Puzzle

As much as I wish developers would find more creative ways to engage players than sex and violence, I must also confess that the Myst series is wholly inadequate as a leader to guide developers out of their narrow minds.

Game Description: In Zooo you'll have to capture the escaped animals by lining and capturing 3 or more of them! This great puzzle game takes place on an 8x8 field, where your skills and reflexes will be put to the test. Features five different game modes.

Zooo is a "things switching places" sort of puzzler. Players must capture animals by lining up at least three of the same kind of creature—three lions, three elephants, etc. Lines can be either vertical or horizontal; they're formed by flipping two animals that are right next to each other. Anybody who's played Bejeweled knows this drill, but the game is no less fun for that.

Before the PSP was even released, I knew I liked the look of Archer MacLean's Mercury…but didn't like the look enough to buy the game right off the bat. In fact, I guess I should confess and say that I basically bought every PSP game I was even halfway interested in before buying Mercury.

In essence, as with the familiar single-screen action of Lumines and Meteos, Awesome Studios' contribution to this new wave could be accused of conservatism. Core gameplay involves completing maze-based goals by safely guiding a globule of mercury up ramps, around nerve-jangling precipices, along conveyor belts, over bridges, through cog systems, across precarious platforms, etc., and all within a time limit.

Game Description: In Archer Maclean's Mercury you'll watch as liquid metal blobs ebb and flow around the countless challenges you'll encounter. Guide various colored mercury droplets around each 3D maze simply by 'tilting' the level. Negotiate obstacles and hazards, solve puzzles, compete against ever tightening time and percentage limits, whilst avoiding all the traps and predators. Make it to the last levels and you'll bosses who'll push your puzzle-solving abilities to their limits.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Language, Violence

Myst III: Exile is a fine example of conceptual stagnation, an often mind-numbing exercise in tedium that despite grand intentions, feels more like a relic than a new and interesting concept.