The first Mercury was a great game for PSP, it had some really original ideas, a fantastic difficulty curve, and there were loads of levels and the mercury moved beautifully. The sequel, Mercury Meltdown, is half more of the same, and halflots of new content, which is nice. Along with all-new single player levels to play through, there are now lots of multiplayer modes, open areas called playgrounds, and even downloadable content, so Ignition are off to a very good start by offering so much new stuff in the sequel.
The premise of the game is of course the same as before; you must navigate your puddle of mercury from A to B within any given level, and along the way you’ll come across increasingly tough puzzles to work out and complete to be able to get to the goal. You start off with basic tasks such as splitting the mercury up and mixes the colours of the liquid using colour changers in the level, then rejoin the mercury to form a new colour, which is required to open the door. If you have forgotten what two colours make green from your painting days at school, there is a handy on-screen chart, which shows you the possible combinations within the game. Later puzzles get much trickier, time limits get very tight, and the levels them selves become more complex too.
Mercury Meltdown has the same game and camera controls as the previous game, which for the most part works well enough, but it can be fiddly and sometimes time consuming to get the perfect angle. This is made worse because this game is designed around completing the levels within strict times, it can get quite frustrating if you spend half the time allowed setting the camera up. It’s not a game breaker by any means, but it something that I thought would have been improved upon with the sequel.
As mentioned in our preview, MM has taken a very different graphical style this time around, losing the high-tech futuristic look of the original, for a cell-shaded, cartoony look for the sequel. I like both styles to be honest, and I do think it’s kind of odd that they changed it so radically; maybe they had a meeting with Nintendo about what style to take the sequel, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t return to how it was for Mercury 3.
All in all this is yet another great game from Ignition. It has some great new additions and ideas, a currently untested multiplayer mode, and a very challenging and addictive single player game. It’s definitely a game for PSP that is worthy of your hard earned cash.
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