Archer Maclean’s Mercury Review

Puzzle games are, quite possibly, the most under-rated and under-celebrated games the world has ever known. Though the inclusion of a few familiar titles along with this generation’s consoles have brought some familiar favourites into the hearts and living rooms of many, it is rare to meet someone who would brag about their top score on Puzzle Quest or Peggle. Compared to the bravado associated with FPS and RTS top-scorers, puzzle glory seems to be almost non-existent.

This is, within the context of the bigger-faster-harder-stronger world of modern video gaming, a relatively easy phenomenon to understand. Puzzle games have remained almost graphically untouched since the days of the 8-bit machines (compare Columns to Bejeweled to see what I mean). There is no tech tree, leveling up, sandbox exploration or deep strategy (usually). There is just one idea, repeated and refined continually, with the sole purpose of engaging your mind and absorbing your time.

A puzzle game, when done right, is as close to perfection as gaming can be. Take the aforementioned efforts from PopCap as proof of puzzling done well. Peggle, Bejeweled, Zuma and Plants vs. Zombies are some of the most engaging, addictive and downright fun games to have been released in the last ten years. Then we have the King of video games itself, Tetris. One of the most famous and played games of all time. These games are in every case just one simple idea refined and tuned until you can feel, in every last detail and pixel, that you are playing a fantastic puzzle game.

Archer Maclean’s Mercury, on the other hand, is an example of how if that original idea isn’t that great be begin with, no amount of honing is going to turn it into a great game.

The best way to describe Mercury would be to say it is like a virtual Marble Madness/Screwball Scramble. In a similar way to LocoRoco, the player only has control of tilting the environment and nothing more (though Mercury is played in 3D not 2D). By tilting the game world itself, it is your aim to guide a blob of the titular mercury to each level’s goal. Depending on the type of level you’re playing, the goal will either be a race against the clock to the end of a section, a level of obstacles to traverse whilst ensuring a certain percentage of the mercury you begin the level with passes the finishing line or a certain task or puzzle (splitting the mercury blob in two, changing the mercury’s colour, hitting different panels in a certain order etc) that must be completed before being allowed to reach the goal.

The main difference between Marble Madness and this game however is that the viscous properties of mercury are utilized, or to put it a little more simply, your marble is liquid metal. This means the marble/blob can be separated, morphed and shaped to fit around certain obstacles and levels.

As well as directing and splitting your little blob around the levels, you must occasionally change its colour to get past different parts of the level. You do this either by guiding the mercury under a colour shower directly or by splitting the blob and changing each part’s colour separately. You can then reform the separate pieces to make a new colour: green and red blobs making one yellow blob once reformed for example.

Even though the levels are split up into the three different modes of play described above, you wouldn’t know which mode you were playing if it wasn’t for the game telling you at the beginning of each stage. Each level is subject to an overly harsh time limit, not just the races. Also, each level has a percentage of mercury that must remain until you reach the goal. Throw in the fact that even the race and percentage levels have tasks in them, and you have absolutely no way of differentiating between stage types.

Overall Archer Maclean’s Mercury just doesn’t play as well as it ought to. Everything feels like a little more work is required. The graphics, even by puzzle game and handheld standards, are a little lackluster. The time limits seem too harsh and don’t allow for the practice and exploration that would allow for the time challenges to seem fair. The time limits also mean that the game is way too short as you have to rush through the game’s stages and worlds, of which there are 7 (but one is a tutorial and another must be earned by beating the pre-programmed high scores which seems impossible and entirely not worth it). Even the controls, the one thing a puzzle game shouldn’t really have to worry about, are counter-intuitive with face buttons controlling camera pan and zoom, shoulder buttons doing a quick view switch and the analogue pad tilting the level.

Personally, I feel that with just a little extra care, attention and time this could have been a decent little puzzler. Instead we’re left with a missed opportunity, a sub-par game, and a waste of time.

A damn shame.

- Mikey Base