Project Mercury

[b] Project Mercury [/b] mimics Contra's mechanics but fails to capture its engaging gameplay. Even by retro standards, I would say that this game is too simplistic. You can skip 90% of the enemies without ever using a gun. It just feels that aliens are patrolling instead of coming after you. Needless to say that Project Mercury is less than a challenging experience. You can easily beat it under two 2 hours and get the 3 worthless achievements. Laser and Spread are the only special weapons and they have very little ammo. Although you can occasionally find some ammo, your best bet is to always save it for the boss. I thought the boss fights were decent but it seems like there is always a way to abuse them in a correct spot. The game is not very balanced as the last boss was easier than some of the other. The platforming elements were not very dynamic. Project Mercury has things like wall climb which was very underutilized. I like the aesthetic of the game and the music as well. The ch...

Very good price for the type of game that it is. Controls are nice, the levels are fun, the small story that it gives is pretty interesting, the music is very well made, the look of it is very SNES, and the gameplay itself is very solid! Levels 2-5 can be played in any order and some even have extra power ups to help you for levels you might be having problems on. I found that pretty cool. The only con for this game is that it can be a tad short if you're really good at games like this. I clocked in at just over two hours with a few deaths under my belt, but as I said for the price that it is you're going to to find a nice challenge and lots of fun. I could also see this game being speedrun material too if you are into that so that’s something to consider as well.

Project Mercury is a contra clone with a weird graphics style. It kind of reminds me of those old vector arcade games, the soundtrack is good, and keeps you pumped up for the onscreen action. Controls are simple, one button shoots, one jumps, you can hold RB to stand in place and shoot while LB changes weapons. The controls are responsive but the jump takes a bit of getting used to. When you jump you will move forward as long as you are holding forward, if you stop pressing forward your character immediately stops any forward motion. This took some getting used to because most games have some form of momentum in their jumps and this one does not. It does work well though, there are lots of tiny platforms to jump on and just having the ability to stop your forward momentum makes these precision jumps easier. The level layout is fun and has a few variances besides the standard run/gun/jump style. There are several levels where you you are on a speederbike(ala 3rd stage of comt...

So this game is stupid hard at first. There are not enough health drops and the enemies get cheap shots all the time BUT it is doable. I stopped playing out of frustration months ago because I MAYBE beat one stage and never saw a boss on any other. After coming back to it, I have now beaten all 4 levels in one sitting (an hour) and now I am on the second level of the last level line-up. Damn if it isn't tricky. If you like challenging games and old NES feel, then give this a go. One thing that is sad though is that the cool color variations in the screenshots are not what the final game looks like. All the enemies are the same color which I think is a downgrade from the multicolor shots that are shown. Oh and some advice: the drops that look like health (because they have a cross on them) are ammo for special weapons once you get them.