Review: Archer Maclean’s Mercury [PSP]
One of PSP's launch titles turns to a PSN download. Article written by BioEye in PS3 Reviews, on Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 13:00.One of the PSP’s post-launch titles, which ranked highly amongst those buying Ridge Racer and Lumines, has now found its way onto the PlayStation Store for £4.79 / €5.57. The game offers a virtual iteration of the old health-hazard Mercury games, where little playground children would tilt a wooden maze in order to move the surprisingly heavy substance to the exit. Mercury for the PSP goes further than that, in the same way that we’ve seen with recent remakes of such titles as ‘Space Invaders’. You’ll see different gameplay types, realistic physics and nice quirky stand-out graphics.
Mercury fits the handheld gaming genre like a charm. As a simple puzzler, it’s very easy to simply play a few of the seventy-plus levels, and set your PSP to sleep mode when you need to do something. It’s what I found myself often doing as I passed away the time, whipping out the PSP to play a quick five minutes of Mercury – which is what the PSP should be, and what has propelled sales of the opposition DS. At 258 MB, you won’t even notice it on your memory stick. The game is essentially a series of mini puzzles, mostly frustrating, to pass away the time whilst keeping your brain occupied with something other than your PS3 dipped in chocolate.
Its graphics maintain a sense of simple realism in contrast to the game’s cartoon-styled successor “Mercury Meltdown”. The most obvious reason for this is the way the Mercury moves. The way in which the blob splits into smaller lumps when pushed against a corner is very nice, and whilst initially annoying, this ability does come in handy in later stages. You’ll need to know your colour mixing chart off by heart to get around some of the puzzles, which can be frustrating when you have four different coloured blobs of mercury all heading for each other, especially when red and green make yellow. Apparently.
The biggest downfall of Mercury is its loading times. As a title launched shortly after the PSP’s launch, the system hardware was very new to developers. On the UMD version, you could be waiting from anything up to sixty seconds to move from one level to another, which is particularly slow when you’re on the move. Loading times on the new digital download format are inevitably faster, but still based on the original game. While the graphics may remain very high in quality, the sharpness of the mercury against the surrounding level can often create jagged edges but this is an attribute which taints many PSP games.
Overall, the game will last you a few good hours, and even more-so if you plan on beating yourself on times and the amount of mercury you have by the end of each level. If you think you’ve exhausted the single player, you can hop into ad-hoc mode to play with one other friend. Choose a level, and play them at it. Their mercury will show up as a ghost on your PSP screen, and the single player rules apply. If someone spills all their mercury over the edge, the other player wins, or the first to reach the end in a certain time wins.
For a fiver, this game is definitely worth the money as you’ll be able to easily dip in and out of it like a true portable puzzler. While the game takes a little too long to startup, the colourful nature of the levels, gloopy sound of the mercury and variety of the puzzles makes it clear why the director stuck his name to the front of the title and grabbed a sequel a few years later.
Score: 8/10
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
jimmy-google | 23/07/2009 13:18
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1285 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009
This and metal gear acid were the firts games I bought for my psp at launch – mercury got played a lot more than acid did.
H3O | 23/07/2009 13:22
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394 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
I loved the sequel. It really is a fun an addictive game.
spooner_22 | 23/07/2009 13:32
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947 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Mercury was awesome! 8 is fair…maybe even a 9 in my opinion…whereas the sequel, Mercury Meltdown, I would have given a 10!!
flatspikes | 23/07/2009 14:11
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483 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
For £4.79 this is my most played download title… even more than Patapon 2!!!
cheekyMcB | 23/07/2009 15:02
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584 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009
Didn’t the original UMD version come with a tilt sensor or something? I take it you use the analogue stick for control.
I always thought they should make a PS3 version as it would would work great with the Sixaxis.
On that note Super Monkey Ball would be great too…it never worked on the PS2 as well as it could as it wasn’t precise enough with the sticks, I read it was better on the Gamecube as their controller was more suited to the precision.
BioEye | 23/07/2009 18:18
Team TSA: Writer
841 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
Would work great with a tilt sensor, as would LocoRoco, but it never came with one.
nickert0n | 23/07/2009 17:11
* Banned *
-4918 TSA Points | Member since: Apr 2009
Is this the same game as Mercury Meltdown in NA?
BioEye | 23/07/2009 18:19
Team TSA: Writer
841 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
No. Mercury Meltdown is the successor to this game. It’s a whole new set of Mercury-based puzzles with a very different graphic style.
Dexter17 | 23/07/2009 19:43
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2781 TSA Points | Member since: Jun 2009
Mecury is so frustrating sometimes… I’ve have a actually punched my PSP before when playing this.
P.S – nickert0n, are your TSA points into the negatives???
hazelam | 23/07/2009 21:03
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2986 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009
why on earth is there not a ps3 version of this with sixaxis control?
if there was one game perfectly suited to motion control it’s that one.
i should be running a game studio, really.
tom_lord | 23/07/2009 23:15
Team TSA: Writer
525 TSA Points | Member since: Apr 2009
Bought this as soon as I saw it was so cheap. Haven’t played it yet, but this review has persuaded me to give it a blast this weekend.