Mercury Meltdown review

Tilt and roll through hours of gooey puzzling goodness

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The trickiest puzzles involve simultaneously maneuvering multiple balls of mercury, turning each one a specific color to unlock color-coded doors and finally land each one on a specific goal.

Meltdown 's beauty, however, is not just in its cartoony, cell-shaded look but in its layers of deceptive complexity.

Initially, this appears to be a straightforward puzzle game with simplistic controls that can be mastered in minutes. After a few levels, however, you'll discover that learning the best strategies to conquer increasingly complicated and challenging levels, collecting every item and finishing in time requires quite a bit of creative thinking, divided attention and patience.

Misjudge a ledge or tilt a little to much and your glob will literally slip off the board, leaving you with but a drop of your former existence.And becauseno one likes to be belittled and the levels are pretty fun, you'll want to repeatedly return to each scene to try and prove your worth to both the game and to yourself for a rewarding sense of accomplishment.

Although the puzzles range from easy to downright frustrating, we couldn't find any that were impossible to complete with the right tactic such as conceding a bit of ego and cutting down your doughy mass to tread the thinnest ramps. The developer has done a good job increasing the difficulty between the levels and interspersing easier boards for a brief stress break. Also, by taking away the dead stop when time runs out, you have all the time you need to explore each board and not throw down the system when you are stopped a drip away from the finish line.

More info

DescriptionTilt game boards to maneuver a wad of mercury around a multi-tiered maze. It's more fun than it sounds, with enough gooey puzzling goodness to keep a gamer busy for quite a while.
Platform"PSP","Wii"
US censor rating"Everyone","Everyone"
UK censor rating"",""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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