Mercury Meltdown
Ignition returns with a sequel that's bigger, better and more forgiving for starting players.
Published: October 17, 2006
The world itself has shifted too. In addition to the conveyor belts and tilting sections found before, now ice patches and gummy sections use the mercury's inertia or lack or friction against itself -- and often they're either right next to or close to each other, creating situations where the two materials basically tear the mercury apart. Attractors and repulsors mess around with trajectories, and some levels require that independent blobs of mercury all arrive at the finish at the same time (this is actually more fun than it sounds).
Enemies have gotten an overhaul too. Yes, there are still mercury-starved creatures that will bite of chunks of shiny liquid, but there are now more passive ones that you can actually guide around and block off their path -- or just outright push around -- to help solve some switch puzzles. The shift -- at least to me, seemed more toward increasing the interactive object count beyond just switches and scales than throwing more stuff at you that can harm your blob.
And then there are the modes outside of the main puzzles. Multiplayer has been considerably thickened up; power-ups that allow you to zap, dissolve, break apart, pull around with magnets, swap places with, and even reverse your opponent's controls now allow you to goof around with the other player instead of just going up against a time trial-style ghost. The Party Games included range from rather pointless (Shove, Mercury's take on Curling; Race, which is exactly what it sounds like, yet nowhere near as fun as you'd hope) to modestly entertaining (Rodeo, which is basically just a test to see how long you can stay on a platform while a fan tries to blow you off) to downright awesome (Metrix is something like Tetris, but you're actually creating your own shapes, and it's good enough to be its own game), but they all do add a little change of pace from the main game.
All these little changes -- or tweaks, really -- to the existing formula don't really properly explain why the game is better, and in fact, I really can't do that justice either. Meltdown is simply more imaginative (wait until you start playing around with the gravity-defying sections). It scales better for newcomers. It introduces the basic concepts and then expands upon them in a way that's less overwhelming. Every part of the game (save for maybe that interface, which grew on me) feels more refined.
Though I've harped on the actual look of the game, I can't really complain about the performance. Not a whole lot has changed here; the levels are still fairly simplistic, and operate in sort of a huge void with a massive skybox around it (though it is animated now). There are some subtle changes; the mercury itself seemed to animate better, though this could simply be due to the fact that the game runs quite smoothly, and the new enhancements to its state helped me appreciate when things were "normal". Still, there's no denying that this is a game that at least rests comfortably in the horsepower that the PSP packs.
It's also quite plucky, thanks to some tunes that run the gamut from cheery almost hop-n-bop kids tunes to the more reserved light electronic loops of the first game. None of them are particularly annoying, but they don't really stick out all that much either. That's actually a good thing, considering how many times perfectionists and those looking to finish the full game will be mashing the start button reset things.
Mercury Meltdown is everything the first game was and more. It's a deeper experience, it's more quirky and unique without losing sight of the best bits that made it so fun. No, it's not terribly different from the original (and that's mostly why it's getting the same score), but all the feedback and tweaks have gone toward making the game that much more enjoyable.
Congrats, Ignition, your decision to purchase Awesome Studios and rename them Ignition Banbury was a wise one; if they can continue to pump out games this creative, it can mean only good things for gamers.
