With the recent rise in retro-collection titles from companies like Capcom, Activision and Midway, it wasn't going to take long for the industry's biggest third-party publisher to throw in its mix. EA Replay is a collection of games that EA developed or published or has obtained the license of throughout the early 1990's, and what they have put together is actually a pretty good mix that should please just about any gamer. Or at least anyone who remembers games from that period.

Notice: No Graphics Were Harmed in the Porting of These Games. That's right, these games are straight ports from their original 16-32 bit glory. Granted a lot of these games are fairly recent, at least compared to the other company's collections dating back to the 8 bit era, but games like Ultima: The Black Gate, Mutant League Football and Desert Strike still have a very retro feel to them, even if they aren't as old as Pitfall.

Sound, like the graphics, also hasn't been touched, as far as I can tell. Sure some of the music from Wing Commander or Road Rash sounds clearer than what I remember, but I'm not sure if that is a result of the porters cleaning up the audio, or the better quality speakers on the system... well, better quality than what I had at the time anyway.

EA Replay is exactly what it sounds like. This is a collection of 14 games that EA either had a direct hand in putting out or has since obtained the license of. This mix of games will please any gamer who has been wanting to go to Mutant League Football or Budokan just to reminisce about a simpler time.

EA Replay's list of games include:

• B.O.B
• Budokan: The Martial Spirit
• Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf
• Jungle Strike: The sequel to Desert Strike
• Haunting: Starring Polterguy
• Mutant League Football
• Road Rash
• Road Rash II
• Road Rash III
• Syndicate
• Ultima VII: The Black Gate
• Virtual Pinball
• Wing Commander
• Wing Commander: Secret Missions

All of these titles range from 1990 to about '95 and span games launched on the PC, SNES and Sega Genesis. B.O.B is a side-scrolling 2D shooter in the vein of the original Metroid games (pre FPS), while Syndicate and Haunting are more of a 2.5D, 3/4 view action/adventure style and Budokan is a 2D fighter with a halfway decent story and level progression.

The Road Rash series is a collection of three motorcycle racing games and Wing Commander is a space-combat game.

Mutant League Football was a game that I never got the chance to play the first time around and had always heard good things about it. So I was glad to finally have the opportunity to play it. In Mutant League Football, you not only have the opposing team to worry about, but also land mines, fire pits and flying off into open space. Other interesting aspects about this game are the ability to bribe refs, perform nasty and violent attacks on enemy players and even have characters die in the middle of a play. I was definitely pleased with the experience and wish I had gotten to play it back when it first hit the shelves in '93.

Difficulty varies across EA Replay. Each game has, as one would expect, its own settings and feel. That being said, all of the games seem to lean on the easy side. I don't know if games today are just harder and thus we are used to tougher scenarios or I have just improved that much over the years. I seem to remember having a much harder time at Ultima the last time I played it, but found the game to be fairly easy to traverse this time around.

Each game in EA Replay uses different controls to simulate the abilities you had when the games first hit the shelves. Since most of these games hark back to the SNES days, the mapping of controls from their original incarnations to this remix are fairly straightforward.

Wing Commander's controls are tweaked quite a bit to give you a "easier" access to the many options and control the game gives you. Since the PSP has more buttons than the SNES, the developers mapped a few more of the more frequently used commands so that you don't have to go into the Advance Dialog screen quite as much. You use the D-Pad to turn or tilt your ship's nose and the shoulder buttons to accelerate or decelerate. Circle and X are used to fire your weapons and Triangle will let you cycle through your arsenal. There is a wide range of other controls you have available to you based on combinations of button presses, but since the game lets you have such minute control and gives you tons of options, the Advance Dialog screen is still available for controls the porters couldn't figure out button combos for.

Meanwhile, other titles like the Road Rash games have almost a direct translation from their original control scheme (as in no added controls to muck things up). You steer with the left and right D-Pad buttons. Punching is done my tapping the Circle button, while combinations of the Circle and the up or down D-Pad buttons will unleash a kick or backhand. X accelerates and Square brakes. From what I remember of the times I would go to my friend's place that had a Genesis, this is a pretty close mapping to the original scheme.

Though not as retro as Capcom or Activision's collections, EA has put together a fairly solid collection of games that any long-time gamer will want to play if and when they get nostalgic. If you remember a time before the PlayStation, then EA Replay is a pretty good game to pick up.