Kao is one of the least appealing platform game mascots of recent years, rivalled in sheer banality by only Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, the Whiplash duo and, now that he’s been given guns, Shadow the Hedgehog. A real stinger for an opening paragraph, huh?

We’re pretty sure that back in the day, Kao was pronounced ‘kay-o’ – a play on words for ‘KO’, seeing as he wears boxing gloves. Now it’s pronounced ‘cow’, which invites a rather tenuous steak analogy: he might not be Aberdeen Angus, but we reckon he’s actually a surprisingly tasty cut of meat. Yes, in spite of the totally insipid character design.

While not as inventive as the genre classics, and possessing a ridiculous collect-a-heinous-amountof- coins-to-progress mechanic, Kao Challengers boasts a wide range of distractions – enemies have a satisfying range of attack patterns, there are a variety of switch-type things to flip, vehicles to ride and jumpy bits… there’s even multiplayer.

Don’t expect to flit from area to area with a fixed grin of ecstasy as there are many sedentary moments – sparse hubs, areas where collecting coins is its own (not very rewarding) reward and so on – but, crucially, there are few games of this type on PSP at the moment. So while it’s far from inventive, Kao is competent and we know that’ll be enough for many.