Mercury Meltdown Revolution

November 7,2007 - Mercury Meltdown Revolution happens to be a rare breed amongst Wii games these days, the budget title that is actually budget-priced. Instead of being a licensed or budget game, this puzzle game puts you up to the task of guiding your blob of Mercury to the end of level. Being a logical fit for the Wii and coming at a great price, there's a lot of good will pushing this game to succeed. Does it follow through and deliver the great gameplay to complete the Wii Triple Crown?

Strangely enough, the first Mercury game on the PSP was supposed to feature a tilt control attachment long before the Wii was ever in the minds of gamers, but it never materialized. Going through a second iteration without a tilt peripheral, the developers saw the chance to finally deliver on the promise of the original with an enhanced port of Mercury Meltdown for the Wii. If the tilt control is not to your liking, the Classic Controller and its analog sticks are the alternate method of control. While the game may be cheap, it's not skimping on the content, as Revolution includes over 150 puzzles in several labs, a handful of unique party games, and other unlockables that you earn as you play through the game.

With so many puzzles to complete, it may seem likely that most of the levels in Revolution will be just the same thing each time, just slightly different. Luckily, there are a lot of different obstacles that are placed in levels that do make each level play differently. Besides just the plain use of paths and inclines for the most basic of levels, there are color lasers that tie into puzzles where you need to color your mercury to open doors or even to just finish the level. You'll also need to spruce up on your color wheel as there are plenty of puzzles where you need to split your mercury and color them separately to create a specific color upon merging them together. Other levels make use of various types of enemies that'll eat or destroy a portion of your blob if you're not careful.

There are a multitude of other things that can be thrown into the mix, such as lasers that will warm up your blob into a liquid-like state, cool down your blob into a more solid state, or even freeze it into a ball that you can use to ride rails across a level. With all of this stuff being at play in any of the levels you see, the developers made a concession for your sanity in that you can continue on through levels regardless of the timer running out or losing a significant portion of your blob. You'll just get a lower score, as a result. Getting through levels efficiently, along with collecting bonus stars, unlocks new labs, party games, and skins for the mercury, though it's not going to be easy. If you think this stuff would make the game hard, you're definitley right, and it gets harder if you're aiming to get high scores on the first try, too. The tilt control isn't as intuitive as it could be, partially as a result of the camera, the unintuitive use of rumble, and the inherent difficulty of the levels. Using the Classic Controller gives you back the precise control, so the game's much more manageable than before.

There are five party games to unlock in Revolution, which include the Rodeo, Race, Metrix, Shove, and Paint modes. As you progress through the main game, you'll unlock new levels for each of the party games, so there's a bit of variation in in each level you unlock. Rodeo is an interesting bull-riding-like game with a fan trying to knock you off of a platform. Race is what you think it sounds like, a decent time trial racing game. Metrix is a decent puzzle game that is easy enough that takes too long to really be all that fun. Shove is a cool game that's basically curling with mercury. Paint is what you may guess, as you must paint more of the tray you're in compared to what your opponent can do. They provide some nice distractions from the main mode, but most of the appeal of the game is the dearth of single-player content. If you're in need of some practice, there's a playground mode that gives you one level with most of the obstacles you will encounter in the game to just go nuts and try out whatever you can think of.

The first Mercury game took a realistic approach to the look of the Mercury, Revolution takes a more cartoony approach, at least initially, that puts a thick cel-shaded line around the mercury that fits the tone of the levels that you'll see. For the purists, you can unlock new skins, which can bring back the realistic-looking mercury along with more skins to add some neat, new looks to the mercury you'll control. Each of the labs has a different theme, which comes through in the look of its levels and backgrounds quite nicely. Camera control is handled every button on the Remote that's freed up of tilt control, with the d-pad rotating the camera and the 1 and 2 buttons zooming in and out. It's a bit complicated to be using alongside the tilt, but a good mixture of quick adjustments and tilting is the best solution.

The least impressive part of Revolution is easily the audio, as it's really unnecessary to even have the audio on at all while playing the game. From the music to the sound effects, it's as average as it could be.

Ports may be a mess in general on the Wii, but Mercury Meltdown Revolution does it right by not screwing you over on the "Wii tax" most ports include in their prices. With a lot of content, a good challenge, and all at an affordable price, there's little reason that Wii owners who enjoy puzzle games shouldn't pick up Revolution as soon as possible.

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