Reviews for Archer Maclean's Mercury

Mercury

Strengths: Simple to pickup puzzle game with nice graphics

Weakness: Becomes extremely difficult, lacks other modes

Mercury is a puzzle game in the Marble Madness/Super Money Ball vein - you control a blob of oozing mercury through various labyrinths. The control using the analog nub of the PSP can be a bit challenging, as is the camera at times (especially when your blob is split into 4 parts).

The game also gets insanely hard at later levels and is most likely a game that you will not finish unless you are very skilled or persistent. Still, this game is available fairly cheap now and is definitely worth a purchase if it can be found at a discount. Just be prepared to get frustrated at times with the difficulty.

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Moves like quicksilver, stuck like quicksand.

Strengths: Great graphics. Unique puzzler.

Weakness: High level of difficulty. Long loading times. Often feels sterile.

I like puzzle games, but I'm only lukewarm about Mercury.

I've never been very good at those labyrinth or rolling marble puzzles, though I always adored Marble Madness. Mercury, with its emphasis on puzzles, seemed like it would be a good choice.

Mercury has what I see as two intrinsic problems. The first is control. After having played WarioWare Twisted, this is the kind of game that screams for a tilt sensor. The analog nub, while sensitive, just doesn't feel right for the job. Control isn't a problem, as in other games, but just not what it feels like it should be.

My biggest complaint, though, with Mercury is the level structure, combined with the difficulty. Encounter a level that's too hard for you, and you're completely stuck. You can't go on to another set of levels, or another world. The difficulty and frustration ramps up quickly.

This is a game I want to like, or feel like I should like, more than I actually do. If you like very tough challenges, then this is for you. I wish it were a bit more fun, though.

While the idea of whizzing little colored blobs through mazes seems like it would be fun, it's far more difficult and far less fun than you might think. Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball have their personalities to fall back on when things get really frustrating. I wish there was more in Mercury to draw you in, or give you something to do when the challenge gets to be too much.

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Archer Maclean's Mercury PSP

Strengths: graphics

I really have enjoyed playing this game. The graphics are great, the PSP has great graphics in gereral. There are different ways to unlock new worlds, either by completing boards based on time, or by percentage of mercury lost. Tilting the board using the mini joystick on the PSP is quite realistic and easy to control, that doesn't mean that the game is easy though. If you like puzzle type games you will love this.

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Mercury

Strengths: Graphics

Weakness: Repetitive, but still fun

This game is pretty good, but not the best puzzler around. The puzzles are pretty unique, and everything runs smoothly. It just gets a little bit repetitive after a while. Overall a fantastic game though.

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Great handheld puzzler

Strengths: Beautiful graphics, tons of stages, nice replayability

Weakness: Gets very tough, long load times

Lumines is still your best bet for a PSP puzzle game, but Mercury is not a bad buy if you've already had your fill of that puzzle game. In Mercury, you slide around a pile (or many piles) of Mercury, in an attempt to accomplish several different goals, like getting to the end or hitting all the switches. You're always under a time limit, and there's also the very real threat of losing too much of your mercury. The game features beautiful graphics and physics, but they come at a high price--excessive load times before each and every stage. The game also gets brutally tough once you've cleared the first two or three worlds, and only the true die-hards will see what the final areas have to offer. An excellent game if you love games like Super Monkey Ball.

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Archer Maclean's Mercury

Strengths: Cool graphics and mercury effects are right on.

Weakness: A bit frustrating at times

This is really a great game. I am a little surprised at some of the load times with the graphics seeming to be much less than that of Need for Speed Underground Rivals. The game has a good 'feel' where you get used to sensing how your mercury will react when hitting objects at certain speeds, etc. The only thing I can say about this game that could have been improved would be the difficulty level. I got stuck so bad after playing the game for quite a long time that I eventually stopped playing which is a shame. There really are some creative level designs in the game and if they would have made the time limits a bit more forgiving (perhaps even making it easier after you failed a level several times in a row) it would be near perfect. Once you solve a level, there is not really a lot of incentive to go back over the level unless you want the high score which is HARD to get.

I would recommend this game even though it is difficult after some time. It is a unique concept and is really fun. It would have been cool if they had included the motion sensor that was talked about prior to the games release. This would allow you to tilt the PSP and cause your game to react accordingly. I can't imagine how much MORE difficult this would have made it though, so perhaps that is why it was left out.

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Archer Macleans Mercury

Archer Macleans Mercury receives an overall TopTenREVIEWS rating of 3.15 out of 4.00. It is ranked the #1,954 game of all time and #61 PlayStation Portable game of all time. The rating and ranking is based on an average of 53 critic scores, awards and other criteria. To see a breakdown of the game ranking, read individual critic reviews, or see how other games ranked, click on the link below.

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Archer MacLean's Mercury Review

The graphics are one of this game's high points. Your blob of mercury is very impressive looking, retaining the shine and reflection one would expect from liquid metal. The divisions and colors of the mercury are done very smoothly, and it pulsates nicely as it slides along the playfield. The fields themselves are bright and colorful, with plenty of wacky items and objectives to keep each level...

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Seven PSP Games Reviewed

Fast forward a few years; take the same concept and toss in hardware several hundred times faster, incredible graphics, long load times, and a poisonous liquid element and you have Mercury. Instead of a marble, you have to move small blobs of mercury through the various levels of the game. Like Marble Madness, the game is filled with obstacles and Rube-Goldberg-like devices that bar or assist...

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Archer Maclean's Mercury

The puzzle game market for the PSP so far is owned by Lumines, but more are just around the corner. Archer Maclean’s Mercury is one of these titles, and while it’s not quite as addicting, it offers a unique and challenging adventure. In Mercury you guide a ball of mercury (go figure) through mazes of various obstacles to light a beacon at the end of the treacherous path. To move the mercury...

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Archer Maclean's Mercury

The aim of the game is simple. Without spilling too much, guide your various, colored mercury blobs around each 3D maze simply by "tilting" the level. Watch as the liquid metal blobs ebb and flow around the countless challenges encountered along the way.

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