Mercury Meltdown Revolution

In a world of color discrimination, vicious predators, and the indomitable nature of gravity itself, one metallic ball of goo dares to strive for glory. From Ignition Entertainment, makers of Archer MacLean's Mercury, comes Mercury Meltdown Revolution to a Wii near you.

OK, forget the drama. Recent games on other platforms, such as Crush and Puzzle Quest, have sought to overcome the esoteric nature of puzzle games in hopes of appealing to broader audiences by melding storylines into the games. Not so with Mercury Meltdown Revolution. This is a puzzle game through and through. That is probably a good thing. Seriously, what kind of story can you tell about a shiny ball of goo?

The lack of story won't be surprising to fans of the original PSP version. The puzzles themselves will be familiar, but the graphics and controls make the Wii's Mercury seem like an entirely different game . The glitzy high-tech textures from the PSP version have been dropped for bright colors and cel-shaded visuals while the control scheme makes use of the Wii Remote's motion sensors rather than the more traditional controls of the PSP.

Mercury Meltdown Revolution feels more natural on the Wii than the PSP. Mercury requires players to hold the Wii Remote sideways and tilt the controller like in Super Monkey Ball, Marble Mania, or Dewy's Adventure. Doing so simulates the tilting of a high, suspended platform and moves the blob of mercury in the direction the platform is tilted. The levels are mazes of traps, ledges, and other obstacles that will attempt to force the blob of mercury off the platform, break it up, or even eat it. The list of obstacles and objects in the game are seemingly endless. There are conveyer belts, crumbling floors, force fields, pendulums, pressure switches, and more.

If the obstacles in the maze were not enough, the color of the ball comes into play as well. There are color-coded doors that require the ball to be a certain color before it may pass. The ball's colors are changed by positioning it under Paint Shops, each of which sprays a different color on the ball. To add even more difficulty, some doors require a mixed color which requires the player to separate the ball into two, position the two balls under different Paint Shops, and then merge the balls to create the proper mix. Doing all of this without falling off the platform itself can be maddening fun.

There is a party mode in this game, but it is mysteriously locked until most of the first stage is completed. The first party game unlocked is called Rodeo and involves staying on a square platform for as long as possible while a spasticly moving fan tries to blow the ball off. The player that stays on the longest gets the honor of being at the top of the scores list and the inevitable bragging rights that the position brings. The smack talk will be minimal, however, as little satisfaction is gained from Rodeo. Hopefully, the other four party games will be more entertaining, but at this point I still cannot access them.

Ever have that lab-rat-in-a-maze feeling?

Normally I enjoy cel-shaded graphics in video games, but in Mercury they, along with their gaudy color schemes, seem out of place. I preferred the darker, more techno-oriented visuals and sound that were used in the original PSP version. Also, the music is very bland and ignorable. While the music schemes change from level to level, I couldn't help but think this would have been a perfect game for players to be able to use their own music rather than to be forced to listen to the boring background audio in the game. The game's sound effects and rumble are highly subdued. In fact, they are hardly noticeable while playing unless one makes a point to do so.

The omission of online play is understandable to some degree, but it is hard to fathom why multiplayer was abandoned altogether. Split-screen races would have added another level of depth and replay to Mercury, but unfortunately they were not included.

Mercury Meltdown Revolution is not perfect, but the puzzles are highly addictive and there are no shortage of levels. Mercury features 8 different stages, each with 16 puzzles. The strengths for Mercury Meltdown Revolution, so far, have been the great puzzles and creative gameplay. The Mercury madness continues in Stage 2.