Mercury Meltdown for the Wii - Good reviews + $20 price tag

RainbowDespair

So this one just came out of nowhere for me: an action/puzzle game for the Wii called Mercury Meltdown Revolution. Control a piece of mercury through puzzle by rotating the surrounding via the Wii remote. The original version came out for the PSP where it was originally planned to have motion controls but sadly that feature was scrapped making a Wii version was a natural. Judging from the good reviews that it's getting (it had an 81% score on gamerankings.com based on over a dozen reviews at the time of this post), it's basically Monkey Ball or Kororinpa: Marble Madness, but done better - great controls, nice presentation, and a ton of well designed levels (more than any previous version of the game). And according to their respective websites, EBGames & Gamestop are selling it for $20 ($10 less than the MSRP). At $40 or $50, I would have probably passed this by, but at $20, I think I may just have to pay a visit to one of the local GameStop's today.

And here's a picture:

UnderHero5

Oh, nice. I've played the Mercury games on PSP, and they're pretty decent.
This would be a good buy at $20. I might have to pick it up eventually.

Lunker

I've played the PSP demo for a bit, but it seemed fairly by-the-books; it had a very Flash-game quality to it. That said, the concept of using the Wiimote as a tilt device makes me very interested, and the price point is fantastic. (Similar to Kororinpa, but that was even $40.)

skeldare

Oh Damn it. I've never played a Meltdown game before. But for this price I'm gonna have to.
Edit: Wait, this doesn't come out until August?

RainbowDespair

Whoops. Sorry about the date mixup. Apparently, it came out a week or two in Europe but isn't coming out 'til Aug 20th in the US.

YesNoMu

Aw man, I was just about to rush out and snag this. August 20 is too long to wait, especially with MP3 coming out then.

Still, that's a ridiculously good price. I'll have to grab this.

Omnimon

You won't beat this for $20 if they get the motion controls down. Mercury for the PSP does have a "Flash" feeling to it, but at the same time, well-developed Flash games are no joke in this business anymore.

elkatas

I bought this last saturday (euro version), and I really do like it. Controls are really fluid and intuitive, and you really do feel like you were controlling heavy blob of mercury. Controlling* camera could be easier, but it has only few times been real problem.

Graphically, Mercury Meltdown Revolution is pretty bad, and it is obvious that cellshading has been hastily slapped on game just for sake of it. Level design is truly superb, but I don't really like the fact that difficulty is all over the place. Some levels are laughably easy, and some are insanely hard. Still, game has been satisfying experience so far.

* You adjust camera with d-pad

The Dude With Herpes

So, pipe dreams eh?

It was fun way back when, hopefully this will be too.

Any word on multiplayer or lack of?

elkatas

KingsHand wrote: »

Any word on multiplayer or lack of?

By my understanding, two players, but second player must use Classic Controller! O_o

urahonky

elkatas wrote: »

KingsHand wrote: »

Any word on multiplayer or lack of?

By my understanding, two players, but second player must use Classic Controller! O_o

So you can call your friend:

Censored

a little bitch

For having to use a controller, while you control it with the wii-remote.

But that's all I can think is the reason

Cullen

Yeah its been reviewing very well, so I think I might pick this up soon.

SUPERSUGA

I picked this up last week and have just had my first proper go at it. Awesome fun, the low price means I'm enjoying it even more, I always get a little buyer's guilt after throwing £30 on a game.

My second remote isn't here at the moment so I can't try this out for myself, but does player two always have to use the Classic Controller or can a second remote be used?

If not... erm, why on Earth not?

Alfred J. Kwak

buying a game at this prize can't hurt anybody

SUPERSUGA

On a related note I was in Birmingham today and noticed that the majority of shops were selling this game for full price, £39.99!

Considering I got it for something like £17 from Amazon that's quite the rip off for the unknowing buyer.

LewieP

SUPERSUGA wrote: »

On a related note I was in Birmingham today and noticed that the majority of shops were selling this game for full price, £39.99!

Considering I got it for something like £17 from Amazon that's quite the rip off for the unknowing buyer.

same goes with Big Brain Academy

Accualt

This looks kind of like Marble Madness, only controlling the board instead of the ball.

I Marble Madness.

SUPERSUGA

Just got onto Cryo-lab, it's getting better! I'm not sure I quite get the theme for each lab other than the visuals. Hopefully there'll be some cold/frozen mercury levels in Cryo Lab.

So far the difficulty level has been pretty spot on. Allowing you to choose any stage to attempt within each lab was a good choice as getting stuck on a tricky level would really suck in this game.

Tip: Just realised you can change the mercury skin in the options, Skin2 looks so much better to me.

Bartholamue

Accualt wrote: »

This looks kind of like Marble Madness, only controlling the board instead of the ball.

I Marble Madness.

You just summed up Super Monkey Ball in one sentence. Have you never played it?

Accualt

I have never played Super Monkey Ball. Any of them. Ever.
I always thought they were monkeys playing golf and tennis and whatnot from inside of a ball.

If it is instead like a reverse Marble Madness then, well, I have wasted years.

Veevee

Accualt wrote: »

I have never played Super Monkey Ball. Any of them. Ever.
I always thought they were monkeys playing golf and tennis and whatnot from inside of a ball.

If it is instead like a reverse Marble Madness then, well, I have wasted years.

You are not the only one.

Darlan

I really, really enjoyed the Wii Super Monkey Ball. Sure it was difficult, but it was still always your fault when you failed, and success was very satisfying. I'll be picking this up for sure.

Tar

Wii SMB wasnt as good as Cube SMB 1, SMB 2 was good but the true challenge lies with 1. Regardless this does look like a must buy. Ill be plonking down my cash when it comes out.

SUPERSUGA

I considered Monkey Ball Wii for some time but eventually this came at a lower price and swayed me away. If anyone has both of these games I'd love to hear a comparison.

But yeah, when you freeze your mercury into a ball this game might as well be Marble Madness Wii. Many of the obstacles and such look like they're straight out of MM

Nickle

Kororinpa is a pretty good fix for the Marble Madness crowd as well, if you can find it cheap. There would need to be a few more levels to justify plunking down $40, but what's there is pretty damn fun.