"Who would've thought that playing with mercury could be so fun?"

First off, I'd like to point out that ANYONE who says this game is too easy is completely and utterly insane. I'm willing to bet that 99% of those people only played the first 2-3 tutorial missions before coming up with their opinion. The remaining 1% must have the thumb of God, or something similar. Anyways...

Mercury is simple. You have a little blob (or multiple blobs, in many cases) that you move around by tilting the level around it. Your goal, is to reach a finish point within a certain amount of time, past MANY obstacles, and with a certain amount of mercury remaining. Sounds simple, right? IT ISN'T. The challenges you'll face range from changing colors to access new areas, to rolling as many as 3-4 separate blobs around the map in perfect alignment, to rolling around with inverted controls on an upside-down map. And that's not even mentioning the countless holes in the ground, enemies that eat you, and moving platforms. And each level is mixed and matched with all of these different obstacles that you must get past in order to progress.

All together, there's 7 worlds of mercury madness. The first one is simply a tutorial world, and it does an excellent job of showing you what sort of things you'll have to do. What it doesn't do, is set you up for the MUCH harder levels in the future. But even with it's EXTREMELY steep learning curve, Mercury proves to be just as addicting as Lumines, if not more so.

Graphics: 10/10
The liquid effects on the mercury are just amazing. It's as simple as that. It looks incredibly real, and it splits and morphs like you'd expect real liquid to do so. The levels look incredible, and the videos showing off these new levels look better than anything else I've seen on PSP. The menus are pretty sweet too, with a nice cloth effect to them as you go through them. Considering the games' simplicity, it's no wonder it looks so damn good.

Gameplay: 9/10
All you have to do is get to the finish, and each level throws some new challenges in your way. There's nothing wrong with the concept of this game. The only problem I have, is the difficulty. Like I said earlier, people who say this game is easy are all wrong. By the time you reach the 4th world, you'll be struggling to beat the Combo missions, and the 5th world is just outrageous. I've yet to even encounter the 6th or 7th, and I'm not too sure I want to. You will definitely be seeing the "Retry Level" menu a LOT, which to me is no problem. This game is definitely one of the more addictive games out today, and restarting the mission will be nothing. Unfortunately, because of the difficulty, some of the Bonus levels seem just about impossible to get to, because you have to get 1st place records on each mission in a given world to unlock that world's bonus mission. Other than that, it's all great in the gameplay department.

Controls: 10/10
Does your analog nub work? Good. That's just about all you'll need. Every other button is camera related (rotate, tilt, zoom, and blob focus(?)). Just tilt the level the way you wanna go, and you're set. Beware of inverted controls on upside-down sections though, those can make you lose in an instant.

Sound: 9/10
Each mission has a separate song, most of which are trance/ambient related songs. They seem to fit the game, for some odd reason, but hearing the same song over and over again while stuck on a mission CAN get a bit annoying, and since PSP games have yet to offer custom soundtracks (except ATV... But that's not my style), you have to put up with it. Sound effects are nice, and fit their situations perfectly... Overall, sound is definitely a good thing in this game.

Buy or Rent?
Completely depends on who's into what. I myself am more biased towards driving/racing/adventure games (Syphon Filter, Metal Gear Solid, GTA, Gran Turismo, etc.), but I love this game. I'd definitely recommend at least checking it out just to see if you'll like it as well, because you just might. Puzzle fans should definitely pick this one up (especially Super Monkey Ball fans), if you can find it... I got mine off eBay...

Bottom line: It's definitely one of THE best PSP games out right now. Until MC3 and GT4 pop up, I'll have plenty of time to try to beat the last 3 worlds...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/05