Archer Maclean's Mercury
Fitting that a game featuring a smooth blob of liquid would ooze its way into your brain.
Published: May 16, 2005
Most people won't have a clue as to who Archer Maclean is. That's okay, since games really shouldn't carry a title anyway (especially when the namesake is still a question mark to most gamers), but for those wondering, Maclean isn't without a tenured pedigree. He created most of his games single-handedly, busting out the code, art, design and sound all by his lonesome, though most of his hits have largely sat across the pond.
Ever heard of Dropzone? International Karate? Thought not. It doesn't really matter, though, because Maclean is back to making games after taking a break from the industry around the 16-bit days, and he's brought a wonderfully competent programming team with him. Mercury is easily one of the best looking games on the PSP despite being little more than a couple of blobs of liquid and some simplistic, blocky puzzle levels.
Mercury's appeal comes mainly from the simplicity. All you have to do is guide a blob of mercury from start to finish in something that feels a bit like that marble-and-balsa-wood game Labyrinth that let your rotate the whole board on two axes. There's more to it, of course, including gates that will only allow specific colors of mercury through and the showers that tint them those colors, conveyor belts, vacuums, mercury chomping balls and so on, but the end goal is simple.
Early on, the game makes it pretty plain that you'll have to do plenty of navigating around the playing field, zooming the camera in and out and rotating things around. I never understood why the default setup was so broken compared to the alternative, but it's probably the first thing most folks should do; rotating the camera with the shoulder buttons just feels more right, and zooming and pitching the camera flat or overhead just works better with the face buttons. All of these will get ample use, because actually getting the camera behind your mercury can mean all the difference when heading up conveyors or across thin stretches of corridor.
Despite what appears to be a generally open look to things at first, the game really is about learning the specific steps the developers came up with to pass through gates, break up and combine mercury blobs and generally just scoot things around without flying off the edge of a given level. This is fine when you're concentrating on just one blob, but guiding multiple ones around -- especially on the latter levels -- can be a nail biting experience, and I guess that's what the developers were going through.
Some have griped about the difficulty level, but I really didn't have too much trouble until I got into the last levels of the game, and even then, it was more just a matter of making sure careful movements and some pre-planning got me through. There were a few times where things like the giant tesla coils zapped me a few dozen times into oblivion that I got a little hung up, but by and large the game does a great job of mixing some really tough levels in with more simple ones that give you a break at pretty regular intervals.
One of the things that I lament, though, is just how much depth there is built into the game for people that have really, really mastered the controls (read: the developers). Finishing with the top score on a level for all levels in a world means you get to play and extra level, and doing that in all the worlds actually opens up a new world, but actually getting there requires using some elaborate techniques I just don't think I'll ever be able to pull off. It's a shame, because it seems like some of the unlockable stuff is awfully cool, but I'm guessing 90% of the people that play the game will never see it.
Ever heard of Dropzone? International Karate? Thought not. It doesn't really matter, though, because Maclean is back to making games after taking a break from the industry around the 16-bit days, and he's brought a wonderfully competent programming team with him. Mercury is easily one of the best looking games on the PSP despite being little more than a couple of blobs of liquid and some simplistic, blocky puzzle levels.
Mercury's appeal comes mainly from the simplicity. All you have to do is guide a blob of mercury from start to finish in something that feels a bit like that marble-and-balsa-wood game Labyrinth that let your rotate the whole board on two axes. There's more to it, of course, including gates that will only allow specific colors of mercury through and the showers that tint them those colors, conveyor belts, vacuums, mercury chomping balls and so on, but the end goal is simple.
Early on, the game makes it pretty plain that you'll have to do plenty of navigating around the playing field, zooming the camera in and out and rotating things around. I never understood why the default setup was so broken compared to the alternative, but it's probably the first thing most folks should do; rotating the camera with the shoulder buttons just feels more right, and zooming and pitching the camera flat or overhead just works better with the face buttons. All of these will get ample use, because actually getting the camera behind your mercury can mean all the difference when heading up conveyors or across thin stretches of corridor.
Despite what appears to be a generally open look to things at first, the game really is about learning the specific steps the developers came up with to pass through gates, break up and combine mercury blobs and generally just scoot things around without flying off the edge of a given level. This is fine when you're concentrating on just one blob, but guiding multiple ones around -- especially on the latter levels -- can be a nail biting experience, and I guess that's what the developers were going through.
Some have griped about the difficulty level, but I really didn't have too much trouble until I got into the last levels of the game, and even then, it was more just a matter of making sure careful movements and some pre-planning got me through. There were a few times where things like the giant tesla coils zapped me a few dozen times into oblivion that I got a little hung up, but by and large the game does a great job of mixing some really tough levels in with more simple ones that give you a break at pretty regular intervals.
One of the things that I lament, though, is just how much depth there is built into the game for people that have really, really mastered the controls (read: the developers). Finishing with the top score on a level for all levels in a world means you get to play and extra level, and doing that in all the worlds actually opens up a new world, but actually getting there requires using some elaborate techniques I just don't think I'll ever be able to pull off. It's a shame, because it seems like some of the unlockable stuff is awfully cool, but I'm guessing 90% of the people that play the game will never see it.