Piko Interactive is a company which specialises in acquiring and re-releasing old games from publishers who have either gone bust or have sold off their back catalogues, and it has been involved in resurrecting a multitude of games across a wide range of formats. Piko Interactive Collection 1 is a collection for Evercade which pulls together a whopping 20 games, making it one of the best value carts for the system.

Now, it's fair to say that not all of the bundled games are worth your attention or time, but despite a few bum notes, the vast majority are decent.

Highlights include Top Racer / Top Gear, a spin-off from Gremlin's Lotus Turbo Challenge series; The Immortal, a wonderful action adventure with some gruesome death animations; Switchblade, a challenging action platformer from Core Design; Iron Commando, a side-scrolling fighter in the vein of Final Fight and Dragon View / Super Drakkhen, a SNES JRPG with a 3D-like overworld. All of these games are worth a look, as is Dorke and Ymp, a SNES title which remained unreleased for many years before Piko resurrected it.

While those are the cream of the crop, the other games remain interesting in their own way. 8 Eyes, for example, is a Castlevania-style action platformer for the NES by Thinking Rabbit which never quite matches the brilliance of Konami's series, while the unlicensed Genesis / Mega Drive games Brave Battle Saga, Canon – Legends of the New Gods and Water Margin are all interesting in their own way; the latter is a side-scrolling fighter from Taiwan which was originally released in 1996 and boasts some great presentation.

Outside of a few titles – such as Top Racer and The Immortal – it's hard to claim that any of the games on Piko Interactive Collection 1 are genuine must-have classics, but it's still astonishingly good value for money on Evercade. It's now a legacy cartridge, however, so you'll have to track down a second-hand copy if you fancy adding it to your collection.