Turok style PSP dinosaur hunting doesn't keep DS from serious study

Another week and another collection of intriguing homebrew software to tickle your fancy. I am here to turn up the best in homemade software for the DS and PSP, after all.

My English teacher used to say that you should always provide three examples when writing, while De La Soul believed it was the magic number, so how appropriate to be finishing a homebrew trilogy on the DS from French developer Stravingo this week. After looking at Ka-Boom and Setsuzoku no Puzzle in the past couple of Homebrew Round-ups, today we have in hand his educational application Treasures of Gaia.

Treasures of Gaia runs on the majority of DS homebrew carts and enables you to browse a detailed map of the world. Provided you have a wi-fi connection to pull the map data down from Google Maps you can scroll around and locate various sites of interest. The application provides 851 locales from the World Heritage List and marks them on the map. You can then browse information about a site with a simple tap of the stylus. Its information (a picture and description) is displayed on the upper screen, see.

It's a nice little package, really, and one my kids seem happy to while away hours with, browsing their way around the globe. This is something I'm more than happy about as they're learning both geography and history as they do it. Because much as alien blasting may become a useful skill in the future, its current application is considerably limited by comparison.

Still, life is all about balance. So with the DS gainfully employed in some serious work, it's left to the good old PSP to provide the fun and frolics this week. Enter Kurok PSP. As its name hints at, this is a game inspired by the Turok franchise. An early version has just been released so there's still some work for developer MDave to do, but even at this stage the game shows much promise.

Kurok PSP requires custom Firmware 3.71 or later, but early firmware support is hoped for soon. To get up and running simply download the files. Then place the PSP folder contained in the file into the root of your Memory Stick.

• If you have an original PSP, then copy the eboot from the NORMAL EBOOT folder to the KurokPSP folder
• If you have a Slim PSP, copy the eboot from the SLIM EBOOT folder to the KurokPSP folder

The game is based on a modified Quake engine port, and accordingly is a first-person shooter (as Turok games tend to be). It's set in the modern day with some interesting fictional additions such as – yep, you've guessed it – dinosaurs. The objective is to get through to the end of each level ensuring you complete each objective along the way.

To help you'll find ten weapons at your disposal, but the kind that include secondary functions. Other than this, you simply need to run, jump, swim, and climb your way through the environments. Nothing hugely revolutionary, then, but certainly a lot of fun.

Which seems the perfect point at which to leave you for another week. Come back in seven days' time when we'll have a geography test for you. No, not really – it'll be a couple more examples from the homebrew scene.