The periodic table of elements, something so educational yet seemingly mind numbing. Whoever imagined that it could be combined with fun and packed into a charming little XBLA title called Mercury Hg?! It is developed by Eiconic Games and is a puzzle arcade game.
For a measly 400 MS points ($4.99), the game offers over 60 levels of clever puzzles to wade through with a blob, all the while travelling through the periodic table. You must tilt your level while attempting to balance your little Mercury blob all the while traversing through weird and whacky levels, and if you veer off the edge or fall to traps, you lose some of your Mercury. You begin simply enough with the element Hydrogen and progress by moving down the groups as you pass each level.
The “discovery” mode is the staple of this game and where most gamers will start out. It also does feature a challenge mode and within thse modes, you can also use “ghosts” (along with leaderboards) which allow you to play against and beat other’s times over Xbox Live. Within each level, you can earn bonus points (called atoms) by accomplishing tasks like completing the level withing a certain time limit or gathering collectibles around the map and even completing the game with 100% of your Mercuy blob.
Once you earn enough of these atoms however, you unlock new groups of elements to explore. Also, if you collect all the bonus items on each level, you unlock a secret version of that level to complete. But the great thing here is that you do not have to achieve these bonuses collectively, but you can instead do a seperate playthrough of a level to unlock a certain bonus point which is a definite bonus for the game. It leaves the frustration off but leaves the little bit of challenge that makes you want to come back and take a whack at that alluding level once again. Then there is the “challenge” mode which, as it sounds, provides harder versions of levels but not overly done so.
Some levels even require you to change the colours of your blob and sometimes to even split it up into two different colours and combine them to create a completely new colour. The game itself is of quite a simplistic in design and in the challenge mode which, as it sounds, are harder versions of levels. The levels are plain and retro-like with an ode to it’s predecessor on the PSP. The game also has a very soothing soundtrack and the levels also beat & pulsate with the songs. A feature that I found very amazing is the ability to use your own custom music to play the game, it picks up the beat and tunes the level to your music! Another thing to note is that though the game might not offer much educational value, it can be a fun learning tool and inspiration for kids.
Overall, the game has pretty smooth controls on the Xbox with next to zero noticeable bugs. It works beautifully while having a great arcadey feel. The game has pretty crisp and clean graphics and although they aren’t very flashy, they are definitely vibrant and colourful. There aren’t any true cons to this game besides perhaps the rather short nature of these levels. As you are hooked onto the game, you find yourself warping through them pretty fast and once you’ve gotten all the collectibles and raced against all the ghosts and bragged about your leaderboard rankings however, you’ve probably gone through a good $5 worth of XBLA. And one big improvement I can hope they bring to the game is offline co-op so you can actually race it out in real time to see who’s got the best skills but ultimately, Mercury Hg is a must buy for any puzzle junkie out there with an extra five dollars burning a hole in their pockets.