With plenty of progression options, some fantastic graphics and a host of modes, you'd be forgiven for thinking Dracula: Undead Awakening was an essential Minis release. As it happens it comes agonisingly close.

Offering three maps and a host of modes to play on them - Wave, Survival, Super Survival and Rush - Dracula: Undead Awakening is essentially SmashTV in a confined environment. You'll run around the impressively rendered Euro-goth stages, shooting a host of ghouls, werewolves and monsters - collecting power-ups and "perks" as you play. The longer you survive, the more powerful you get, with enemies dropping various upgrades (or money in Wave mode) and turning you into a one-man army.

Sure it's repetitive, and no it's not going to win any innovation awards, but with the objective of simply staving off the hordes of undead, it's appealing in short-bursts.

The problem, then, comes with the PSP's hardware limitations. No second analogue stick means you have to aim with the face buttons, making the gunplay less fluid than it should be.

Conclusion

All said though, Dracula: Undead Awakening will fill in a few empty chunks of your time. And there are certainly worse ways of doing that.