Mercury Meltdown Revolution

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Be one with the blob. Be one with the Wiimote, too, but be one with the blob. This is how you survive in Mercury Meltdown Revolution.

Pros

  • Fun and challenging tasks, excellent controls, groovy background music

Cons

  • Lacks multiplayer in the Party Games section

Bottom Line

Ignition Entertainment did well bringing Mercury Meltdown Revolution to Wii. Recommended for any puzzlers with a steady hand.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 99.95 (AUD)

In Mercury Meltdown Revolution, you can almost imagine your "character" as liquid metal on the run. The game's aim is to puzzle through various themed laboratories, keeping your droplet intact while avoiding perilous hazards and pitfalls. To do that with a D-pad or analogue stick (an option using either the remote or classic controller) would be passé, but to do it with full motion control is still pretty fresh and quite a bit of fun.

Each lab features a series of test tube levels you can hop between at will since they are all unlocked with each lab. As you finish levels, the test tubes fill with the amount of mercury you managed to escape with, and earn a stopper at 100%. Being a liquid, though, it's really easy to break up into smaller droplets if you "pour" yourself off a drop too fast or hug a corner so tightly it splits you, and in fact some puzzles even require you to bisect in order to mix colours.

Colour is important for opening various colour-coded doors, and is adjusted either by taking a red, blue, or green shower, or mixing different coloured bits of yourself together to create yellow, pink or turquoise. As tired as colour-coded door puzzles have become, the act of physically tweaking your look and actively mixing paints keeps it feeling like more of a challenge and less of a slog.

Challenge speaks pretty well for most of the game, actually. With robotic arms shoving you off the often narrow pathways into the abyss, Mercoid monsters trying to eat you, and with the array of various tricky devices to convey you around the level (especially the Grav Benders that send you up to the ceiling and reverse the controls), it's going to take all your brain power and careful remote tilting reflexes to make it.

Good thing the controls rock! Tilting is incredibly sensitive to the point where you actually have to spend a moment growing accustomed to the tiny movements necessary to navigate at a speed that won't send you hurtling off the edge. Camera options are a-plenty, but even though you can choose which droplet to focus on, it's rare to have the presence of mind in an emergency to switch before the one you're looking at is lost. Background music grooves with more than enough variety to keep you sane, too.

The only real bummer here is the Party Games section. There is no party about it whatsoever, since they are all single player. As such, they feel pretty tacked on in a sheepy following of the mini-game stampede. Despite the multiplayer lack, it's fun enough taking turns on puzzles that you can play it with friends anyway.

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