What is MMR? Put simply, as the name suggests, it is a game in which you control a ball of mercury, complete with realistic mercury physics, as you attempt to guide said ball of mercury through one obstacle course after another. Remember those little hand held plastic mazes with tiny silver balls and holes, in which you tilted the game in all directions in your hand in an effort to get the balls to the goal? Take that and put it on your PS2. Now change the hard silver balls and turn them into mercury, add a loads of interactive obstacles, and you've got MMR. Your objectives are simple: get as much of the blob of mercury to the goal(s) as you can, as quickly as you can, and if possible beating the high score in the process. Each level takes only half a minute or so to complete (assuming you get it right on the first try). While you can still beat a level even after the timer has expired, doing so before time runs out will land you bonus points to your final score. Within each level, there are also bonus star objects. Collecting these will score points, not to mention unlocking extras such as party games which can be accessed from the menu system. While it is not necessary to get 100% of the mercury to the goal(s), nor is it necessary to beat the clock, score first place, or collect bonuses, doing these things will reward you with the aforementioned extras. In this respect, MMR is a fairly easy game for someone who isn't interested in getting everything perfect. For those of us who aim a little higher, achieving these goals provides a great challenge.

There are 10 “worlds” in MMR, referred to as Labs – each of which contains 16 base levels to play in. If you do the math, that works out to 160 levels of mercury ball rolling fun; however, you can also unlock bonus levels in each lab. These bonus levels tend to be quite a bit more difficult than the base levels. You will also find a tutorial, what is referred to as the playground, and several 'party games' in the menu (the latter of which must be unlocked). In the improbable event that you are some sort of cyborg who can beat every level perfectly in less than 30 seconds, you would get about 80 minutes of gameplay out of MMR. But lets be honest with ourselves. You're not a cyborg. Chances are, you'll end up replaying some levels dozens of times to even win with marginal success as you progress through the game. And if you're like me, a crazy achievement hoarding game freak, you'll spend hours upon hours trying to get every last bonus you can. If you find yourself stuck on a particular level, cursing the screen and howling insult at the level designer, don't sweat it – just try a different level. You don't have to beat the 16 levels of each lab in order. You can play any of them at any time, and you can go back and replay the ones you've already beat, in an effort to do better. You do however have to unlock each new lab before moving out of the lab you are in.

Some of the interesting elements that make the game fun include changing the color of your mercury ball or balls (that's right, you can easily break apart the mercury ball and merge the pieces back together) to get through color matched gates and obstacles, teleporters, conveyor belts, little mercury killing creatures, gravity affecting devices, and many, many more. At first, I wasn't sure how much fun the game would be when I realized your only interaction was to use the analog stick to tilt the level left, right, up, and down in an effort to roll your blob of mercury to the goal. But when you throw in some really good level design, and loads of these cool elements, you get a truly fun and challenging game that holds your attention. This one is great for the entire family, and it looks really good on my 60” HDTV for a PS2 game – something I was pleasantly surprised by. The interface is pretty and so easy to follow, even a person who's never touched a console in their life could pick up the controller and have a blast.

In a day when most game developers seem to have forgotten their roots, and countless studios seem to think the only games that sell involve killing people in as realistic looking ways as possible, MMR is a welcome addition to my game collection.