Blob Control to Conquer the World

Already hailed as one of the most innovative PSP games - after all it has introduced the term ‘blob control’ into the gaming lexicon - Archer Maclean’s Mercury is picking up the interest of publishers around the world. Of course, being developed in the UK, it was always going to be released here, with Atari announcing it has picked up the UK, France and German rights for PSP’s 1 September launch. More surprising however is the news Sony Japan has decided to publish the game there. It will be re-titled as [Hg] Hydrium.

Very few non-Japanese developed games are released in the country because of the large cultural differences between the types of games Eastern and Western players enjoy. For example, GTA: San Andreas sold less than 50,000 units in Japanese, despite PlayStation2 having an install base of 19 million. Equally, one of best selling Japanese games Dragon Quest - which has sold as many millions copies as the Final Fantasy series - isn’t released at all in Europe. As a non-language-based puzzle game, presumably Sony thinks [Hg] Hydrium appeals to global audience.

As its title suggests Mercury is a puzzle game in which you tilt levels using the PSP analogue stick in order to guide a gorgeous stream of liquid Mercury metal around various obstacles, switches and platforms. There are seven different themed-worlds - including an unlockable secret realm - and 72 levels to conqueror. The puzzle elements vary from needing to split the mercury into several coloured component parts, to using devices such as teleporter, spinners, bridges and flux transmitters. And you’ll have defeat an end-of-level boss too.