Just like The Chronicles of Riddick, this movie tie-in has been created from the ground up for just one console – PSP here to Riddick’s Xbox. This lets the developers – Rebellion, in this case – utilise the strengths of the format in question, rather than hastily convert the lead version to as many consoles as possible.

In Riddick it was the graphics that impressed the most. Here, it’s the control system which has been tailored to the PSP’s layout and lack of second analogue stick. It’s not an innovative system – it’s almost identical to that found in Resident Evil 4 – but it’s very easy to get to grips with, which is more than can be said for most PlayStation 2 to PSP conversions.

Playing as Ricardo Tubbs or Sonny Crockett, the plot is set before the events of the film, and involves ridding present day South Beach of a drug lord. Although viewed from the third person and featuring hordes of wannabe urban gangsters to blast, this is no mindless run and gunner. Purely because it’s impossible to run and shoot at the same time. Instead the focus is on finding cover behind skips, statues, walls and such then shooting back – Time Crisis-style – when enemies are reloading their weapons. Some objects take damage when shot at, so it’s essential to keep moving forward; it’s also possible to vault over obstacles to get closer to your targets.

Which leads us nicely onto the targeting system. All the weapons have laser sights, but even so it can be quite tricky to line up shots when being hit yourself, or when there’s a lot of smoke in the area. Auto-aiming would have done the game wonders, but perhaps made it a bit monotonous. There’s a two weapon limit, which adds a nice balance to the gun play, and upgrades can be unlocked by playing a hacking mini-game. A psychedelic combination of Asteroids and the upcoming Every Extra Extended, this proves to be an ample timewaster in itself.

Novelty speed boat missions aside, the main bulk of the game gets over familiar a bit too quickly. Duck and cover. Find keys. Look for drug stashes. Rinse and repeat. The less than adventurous level design and repetitive speech samples don’t help either.

Thankfully there’s plenty to do between missions. Recovered drugs can be sold and exchanged with dealers, information – such as passwords to disable CCTV cameras – can be gained from cohorts to make the next mission easier, and there’s a tailors where you can buy body armour and new suits to increase your reputation rating.

Over in the land of crispy fried schoolgirl socks and Hello Moggy, this 2D shooter from Psikyo was bundled together with the half-decent Dragon Blaze. This isn’t yet another one of our ‘Europe gets screwed again’ rants though – it turns out we’ve done alright this time round, with various import emporiums charging over £30 for the compilation as opposed to the tenner apiece they retail for over here.

By “alright” we mean only in respect of price, however, as Sol Divide is a real black banana of a game. The problem – if you’ll excuse the bluntness – is that it’s shit. It’s not even a proper shooter, as there are no attack patterns to learn; enemies just appear on the screen seemingly at random, then hover around aimlessly until you’ve killed them. Notice that we used the word ‘kill’ instead of ’shoot’ there? That’s because it’s far less hassle to destroy enemies using your melee sword or spear attacks than it is to use projectiles. The levels are really short too – although mercifully so in this case.

The sprites and backdrop may be rendered, but it somehow manages to look poorer than Donkey Kong Country on the SNES – the first game to feature the now rarely used graphical trickery. Some of the large bosses – which include hydras and a minotaur – impress in terms of size, but as soon as they start jerking around in their three-frame animated glory, you’ll resume shaking your head in disbelief at the shoddiness of it all.

The only thing of note is that there are a fair few magic attacks to unlock, including thunder, wind and the ability to summon other creatures. Well, that and the fact that each of the three characters have their own story and opening levels, although this is a trait of recent Psikyo shooters and shouldn’t be a bolt from the blue if you’ve played their previous efforts.

“Where the hell is Strider?” we wondered when reviewing Capcom Classics Collection on PlayStation 2 late last year. The answer, it would seem, was that it was being saved for this 20-strong portable compilation. Problem solved, then. But now we have another predicament: Street Fighter II and Ghouls ‘n Ghosts – which took pride of place in the aforementioned collection – have been omitted and held back for the forthcoming handheld Capcom Classics Reloaded. So we’ve gained one good game but lost two in the process. That ain’t right.

Thankfully we’ve still got the renowned Final Fight and Forgotten Worlds. The latter works really well on PSP. So much so, that we revisited numerous times, trying to save enough Zenny (read: money) to buy the more ridiculously powerful weapons on offer. A few other games, like Section Z and Bionic Commando, have made the jump too while the menus – based on a scribble filled notebook – echo that of the ‘home version’.

There’s also a fair amount of extras which have to be unlocked by meeting certain criteria in certain games, plus history and random facts can be viewed. The best thing that developers Digital Extremes have included though – two player Wi-Fi action notwithstanding – is the ability to play a handful of games with the PSP on its side. This works pleasingly well for horizontal 2D shooters 1941 and Varth not to mention Block Block – an addictive clone of Breakout that proves to be one of the few hidden gems on offer.

The same can’t be said for Quiz and Dragons, a bizarre hybrid of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Lord of the Rings, in which a goblin once asked us if we know what school Richie Cunningham attended in Happy Days. Despite not being a broken game in any form, it’s nearly unplayable as most of the questions are about ’80s American sports trivia. And Happy Days.

Also of note, but on the more positive side, is Three Wonders – a compilation within a compilation. This package dates back to 1991 and includes Midnight Wanders – a Metal Slug-style run and gunner with a similar graphic style to Capcom’s 16-bit Disney games – a twee vertical 2D shooter going by the name of Chariot and Don’t Pull – a puzzle game staring the Duracell bunny. Well we think it’s him, anyway.

In place of the legendary Street Fighter II we’ve been dished up the original Street Fighter. It was crap then and it’s still crap now. And that’s all we have to say about it, really. Magic Sword really tested our patience too, being a mindless side-scrolling iteration of Gauntlet with 50 levels, only with the ability to rescue AI controlled team-mates. Mega Twins, Strider and Captain Comando (Cap-Com – see?) hold up well but it’s doubtful that you’ll want to finish them more than once. As for the largely anonymous Avengers, Last Duel, Legendry Wings, Section Z, Side Arms and The Speed Rumbler, you probably won’t even want to finish their first levels.

Even with its fair share of misses, if you’re after some safe and legal retro action on your PSP then this is your best bet, but it goes without saying that Capcom were a bit stupid to announce a tastier looking sequel before this collection even made it onto the shelves.

Japanese Tekken fans haven’t been looking forward to this. Well, we’re sure that some of them have, but certainly not as many as you would expect. It’s all down to the host format – they believe that Tekken should either be played in an arcade with a sturdy joystick and a large screen perfect for gathering a crowd around, or at home, again on a large screen and with a comfy joypad. We can see their point, even if we don’t recall a similar fuss being made when Tekken Advance was released for Game Boy Advance.

They’re right though – the controls are an issue. The d-pad is adequate and the shoulder buttons aren’t used by default, leaving the problem with the actual shape of the PSP – without a prong to grasp it’s not long until your hand starts smarting under the strain of the fast reflexes required. Placing the PSP on a flat surface improves things, but pulling off a complex combo is more than a little awkward.

At least the PSP’s other well-documented downfall – loading time – doesn’t give cause for concern. There’s a mere five to ten second wait between bouts, which is quite an achievement considering how slick it looks. There are a few pixellated textures – notably on tattoos and clothing – but it’s still easily the best looking PSP game since Burnout Legends. Further, the 3D backdrops are numerous – after two hours of play we were still coming across environments that we hadn’t seen before.

But the real beauty, as with any Tekken game, is the sheer variety of characters. You’ve got cop Law with his play-dead moves, boxer Steve who ducks and weaves instead of kicking, Hwoarang and his crazy kicking combos, sword-wielding Yoshimitsu, break dancing Eddy, and a couple of wrestlers chucked in for good measure.

It’s not a new game by any means, rather an update of Tekken 5 – albeit one built from scratch for the PSP – with two new faces – Lili and Dragunov – and the return of Armour King. You can’t argue with the likes of Kuma/Panda, kangaroo Roger and a good twenty others available from the off either.

And we’re onto the modes. In arcade mode you can pick who you face next, which is a nice touch – especially because Law can be a tricky customer. Quick battle includes a team battle mode, while under practice you’ll find the options to take defensive training, tutorials and command training. If you’re into all things wi-fi there’s a spot of game sharing, and also lobbies and ghost downloading. There’s no online play, as the developers said that battles would be noticeably slower paced.

As a game to play on the move it works surprisingly well, with each character’s story taking around 15 minutes to work through. Upon competition of these you’re rewarded with a CGI clip – these range from the epitome of cool to nonsensically amusing – and after every fight gold is earned to unlock goodies. You can’t pick what you unlock though – after gaining a set amount the next reward becomes available. One of the first unlockables is the chance to fight in a hidden pirate treasure cove where every blow landed earns you cash, while later a bowling game – Tekken Bowl – can be played. It’s a pretty simple affair, but it complements the package nicely. Can we have Soul Calibur on PSP next please, Namco?

The presently Japan-only bit Generations series (to be known as the Digiluxe Series in North America) is the Game Boy Advance equivalent of the Nintendo DS’s Touch Generations, both offering easy to pick up games with intuitive controls. The difference with bit Generations is that they all have a minimalist retro-chic tone, coming on black cartridges and in neat little stylised boxes with silver inserts. Did somebody say “Gotta collect ‘em all”?

Development of these titles has been handed out to smaller Japanese companies such as Skip (Chibi-Robo) and Q Games (Star Fox Command), with each priced at around a tenner. The initial batch includes puzzlers Coloris, Digi Drive and Dial Hex; the Pong-like Boundish; gravity-based planet sucker Orbital; and Sound Voyager, a game that requires the use of your ears more than your fingers. Going under our proverbial microscope though is Dotstream, a simple – but not quite bare-boned – racing game that mixes mobile phone favourite Snake with Tron’s light-cycles.

After picking a line of any colour you fancy, it’s a case of racing against five other coloured lines in a host of GPs. Dotted around are speed boost pads, a small handful of power ups and something similar to Wipeout’s recharge zone, where your line comes to a standstill while the boost is charged. The twist is that when boosting it’s harder to weave in and out of the objects in front of you. Crash into something and you’re forced to retire with no points gained. The CPU lines, on the other hand, just pause for a few seconds when they crash.

It’s all accompanied by a Rez-style trance soundtrack that sounds decent blaring out of the DS’s twin-speakers. They’re not the most toe-tapping tunes ever to fill our ears, but they suit the vibe of the game pretty well.

Trying to manoeuvre through the tracks with skill and grace is all well and good, but to really get a move on you’ll need to not only drive in a straighter line than the others, but try to mimic their movements so that you travel adjacently. It’s the subtle tricks required to get ahead of the pack which make Dotstream the curio it is.

Naturally there are gripes to be had – the races start off quite slow, and for the most part all you’re doing is holding a button down until an object comes along – but they don’t distract from the fact that it’s a clever bit of coding. And there’s not a jot of Japanese text to stop you enjoying it to the full. Hooray!