Where
Mercury Meltdown Revolution left me feeling a little deflated was the lack of new material. This game has eight labs (each containing 16 test tubes or levels). Instead of providing eight all new labs, instead we get a mix of the labs found in
Mercury Meltdown and
Remix. That is to say, you can play through the Astro, Bio, Electro, Geo, Atom, Aero and Hydro labs found in both games, plus you also get to play the previously PS2 exclusive Cryo Lab instead of the Chem one found in the two other versions.
This isn't to say that these levels aren't fun; on the contrary, even though I was able to go through most of these levels pretty efficiently previously, didn't mean this time wasn't still fun and challenging. I had just done it already.
So, for those that have not had the chance to play a Mercury game yet, let's talk about the basic premise behind the series. Your job is to take as much of your blob in its mercury state across the game board and to the finish line. You will run into various walls and obstacles that will require you to change your blob into various colors or even make the mercury more or less solid by changing its temperature.
There are quite a few differences between the Meltdown versions and the original Mercury game. Besides the graphical differences and the ability to change states, the Meltdown games also change the balance a bit. In the original game, the requirements to proceed to the next puzzle were pretty stringent, but in this line, a lot of the restrictions have been let up in order to make it appeal to a much wider audience. In these games, you can try out any of the 16 levels in the current lab at any point, and you don't have to complete all the levels in the world in order to go on to the next one. You just need to save as much mercury as possible in each level since all the mercury you save goes into a game in the lab. Once that lab fills up, the next lab is opened.
Mercury Meltdown Revolution also has several mini-games, and all offer a nice distraction if you're getting too frustrated at the main game. Rodeo tests your ability to stay on the platform while it bucks around, while Paint sees if you can paint more of your color on the board than your opponent before the time runs out, while Shove is a shuffleboard-esque game. The last two games are Race where you try to make it through levels as quickly as possible and Metrix is an odd, yet really fun puzzle mini-game.
