Archer Maclean's Mercury

The puzzle game market for the PSP so far is owned by Lumines, but more are just around the corner. Archer Maclean’s Mercury is one of these titles, and while it’s not quite as addicting, it offers a unique and challenging adventure.

In Mercury you guide a ball of mercury (go figure) through mazes of various obstacles to light a beacon at the end of the treacherous path. To move the mercury the entire field is tilted using the analog stick allowing gravity to do the work. The analog stick is essentially the only means of control; all other buttons are used to move the camera around. To aid as best as possible the camera can be tilted up or down, zoomed in or out, rotated either way and for instances involving multiple blobs the focus can be shifted between all in play.

Mercury is broken up into six different worlds, each featuring 12 levels. The main point of each level in Mercury is to guide your blob to each beacon to light them. The progress of Mercury is very balanced, and early levels give players enough practice to identify goals in later levels.

Even though the final goal of lighting beacons stays the same, levels are separated by the type of challenges presented. There are percentage levels, race levels, task levels, combinations of any two types, and finally boss levels that feature all three.

Percentage levels focus more on obstacles to overcome, since the beacon at the end of the level requires a minimum weight to activate. On the left side of the screen is a filled tube showing how much mercury you have with arrows pointing to a certain level. As you lose mercury, the level drops, and if it drops past the arrows you lose. Various things can cause you to lose mercury, like dropping bits off the edge of a level or zaps of electricity.

Race levels give you less time to reach the goal, but are also more straightforward. These levels seemed to be more maze-like with fewer traps. The time left can be seen in the upper left corner of the screen.

Task levels are more puzzle-based, and even though other types of challenges have puzzle elements, task levels are not obvious right away. They require color changing and mixing, and typically have multiple beacons to light. The bottom left corner of the screen displays how many beacons need lighting, and how many of which have been lit.

Mercury’s levels are very creative, and the designs of some areas are perfect for messing you up. For instance, a percentage level may feature a section with conveyor belts going in opposite directions – a great way of breaking up your ball of mercury. There are many other types of feats that stand in your way, such as mercury-eating creatures, teleporters, vacuums, color specific filters, pitfalls and much more.

One thing that took me some getting used to was the absence of an auto-save function. Most games use one these days, so when I first started playing I hadn’t saved my game. I came back to find myself a whole world behind, so make sure to save manually.

Even though the gameplay is a lot of fun, Mercury is pretty light on the bonus features. All that’s offered is single player, multiplayer, options, and a movie viewer. The movie viewer has all the currently unlocked world intros as well as the trailer for the game. The intros are quite impressive and capture the essence of each world.

Mercury took a fairly old and plain play style and gave it character and complexity. You’ll be surprised at how addicting guiding a ball of mercury through dangerous mazes of doom can be. Even though there isn’t much reason to replay conquered levels, the game has good length and is a very fun challenge.           

Gameplay: 8.5
The gameplay is simple, yet the situations are complex. The simple interface makes the game more enjoyable and allows the player to focus more on the deep puzzles and constantly changing ball of mercury.

Graphics: 7.8 
All of Mercury’s gameplay hinges on the excellent physics of the mercury and how it reacts to its surroundings. The effects created by the mercury as well as the backdrops of the levels are very impressive, though not the best seen on the system.

Sound: 7.9
The sound effects fit Mercury quite comfortably, giving it the right compliments at the right times. The soundtrack is full of soothing electronica that makes a nice background to the brain racking.

Difficulty: Medium
Mercury is very easy during the first half of the game, and some puzzle-game players may feel short-changed. But I promise if you stick with it, the difficulty ramps up and later puzzles become mind-bendingly complex.

Concept: 8.3 
Mercury is like a liquid Marble Madness. Awesome Studios made the Marble Madness idea more challenging and interesting by adding the fluid element, which works extremely well and allows for more puzzle solving situations.

Multiplayer: N/A

Since this game hasn’t quite made it to store shelves, there isn’t much of an online community for testing the multiplayer. It should prove very interesting, though, and add much to the replay value.

Overall: 8.1
Mercury is a great puzzle game and a worthy contender so far to the others available on the PSP. The unique gameplay and puzzles, as well as the balanced increase in difficulty, makes for an addicting and rewarding experience. There may not be too much replay value in this one, but it’s definitely entertaining enough to give it a shot.