Marble Madness. Whatever happened to that game eh? You don't really see that coming out in swanky HD releases these days, but its hard to argue that it's not worthy of such a release. Delicately diverting a marble around a stage designed to knock said marble anywhere but across the finish line - the gameplay doesn't even need to be changed.
But along came Archer Maclean, who probably said: "Yeah, but what if it was a blob of colour changing Mercury instead?", and minds were blown and multiple PSP games were made about just that, the second of which being Mercury Meltdown, building upon the launch title (and my first PSP game) Archer Maclean's Mercury.
Tilt stages to manipulate a blob of mercury from the start point to the finish line, through obstacles and puzzles, across level after level of simple, though head-scratchy gameplay. Do you think you're smart enough to avoid a meltdown?
Fun Times
Mercury Meltdown may look like an early iOS app with its cartoon graphics, but don't let that blind you to what's going on under the hood. At its simplest, a level looks like this. Start here, go there, finish. Our first 'test' sees if we can make it over a see-saw, change colour, back over the see-saw into the end of the level.
You're graded on time, any bonuses you picked up and how much mercury you finished with, though you can be certain that I do not care about these high scores in the slightest. My only goal is finishing one of the worlds (or 'labs' in this game). You can knock the levels out in any order, should you find some of them trickier than others.
This second stage is a little tricky, for example, if you're more used to mixing paint than light. Your blob of mercury can be turned into red, green, or blue, but to turn into yellow to open this gate, you need a red blob of mercury and a green blob, as indicated with the colour chart at the top.
Ignore the unhappy face by the way. He's upset that the timer ran out, but the game continues until you're finished, or have lost all your mercury.
To split your blob, you just have to use the analogue nub to tilt your blob towards a nice pointy bit of the stage, where it satisfyingly splits - though rarely in the way you imagine, often leading to blobs flying apart or ending up mismatched in size.
Luckily, size doesn't matter. A red blob and a green blob will make a yellow blob, end of.
That yellow blob isn't what the finish line wants, though. It wants a grey blob, so I've got to split the yellow into two yellows, turn on blue, merge the blue and yellow into grey... you can see how Mercury Meltdown is a puzzle, can't you?
As the levels progress, you'll be tested by all kinds of predicaments, and while there will always be an efficient way to solve the level within the time limit, you're generally able to bumble through it and stumble upon a solution. I'm still not sure how I was meant to approach this particular stage and have no idea how I managed to keep all my mercury on the board, but somehow I managed.
Unless a level requires you to finish with a certain amount of mercury, you can whizz through the stage as a teeny tiny ball, or slog through it as a big blob, both acting differently. You will, for example, probably slide right off the stage as a teeny tiny ball, because they move lightning fast. Similarly, the lumbering blob you start with is slow and has a tendency to drag itself off a stage, should you head too close to the edge.
I'm sure the devious level designers out there can think of all kinds of frustrating challenges that involve these different blob mechanics. I hope the developers of Mercury Meltdown go easy on me.
There were indeed some tricky stages, but once a solution clicked - even if it wasn't the intended solution - you could appreciate what Mercury Meltdown was capable of. With a simple set of rules and mechanics, you could get level after level after level out of this concept, each feeling different, but based on the same set of principles.
But this level. This level was my undoing. My brain stopped working. More or less on the spot. Other levels I might have stood a chance. This one? Nah.
Somehow, I'm the colour I need to be, but at the wrong time and place that I need to be it. I give up, and my twenty-minute run of Mercury Meltdown on the PSP comes to an end.
Final Word
Why does it come to an end? Because for as well put together as Mercury Meltdown is, it's just not addicting. Yeah, it's clever to colour change and smoosh yourself up against a wall to avoid a fall, and split into little blobs to do two things at once... but I'm never desperate to see what's coming next.
I guess each time I hit the 'Next Level' option I was vaguely interested to learn what this level's twist would be, but once I found out, I wasn't floored by it. I wasn't stunned. I wasn't wondering why I didn't play more of Archer Maclean's Mercury when I had it, because I know the answer: I wasn't ever compelled enough to keep playing.
There was no reason to. High scores? I'm not fussed. A really cool puzzle? Eh, whatever. For all the neat tricks and physics, this is all a Mercury game can get out of me. Well done, but...
Should you give it a go? No reason not to, I suppose. It's a solid enough concept, even if the mercury may slip out of sight from time to time.
Fun Facts
The first Mercury title was rushed to hit the PSP's launch, and so this game was a chance to flesh out the idea some more, as well as tweaking the graphics towards a cel-shaded look to appeal to more players. To be honest, it puts me off. Bring back the original. What did that look like again?
Mercury Meltdown, developed by Ignition Banbury, first released in 2006.
Version played: PlayStation Portable, 2006, via emulation.