Review - Archer Maclean’s Mercury

Camera issues hinder an otherwise excellent puzzle game.
Unlike their movie industry counterparts, few games creators garner enough reverence to permit having their name placed in a game’s title. Archer Maclean, the British brain behind Dropzone and International Karate, amongst others, is one of those select few to have reached this level of accolade. Yet while his PSP debut Mercury launched to decent reviews in 2005, it is somewhat telling that the Maclean brand was dropped for the multiplatform sequel, Mercury Meltdown, which was developed by publisher Ignition Entertainment.
 
That is not to say that Mercury is not a good game, however, and with this original incarnation now available on PSN at a shockingly charitable £4.75, now is as good a time as any to take another look at Maclean’s ingenious little concept. Mercury combines the essence of Marble Madness with those hilariously lethal mercury puzzles that we used to have as kids. Y’know, the ones which are now banned, because the magic liquid metal component that endlessly fascinated children was deadly poisonous. Much like Super Monkey Ball, instead of controlling the droplet itself you tilt the level, slipping and sliding your ball of liquid metal through various challenges.
 
Mercury was originally designed with a USB tilt-sensor in mind, as a sort of precursor to the Wiimote, and while that never transpired the PSP’s analogue nub works surprisingly well. Sure, you’ll need a steady thumb, but there’s rarely a time that your blob will roll to its doom because of the controls; instead that achievement goes to the camera, which often obscures the action completely, letting you teleport to some unknown part of a level only to slide into oblivion as a result of panic-stricken button bashing.
 
Those who do persevere with the irksome camera will find a surprising amount of variety here. Mercury’s three level types, spread across seven worlds, may not be superficially different, but offer a substantial enough change in pace or approach to keep the challenges fresh. Race levels are pretty straightforward, with an emphasis on getting just one tiny portion of your mercury to the finishing line as quickly as possible. The only slightly slower-paced Percentage levels offer a similar set of trials, but the finishing line (actually, it’s a square) is now replaced by a scale upon which a certain percentage of the mercury must be set – and with traps such as suction pipes and Pacman-esque enemies wanting a piece of your shiny stuff, it’s usually not easy.
 
For the more cerebrally inclined, there are also the puzzle-centric Task levels, which involve a set of coloured beacons that can only be activated by a glob of the same colour. Here you must dye your mercury and, on occasion, split it in two, dying each half separately and rejoining the two to create new tones. At the end of each world there are also several Combo levels and an elaborate Boss stage, though as you progress to more difficult stages the lines between these level types blurs, as you are forced to think fast and keep your methods varied.
                                                             &nbs