"So comes a new liquid revolution in puzzle gaming, for fans of Puzzle Bobble and the like"

Most puzzle games these days are often about squares or cubes or any solid shape. Ever since Tetris, most puzzle games have used our quadrilateral friend in many puzzle games, following the same trend for years. Mercury, the brainchild of Archer Maclean, breaks away from that long tradition by including a lump of mercury, which you have to move around the tilting levels towards the goal.

Game-play:
Thankfully, it's easier said than done. The decent range of difficulty presents a challenge even for the most seasoned puzzlers. The high-scores are actually difficult to top (a rarity for video games that do have them), a challenge for perfectionists. This is no play-in-a-day game.
The overall execution of the game's ideas and whatnot is pretty good, even if it has the appeal (and looks) of some game downloaded off the Internet.

Sounds and Music:
The sound effects are spot on here, each sample delivered clean out your speakers. Plus the music is not distracting, it's quiet and out of the way as you play. The sounds made in the game are exactly what you'd expect them to make. I was very surprised by this.

Graphics:
This is a very sharp graphical game, the mercury is its usual business - splitting in two when pushing against a point or falling off an edge, mixing colours flawlessly, whatever else it would do in real life. Everything else looks as sharp too. The only problem is when separate mercury blobs go too far apart, and you struggle to see the blobs. This often ends up with your mercury falling.

Value:
At first, it may not seem like value, but as you play, it gets much harder, and afterwards, several months have passed. And then there's the high score tables, with hard scores to beat. This game will take ages to defeat 100%, and at the end of it all you'll likely know that the game is a good investment.

Overall:
This may be the next best thing in puzzle games. This demonstrates really well what's in the power of Sony's portable. With a little more work, it should clearly join the ranks of Tetris after a few years. Let's hope Archer Maclean has a sequel in the pipeline.

Score: 9 out of 10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/22/05