Mercury Meltdown is best described as an action puzzle game. It takes a
little thinking to figure out how you’ll complete each level, but it’s your
reflexes that will get you through. The game puts you in control of a blob of
mercury that you need to guide from the starting position to a goal. Well,
saying that you’re in control of the blob is not entirely accurate. What you are
really controlling is the maze-like levels themselves – pushing the stick will
cause the entire level to tilt so if you push left you’re tilting the level to
the left. From there gravity takes over, causing the mercury blob to start to
roll. The challenge is to guide the blob to the goal past obstacles and traps
and without sending it over the edge of the level. Sounds simple enough but it
can be a bit tricky to pull off.
The reason that the game uses a mercury blob instead of a marble is due to
some of mercury’s properties. The first is that mercury moves a bit slower than
a marble would, making the game easier to control. Push the board too far and a
marble would pick up enough steam to launch itself over the edge before you
could react, but a mercury blob gives you a bit more of a fighting chance to
recover from over steering. The next interesting property is that the blob is a
liquid and can be broken up into smaller blobs. Get too close to the edge and
you may lose a little of your mercury and as a result finish the level with a
lower score. You’ll also be able to use this to your advantage, though. You can
split your mercury on sharp corners into two or more blobs and then use the
multiple blobs to solve puzzles. You can then guide the blobs back together
stick them into a single blob, and continue on your way to the exit.
Getting to the end of the levels will involve negotiating ramps, bridges, and
ever increasingly tricky features while avoiding the various traps and pitfalls.
When you do reach the end you’ll be given a score based on two factors: how much
of your original mercury made it to the exit and the time it took you to
complete the level. Every time you lose a little mercury over the edge of the
board your mercury ball grows a little smaller and the percentage of original
mercury that you have left when you finish is factored into your score. The
timer is set to a certain value for each level and begins to count down from the
moment you start. The timer is used exclusively in determining your score and so
you can keep playing the level once the timer expires. Thankfully the game does
let you continue on because the time limits are pretty tight and it would
undoubtedly lead to a lot of frustration if you faced numerous restarts due to
the tight time constraints.
The game is certainly enjoyable and presents you with some unique gameplay
well-suited to gaming on the go. However, it’s not for everybody. The first few
groups of levels will present most gamers with a bit of a challenge, but beyond
that the challenge ramps up pretty quickly. If you’re the type who is easily
frustrated then you’ll be tossing your PSP out the window long before you reach
the final levels.
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