GamesRelay

Name: Archer Maclean's Mercury

Archer MacLean, probably best known for his work in the Pool game genre, has a change of tactic for his latest game, one that couldn't be further from his previous releases. The PlayStation Portable game, Mercury, dispenses with all the shiny balls and paradise islands of his last few ventures in favour of a blob of mercury and a floating stage with a start and an end point. The little blob starts at, well, the start point, and the player must get the mercury to the end by tilting the platform in different directions.

It's a simple enough concept, the blob of Mercury acts just as you think a blob of Mercury should act; it's shiny and metal like in appearance and it splits into different pieces up on contact with a dividing wall, bits will even drip off over the edge of a platform should you accidentally take the Mercury beyond the confines of the arena. If you drip too much of your Mercury then it's game over, you've got to have so much left by the time you get to the end to complete the stage.

As you might expect, the game starts you off with a few basic problems to solve before moving you onto the more complicated matters, splitting the mercury in two is the first challenge you'll come across as you've then two pieces of liquid metal to keep an eye on as you navigate around the level. Pretty soon you'll come across equipment (known as Paint Shops) on the levels that will change the colour of your mercury; this is so you can access different sections, each colour corresponding to a switch or a door, should your mercury be in two pieces and two different colours then you can re-combine them to create a new colour. If for example you a have red and a green mercury then when you merge them back into one single blob your mercury will become yellow in colour, it sounds fairly easy then, but as the game progresses and you find new colours, you'll be wondering how on earth you're supposed to create them, but that's half the fun.

Control over the mercury is done with the analogue stick; each direction tilts the level and the Mercury responds in both speed and direction based on the level of tilt. This all works exceptionally well, the Mercury in particularly feels realistic with its movements and it certainly looks the part, as much as a blob can be. The only thing wrong with this method is that you'll need a sturdy thumb to master some of the later parts and on occasion it can become quite frustrating due to the camera angles you're presented with; of course these can be changed at will but it doesn't help your concentration when trying to pass a tricky part of a level.

It's probably worth nothing that Archer MacLean developed this game with the idea that it would be used with a tilt sensing peripheral device for the PSP; alas, this project has been abandoned by Sony now and will probably never see the light of day. It's a shame because Mercury would certainly have benefited from something like that.

To make it to the end you're going to have to traverse seven worlds, each world is made up of 12 levels which makes 84 in total. The levels are split pretty much evenly into differing types, you've got Race, Percentage, and Task, as the main three you'll come across which pretty much speak for themselves in what you need to do to complete them; Race sees you getting to the end as quickly as possible, Percentage sees accuracy take the forefront as you must save as much of your Mercury as possible, and the Task levels see you activating a set number of beacons before you can complete the level. On top of those you have two combo levels per world which combine two of the previously mentioned level types. Finally, there is a boss level to defeat before moving into the next world which offers you greater challenges than you've faced before. Should you be lucky enough to get the highest score on each of the levels you'll also unlock a secret level known as the Dreamscape; these are psychedelic affairs which have you navigating the Mercury around strange landscapes in order for you to complete them.

Mercury is a simple enough game to get to grips with, there's no real great challenge beyond getting to the end of each level and it's not going to be very taxing for very long, well, not once you've got the hang of the controls at least. It probably isn't a game for everyone, but, those familiar with other games following the same play style will certainly enjoy it. The later levels of Mercury are bound to create a few head scratching moments as well as generating a few curse words here and there, it's a modern day take on the classic Marble Madness that you may remember from Atari Games back in 1984 and the concept works just as well now as it did back then, but it remains to be seen whether a newer and younger generation can appreciate Mercury for what it is.