The work is an outcome of the motivation caused by the increasing awareness of the need for innovative PSO schemes featuring an appropriate methodology for optimization. PSO is a swarm intelligence-based evolutionary algorithm inspired originally by the social behavior of bird flocking. PSO finds its applications successfully in many areas including function optimization, neural network training, solving multidimensional complex problems, fuzzy systems, etc. The simplicity of implementation and weak dependence on the optimized model of PSO make it a popular tool for a wide range of optimization problems. This paper consists of an overall review of the various PSO schemes and developments in the literature. This review also recommends some research areas in this field, highlighting those leading to high efficiency.