Ignition

Them's Fightin' Words!

HIGH Getting the anagram in a game-winning skirmish.

LOW European spellings and foreign words not in common usage.

WTF So "JUNE" isn't acceptable, but "JUN" is?

Lost in a Crowd

HIGH Making a tower of shoulder-standin' buddies is as cute as a kitten sandwich.

LOW Dealing with the scoring system saps a lot of joy from the game.

WTF The "Mama" character is pretty amazing.  Why can't more mothers be enormous, gelatinous blobs who spew bipedal underlings?

Lynchlike

HIGH The feeling of truly playing a detective let loose in a small town.

LOW Combat doesn't belong in this game at all.

WTF Moments are too frequent to pick just one... in a good way.

My Coffee Warned Me About It

HIGH Running desperately from the Raincoat Killer.

LOW Driving around town with my car constantly trying to take off to the left.

WTF "F K... In the coffee!"

You've Seen it all Before

HIGH Pitch-perfect turn-based combat on the ground.

LOW Unbalanced, tedious battles in the air.

WTF I can't use an item because you broke my gun?

Not nearly as sharp as it looks

HIGH The hand-drawn artwork is incredible eye-candy.

LOW Feels empty and barren; a rough sketch of a bigger game.

WTF Did the developers honestly think that style trumps substance?

Although the first Mercury on PSP didn't set the world on fire, it was a unique twist on the traditional "rolling puzzle" game with its own unusual charm. I grew to admire the physics of sloshing liquid metal through clever setups, and the abstract aesthetics of its shimmering sheen appealed to the art wonk in me.