Mercury Station or, more specifically, Lo-Res Spaceman at Mercury Station, is a rather old Game Maker game which itself is a throwback to even older FPS games. While freeware 3D indie games may be rather common now, they were exceptionally rare back when Mercury Station was released (excluding Doom mods and the like), making this something of a technical marvel. Though it has its share of flaws, perhaps most notably its lack of a map, Mercury Station nevertheless has plenty of entertainment to offer with an open approach to progression, interesting weapons, and varied regions.
Mercury Station is more interesting for its historical context as an old 3D Game Maker game than for its gameplay. With the arrival of Unity, improvements to Game Maker itself, and a substantial increase in the number of indie developers out there, the concept of a “3D indie game” no longer possesses the sense of novelty it once had. There are plenty of free and cheap indie FPS’s out there which have more polish and substance than this one. That said, Mercury Station is a far cry from the worst FPS either; it’s a decent game which gets bonus points for historical value.
Exploration is both a strength and a weakness here. Most of your time is spent on the titular Mercury Station, a space station divided into six distinct areas. Every area has a boss which drops a new weapon upon defeat and there are upgrades for your maximum health and armor scattered all over the place. Most importantly, the path you take through this station is incredibly flexible; only the first and final areas are mandatory along with your choice between Research or Engineering along the way.
The whole station is connected, so you can revisit old or skipped areas whenever you want as long as you don’t mind a bit of backtracking. Mercury Station can be finished in about 30 minutes or less if you rush to the goal and manage to defeat the final boss with minimal weapons and upgrades, but it can also occupy a full hour or two if you decide to explore more thoroughly. This game’s on the shorter side even when fully explored, yet it has a decent amount of replay value due to its branching paths and flexible length.
You can really feel the complete lack of a map at times in this game. Individual areas aren’t too big, but they are dense. Many sections are packed with air ducts and small, square rooms to run through. While each area may indeed have a distinct look to it, the rooms and passages within an area have a tendency to blend together. It’s easy to get turned around and the “lo-res” aesthetic feels significantly less charming when it causes you to run into a wall or miss an intersection. Doors thankfully remain open as long as you stay in an area so they can serve as a makeshift breadcrumb trail of sorts, though if you open too many this “feature” becomes less useful. Enemies remain dead for the rest of the game once you kill them, even if you die and restart at the beginning of an area, which is sort of a nice design decision, though in this case it means that getting lost can lead to running in circles through empty room after empty room with nothing to do.
Research is far and away the worst area when it comes to design. Electrified tiles and glass barriers which you need to find switches for are the unique gimmicks in Research and these are fine. The problem here is that Research is one of the larger areas and it consists of very similar electrified square rooms, blue corridors filled with intersections, and horrible air ducts. It’s virtually impossible to tell one square room from another unless one has enemies and the other doesn’t and it’s difficult to see intersections in the even more identical corridors unless you’re looking right at them. Nearly every area has optional air duct segments, but the ones in Research are maze-like and it’s often impossible to tell if you’re moving down a path or running mindlessly into a wall. It may have some neat gimmicks, but it’s painfully easy to get lost for minutes on end in Research. If only there was a map or at least a compass.
Enemy variety is a tossup here. Visually, there are plenty of enemy types. Green, humanoid aliens are the most common foes and the color of their clothing denotes their strength. Several types of red, insectoid foes, mechanical sentries, and other aliens also exist. Ultimately though, all of these enemies fall into three categories. Most enemies periodically shoot a single energy bullet while running around with the only difference between them being their movement speed and their health. Red enemies rush at you in swarms for melee attacks with a single, rather rare, explosive variant. Lastly, some enemies stand in place with shields and periodically shoot. Every boss is also unique, though none of the fights are particularly memorable. The lack of variety in enemy behavior is acceptable due to Mercury Station‘s fairly short duration, though it’s still certainly not great. If nothing else, I do appreciate the decision to fill the station with destructible potted plants which, thanks to the aesthetic, are easily mistaken for green aliens.
Weapon variety fairs better than the enemy variety. Your starting gun fires a single bullet for every click of the mouse and it slowly regains ammo if you fall below a certain amount, making it a handy weapon even by the end of the game. A wrench serves as both a melee weapon and your way of opening air vents while both rockets and bombs can destroy certain barriers. The remaining weapons don’t have support functions, but they vary significantly in terms of speed and damage per bullet. There are three types of ammo, each of which is used for two of the seven weapons (the wrench doesn’t require ammo of course) and Mercury Station is generous with ammo so you’re free to use your favorite weapons without worrying much about conserving ammo for later. This is a solid weapon loadout marred only by the general lack of interesting and difficult enemies to wield it against.
Mercury Station isn’t going to win any awards, but it serves as an enjoyable way to play through a little bit of indie game history.