons enable you to move left and right, jump, and attack, but this isn’t a game about precision and nuance. Instead, it’s a madcap free-for-all, where you feel like you’re, in terms of control, clinging on by your fingertips.
Fortunately, it’s a blast. Although it can irk when you lose because your wrestler’s seemingly doing his own thing, it’s hard to stay mad at a fighting game that’s this stupid. And it moves beyond single-bout gimmickry, too, with tag-team and career modes.
Virtua Tennis Challenge
Virtua Tennis Challenge is based on the classic tennis game that years ago once graced the Dreamcast. Although it politely doffed a sun visor in the direction of realism, the game was very much a frantic, exciting arcade outing – and that’s just as true on mobile, as you scoot about the court, trying to better your opponent with a dizzying array of well-placed lobs and electrifying super shots.
Given its console origins, the game controls as well as can be expected. And that means badly if you opt for the gestural controls, which make your tennis star look like they’ve had a few gins too many before appearing on the court. But go for the on-screen D-pad and buttons, and Sega’s tennis game is a fine example of having your own little Wimbledon nestled on your smartphone.
Mad Skills BMX 2
Mad Skills BMX 2 is a one-on-one racing game. You pit your skills against various opponents, racing them on tracks packed full of ramps and bumpy sections designed to make you giddy as you zoom along.
And this is very much a fast game. When deep into a race, the scenery blazes by in a blur as you battle to beat your opponent and take the checkered flag. It’s a true arcade experience, with two-button/one-thumb controls making racing all about track mastery and careful timing.
Somehow, it often feels like a breakneck upside down Tiny Wings. And although it does eventually spray pay-to-win freemium in your face, for a good few hours this one’s wheelie good.
