Spiritualists and healers in the Far East who used to attribute mercury with healing properties would have been run out of town if they'd cited. Bored of companies cashing in on the Wii craze by lazily tacking on motion sensing control? However, Ignition Banbury buck the.

As everyone who's reading this sentence for the second time knows, Mercury was originally designed to work with a PSP motion sensor that never made it into production, so Mercury Meltdown Revolution is a very logical release. Other developers have had to sit around making up reasons for you to flap your arms; Ignition Banbury already had one, and a very good one, too. Critically acclaimed on the PSP even without the sensor, the second game won itself 9/10 just a few short months ago, as we reasoned that while it may be good at raising your temperature, it's still a timeless example of how to pit player against environment. Can it repeat the trick on the console that might as well be its home?

Some early Wii titles have taken as much as an hour to explain their controls, but Mercury is so simple that the optional tutorial can afford to spend most of its time talking about other things. You hold the Wiimote in both hands like a traditional game controller with the buttons facing upward, and as you tilt it the ground beneath the blob of silvery mercury on-screen follows suit. A tiny dead-zone in the centre ensures that accidental twitches don't send the mercury flying off-course, and outside of that dead-zone the reaction is perfectly judged. The only things that take getting used to are rotating the camera 90 degrees left and right with the d-pad, using A and B to zoom in and out, and reaching for the minus button to bring up the free-look mode, which allows you to examine the level design at your leisure and decide on the best route to the goal. Beyond that, the consistency of the physics and the game's reaction to your input put you firm control, resulting in one of the most intuitive Wii games you'll ever play. The developers have chosen not to restrict players to using the Wiimote either, offering the Classic Controller's analogue stick as an alternative. It's a testament to the developer's mastery of the Wii hardware that neither offers a big advantage over the other.

The Wii version also introduces several new levels, and changes the order in which you encounter some of the existing ones to help smooth out the difficulty curve. In many respects though it's the same game that we liked so much on PSP, and that's no bad thing. Full of charm and enterprise, each of the game's more-than 150 levels asks you to navigate narrow platforms, throw switches to open gates, and eventually make your way to a chequered square at the end. Bonuses like unlockable mini-games are offered to players who can collect all of a level's stars, get to the end with 100% of the blob intact, or make it through with time still on the clock. The game won't penalise you if run into trouble, either. Large numbers of levels are unlocked at once, and you don't need to finish all of them to reach the later stages. Nor do you need to start again if the time runs out; the only thing that kills you is falling off the level into the abyss, or having all of your mercury zapped away in one of the level's traps.

Next to minigame collections, the second most common genre on the Wii is the tilt game.You’ve seen them before. These titles let players guide a ball across a maze, using the Wii’s motion-sensing controls. The whole exercise reminds me of those Crackjack toys where you had to tilt a marble through a small labyrinth.Perhaps it’s this familiarity that has allowed these games to sprout like mushrooms on store shelves this year. Paragon definition sentence. The novice gamer looking for a new title probably sees something faintly recognizable in the gameplay.

They pick it up, scope the back and check out of Wal-Mart with disc in hand.These games are the video game equivalent of a Honda Civic. They appeal to a lot of people. They’re functional.

And they do an entertaining job for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. But anything beyond that is asking a little too much. These games aren’t meant to be spectacles. This was obvious while playing “Mercury Meltdown Revolution,” the latest game from Ignition Entertainment. The levels are set across a bland background and incorporate simple blocks and obstacles.There isn’t much of a “wow” factor aside from the mercury blob that inches across the landsacpe. The star of the game slides across ice, sticks to conveyer belts and loses droplets of itself if you peter over an edge.At certain points, players will have to change the mercury’s color to unlock gates or go through doors. Board kings hack. At first, this task is simple.

Move the blob under the red color-changer and then slide him through a crimson gate.But later, “Mercury Meltdown Revolution” gets harder as the puzzles become more complicated. Further on, you’ll have to split the blob and direct each piece to different colors — say blue and red — and then combine them later in the level to make purple.Getting these color combinations is the focus of numerous levels, but at the same time, it presents minor camera issues. When dividing your blob, the game often doesn’t know which one to focus on. Sometimes the camera lasers in on the wrong piece or you’ll have to play a guessing game off camera. Ignition partially fixes this problem by letting you switch the camera angle and it works about half the time.As for length, “Mercury Meltdown Revolution” has eight themed worlds to explore with enough variety and challenges to keep players busy. On top of that, there are five unlockable party games that are above-average at bestWhat separates Ignition’s title though is how the developer ramps up the challenge.

It never becomes mind-bogglingly hard. Players won’t go bald, pulling their hair out over a level or wondering how to cross a gaping chasm.When all is said and done, “Mercury Meltdown Revolution” won’t change the world of gaming or even its genre.But it is a solid title for the casual player. The pick-up-and-play aspect will appeal to them as will the number of puzzles and price tag.The title sells for $20, which is a good deal for fans looking for a decent puzzler on the cheap. WHAT: “Mecury Meltdown Revolution”. PLATFORM: Wii. RATING: Everyone. GRADE: C+.