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Mercury PSP Game Review (Archer Maclean's)
Overview
Archer Maclean has successfully melded Terminator 2 with Marble Madness, and the results are outstanding. After you've passed the first world, you'll more than likely going to be hooked. If you ever played one of those wooden labyrinth games, you will instantly be able to figure this game out. The game plays like a board balancing on a cone, and you tilt the joystick or D-Pad to move your mercury blob around the board and away from drop offs, enemies, obstacles and through gates.
Gameplay
This game plays better than any game like it in history. The mercury flows fluidly, and when you first start playing, you'll probably find yourself trying to split the mercury just to see it blob apart and back together. Your goal in this game is to get your mercury from start to finish. There are three gameplay "modes" which modify difficulty based on time, amount of mercury left and a combination of both. However, each level is timed, so even in the modes where you are restricted on mecury, you can still run out of time. If a level is difficult, you've probably lost more metal than time.
This game features six worlds, with each world becoming more difficult, and each level in each world a greater challenge. Each time you enter a new world, you'll find some new challenge or game feature, of which there are many. The first ones you'll encounter are gates that are only passable when your mercury is a certain color. The gates require that you "paint" your mercury to pass. The difficulty comes when multiple gates require multiple colors on the other side of the board. You'll also come across narrow paths, conveyor belts, holes in the board, enemies that eat you or block your way, hydraulics that push you off the board and much much more. One fun obstacle is the tesla coil which zaps you with a bolt of electricity, taking some of your mercury from the blob.
In addition to the standard obstacles, you'll love some of the creative modes of play that Archer Maclean has incorporated into the game. Sometimes you'll be playing upside down after a warp shift, sometimes you will have to transport your way to another part of the board and other times you have to skillfully manage multiple blobs of metal on multiple parts of the gameboard.
In multiplayer mode, you simply race against your partner. This certainly is a downfall to Mercury. This game isn't much for multiplayer unless you're a complete geek or a five year old.
Graphics
As you can see from the screenshots, the graphics are relatively simple. Definitely the best part about the graphics is the mercury itself. The way the metal blobs apart and together and flows and stretches around corners is perfect. But while the mercury itself looks good, the rest of the game just looks OK. Effects are few and far between, and the boards are simply "out in space." This game is definitely nothing special in the graphics department, but in this reviewer's opinion, the gameplay makes up for it.
Sound
Like the graphics, the sound for this game is not too special. Blob sounds correspond with blobbing, electricity sounds correspond with the tesla coil zaps, and well, you get a pac-man like munch sound from an enemy. The music does not help either, as there is no mood enhancement adjustments except for a clock warning as you run out of time.
Control
Where sound and graphics are lax, control is excellent. This game is where the analog stick on the PSP really shines. Slight movements make slight board adjustments, and precision in a game like this is key. After playing for a while, you will master your blob and it's motions and, until the levels become more difficult, you will blow through the first two worlds. The D-Pad is useful at times when you want to move the blob specifically up and down. The buttons just simply adjust the camera angles, with the triggers zooming the view in and out. Which is what you would expect from a game like this. There were no camera angles in Marble Madness! (Ahh, but they did such a great job with 2-D back then.)
Replay Value
This game offers quite a bit of replay value, if you can even beat the game in the first place. Many times you will find yourself trying in vain just to pass a level, let alone get any kind of high score. The biggest complaint I have about this game is that it never appeared to me that you could save your current game if you forgot to save it between levels. That means if you don't beat the current level, you have to start from where your last saved game was. Once you beat a level, however, you will feel a big sigh of relief, momentarily until the next level. If the game proves to be too easy for you, which is unlikely, then you can always go back to get a higher score. If I'm still playing Marble Madness on Nesticle, then I'm sure I'll be playing Mercury for years to come as well.
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