[Wii] The Conduit

Introduction

The Wii doesn’t have many good first-person shooters. The best ones I can think of are Metroid Prime 3, Call of Duty: World at War and Red Steel. Those are all good games, but they still don’t come close to the FPS games that the HD consoles are offering. So when The Conduit was announced last year, many Wii owners couldn’t wait for its release. The developer (High Voltage Software) promised a mature shooter with incredible graphics that was being built from the ground up on Wii. One year later, the final version of the game is out, but is it as good as we were all hoping for?

I am a big fan of first-person shooters, and I also happen to like the Wii. I was anticipating this game just as much as most of you were, but unfortunately, The Conduit is a major disappointment. While High Voltage got a few things right, they also did a ton of things completely wrong.

Single Player

In the game’s single player campaign mode, you play as a Secret Service agent named Michael Ford. Mysterious aliens known as the Drudge have invaded Washington DC through portals called Conduits, and it’s your job to stop them, as well as whoever’s behind it all. I could go into excruciating detail about the plot, but that’s what it all comes down to; you’re trying to stop an alien invasion. The plot is generic, uninteresting and completely forgettable. The campaign mode consists of nine linear stages, and you simply have to complete the objectives as they’re given to you to complete the stage. That’s really all there is to it. The Campaign is short (I completed it in just under seven hours), but there is some minor replay value since there are some secrets to uncover in the stages.

Multiplayer

The Conduit’s main hook is its multiplayer. You can play online with up to 11 other players across seven maps in 13 different game modes, which range from standard Deathmatches to more interesting ones like Bounty Hunter (where you need to hunt down a certain player). The game runs relatively lag-free (although it will vary based on your internet connection), although this might change when the PAL version is released in July. The game also supports the Wii Speak peripheral. Ultimately, the multiplayer is enjoyable, but it’s mostly nothing we haven’t seen before. Also, why is there no splitscreen mode?

Gameplay

The Conduit is a very standard first-person shooter. All you really do is enter a room, kill everybody in it, solve an occasional puzzle, and repeat. That pretty much describes every FPS I’ve played in the last five years. The game also makes use of a device called an All-Seeing Eye (A.S.E), which allows you to scan walls for invisible items, disable bombs and hack computer terminals. In some ways, it reminds me of the Scan Visor from the Metroid Prime games. The problem is that the A.S.E is never really put to good use. All you do is pull it out when the indicator flashes (and beeps), scan the area for what you’re supposed to find, activate (or deactivate it), and continue on.

From what you’ve read so far, you probably think that the game is an average FPS. But The Conduit suffers from a long list of design flaws. To start, the game’s difficulty has no consistency whatsoever. The game seems to always be either too easy or too hard. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, but this game is difficult for all of the wrong reasons. The poorly designed stages usually consist of narrow corridors with absolutely nowhere to take cover. That leaves you completely vulnerable to enemy attacks. There are also times where you open a door, only to have a Drudge Mite self-destruct in your face, or a group of enemy soldiers shoot you down before you can react. Yes, cheap deaths are pretty unavoidable in this game, and it forces you to resort to tedious trial and error crap. You can change the difficulty on the fly (a nice feature), but it doesn't seem to help you much.

Another thing that I absolutely hate about The Conduit is how enemies despicably respawn as soon as you kill them thanks to the enemy generators (called Egg Sacs and Conduits) that are scattered throughout the stages. There are at least 5 or more (sometimes even 10) in each room. Why couldn’t there just be a set amount of aliens in each section, like the human soldiers? Instead, there are 80 million generators all over the place that pop enemies out as fast as you can kill them, and you have to destroy all of the generators before you can finally kill off everything. As if that wasn’t bad enough, some enemies can kill you in a few hits, so you can’t just ignore the enemies and focus on the generators. Your health bar does begin to regenerate after a few seconds, but it’s too slow to be helpful half of the time. And since there are times where you have nothing to take cover behind, it’s nearly impossible to restore your life when you’re getting your guts hacked out. When all of those problems pile up and you suffer death after death, you’ll just want to throw your Wii remote at the television. Maybe they were trying to make up for the fact that there aren’t any real boss battles.

But despite the unbelievably frustrating gameplay, The Conduit excels in the control area. Basically if you don’t like the default control scheme, you can map any function to any button (or motion) on your controller. The controls are so customizable, that if you wanted, you could shoot with the 2 button and pause by thrusting the Wii remote forward. Even better, you can adjust the sensitivity of the motion controls, as well as your turning speed, running speed (wow), and your camera. The controls are outstanding, and feel very comfortable once you customize them. But the great controls can’t save the generic, frustrating gameplay.

Graphics and Sound

For the graphics, High Voltage designed an engine made specifically for the Wii called the Quantum3 engine, which enables a ton of unique graphical features normally only used for the 360 and PS3. It makes the graphics look absolutely stunning; and it runs incredibly well (no framerate drops or glitches in sight). This is easily the best-looking game on Wii. Well, it should be, but the graphics are completely wasted on an art direction that’s dull and generic. The static environments look very unappealing, and it really hurts the otherwise-superb visuals. The music is pretty good, but the voice-acting seems forced and over-the-top (although it is still competently done).

Overall

The Conduit is a very disappointing game. The single player mode is poor at best, and while the multiplayer mode plays much better, it’s still not as good as many of the FPS offerings on other platforms (Metroid Prime Hunters on DS had more maps, and they all had better design). Two good things did come out of this game, though; the Quantum3 engine and the superb controls. The Conduit is worth a rental, but unless you’re absolutely desperate for some multiplayer shooting action and all you own is a Wii, then you can skip this one. Hopefully the imminent sequel will address this game’s issues.


+ Superb graphics
+ Excellent controls
+ Decent multiplayer

- Poor Art Direction
- Wildly uneven difficulty
- Short single player campaign
- Bad storyline
- Generic

. Rent/Avoid

Nice review, kudos. If you're a developer who can make a decent FPS, your console of choice is certainly not the Wii. It's a shame really.

Well I still think the game deserves a better score, at least an insant +10 because of the fact that it's on an inappropriate console. Besides, Multiplayer is the shit these days, and I know this games pulls it off nicely.

Lasting appeal is flawed. Multiplayer aspect will last a very long time. If graphics are so good, why the 8? Surely it must be 9 or even 10... The Art direction is irrelevant, whatever that means anyway.

cheers for the review big lad. always good to get more 'views on a game. I was looking to get as it sounded cool and it would be good to have some action along with the sport I have. Keep up the good work.

"That pretty much describes every FPS I’ve played in the last five years."

It seems you typed that as if it was bad thing.

"Another thing that I absolutely hate about The Conduit is how enemies despicably respawn....and you have to destroy all of the generators before you can finally kill off everything."

A bit like MPH then.

"you can map any function to any button (or motion) on your controller."

Not true, much to my annoyance.

You should have mentioned the glitches. I have had to restart my Wii over 10 times in the last 2 days playing online.

Originally Posted by Mark

"That pretty much describes every FPS I’ve played in the last five years."

It seems you typed that as if it was bad thing.

It isn't.

Originally Posted by Mark

"Another thing that I absolutely hate about The Conduit is how enemies despicably respawn....and you have to destroy all of the generators before you can finally kill off everything."

A bit like MPH then.

I don't remember any generators in MPH. And if there were, they were NEVER as bad as they are in the Conduit.

Originally Posted by Mark

"you can map any function to any button (or motion) on your controller."

Not true, much to my annoyance.

Explain.

Originally Posted by Mark

You should have mentioned the glitches. I have had to restart my Wii over 10 times in the last 2 days playing online.

I have not encountered any glitches.

If you try to map certain functions such as reload to motion it won't let you.

What causes this brown screen glitch in The Conduit during online Multiplayer? - Yahoo! Answers

Find more glitches on Google.

Mark, you're such an exploiter.

And another good review by TDMH
Anyway, this I haven't played (don't own a Wii anymore, extreme sadface), but it seems the did pretty decent with the Quantum3. Corruption's still the best Wii FPS in my opinion, at least until the Metroid Trilogy comes out.
That bad huh?
The Wii remote is a godsend for FPS', the underpowered hardware is a major letdown though. As for the lack of creativity, look at MPH. A five year old could have made a better story, but the multiplayer was the reason to buy it. Sure, now its practically extinct, but it spawned one of the greatest sites ever. Namely E-N.
As for the control options, that's awesome