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Mercury Meltdown Review
Written by Philip Jones on Friday, October 13, 2006
Inviting new design, plenty of replay value
Difficulty can be a little on the steep side
The first Mercury game debuted a few months into the life of the PSP and it was a welcome addition to a system jammed with way too many racing games but quite devoid of a bit of decent puzzle action [What about Lumines? -Ed]. Whereas many PSP puzzlers could have in effect been done on the Game Boy Advance, Archer Maclean's Mercury was an awesome game that took full advantage of the power given to the developers by the PSP to create a crazy 3D world of tilt-able blob maze action. Mercury Meltdown is its streamlined sequel, and there's just as much fun to be had playing with toxic metals now as there was then.
So, just to explain to you people who haven't a clue what this is all about- You control, via the analog pad, a small blob of liquid metal. Well actually, you're controlling the angle of the platforms that the mercury is sat upon. Sounds simple enough yeah? Well, there's all kinds of stuff in your way, and sometimes you have to split your blob into two (or more) and manage to control them separately, yet... at the same time. It really is enough to get even the most sane of us furious at the simulated gravity being generated by Mr. PSP. Curse Newton and his stinking apples!
So what's new? What's gonna make you want drop your hard earned ones on a copy of Mercury Meltdown? Well, the game has had a total redesign, with not only new levels but a completely new style, graphically and aurally. There's been some debate over the new style but I think it's a lot more inviting, and gives a feeling of fun that was missing a little in the first game. The funkier music also helps.
The levels are split into a collection of laboratories, each with a different style to the design of them. Another major improvement over the original is level load time, which was a problem with many first generation PSP titles. The menu and level select has also been overhauled and is now smoother and easier to navigate.
As the title implies, Mercury Meltdown has introduced various different stages of "meltiness" to your mercurial blob. Alongside the normal state, there's now hot, cold and solid. In the hot state the mercury becomes really loose and slides all over the place, becoming extremely hard to control. Cold makes the mercury stiffer and slower and the solid state turns the blob into a metal ball, which can be rolled around on pinball table style rails. Now the thing about these different states is that to change you have to go through a little thingy called a state changer, which is usually unavoidable, so its inevitable that you're gonna have to contend with these differing states and the trickiness they bring.
At first it seemed like the game was easier, but as I played I came across more and more extremely difficult stages. You don't have to get stuck in frustration however - you can skip levels you can't pass and return to them later, while still having a good chance of progressing to the next 'lab' without having completed all the levels. There are a whole load of new features and creatures to the game, some placed to hinder, some to help. For instance there's Stan, a little cube shaped guy who just goes about his business, rolling around (as cubes do), turning away when there's something in his path, and it juuuust happens that there's some small... square... switches! (That you yourself as a blob seem to be unable to trigger). So you have to get in Stan's way, forcing him to change direction and land on the switches. It certainly took me a while to figure that out, maybe in future I should take a peep at those papery manual things that come with games.
Another new addition is the selection of bonus party games for you to unlock, like rodeo, race and paint, which really come into their own if you have the chance to get up to some multiplayer action. You can also play on any of the games normal levels in a battle mode, where there are various power-ups littered around to enable you to smite your opponent, like speed ups for yourself, slow downers for your opponent, zappers and placement swappers. Certainly enough to keep the multiplayer action frenzied.
So regardless of whether or not you were a fan of Archer Maclean's Mercury, if you enjoy a good dextrous challenge,Mercury Meltdown is a smart purchase. After the games drought of summer it's nice to finally have a reason to power up the ol' PSP again.
posted October 18, 2006