The Conduit (Review) Wii
Expectations can really make or break a game. A game that’s brilliant can often be thought of as inferior due to high expectations. On the other hand, a game that’s mediocre may be interpreted as being a decent game to someone with low expectations. Thankfully, this reviewer went into SEGA and High Voltage’s very ambitious “The Conduit” with little to no expectations. So, how does the first “real” competitive shooter for the Nintendo Wii fare? While it has it’s (limited amount of) moments, it’s really nothing all that groundbreaking.
The Conduit is set in the near-future, geographically speaking, in Washington D.C., where an alien invasion threatens mankind’s safety. The country is in a state of uneasiness due to an outbreak of an infectious disease. Most of the government’s workers out of operation, with several workers attacking other workers for unexplainable reasons. In addition, several assassination attempts have been made on the President’s life by his own Secret Service detail. Agent Michael Ford, having saved the President on one occasion, has earnt himself a place in “The Trust”, a black ops government division that conducts operations without any official affiliation with the government. Ford’s contact inside “The Trust”, Mr. Adams, sends Ford on a mission against the invading aliens, known as “The Drudge” and their leader “Prometheus”. However, while Ford has been ordered to defeat “The Drudge”, he may just end up doing more.
Without spoiling anything, there is a lot of things wrong with The Conduit’s story. Although it’s something we haven’t really seen in a Wii game yet, the storyline is ridiculously simple and really only feels like a reason to push the characters of the story between different environments. Sure, there is the occasional plot twist, but you’ll probably guess them with the exchange of some of the poorly written dialogue that the game blurts out between levels. To be fair, there are some broadcasts and hidden messages that add to the game’s story, but they aren’t absolutely essential. Regardless, the story is not always something that is extremely important to the shooter genre, but The Conduit definitely doesn’t raise any brows in it’s delivery of narrative.
The presentation of The Conduit is something that will be hit and miss with players. Starting with the good, the enemies in The Conduit animate very realistically and possibly the most realistically seen on the Wii. Reload animations, while not as impressive as games like Timesplitters and Perfect Dark, are nicely animated. Enemies will change the way they fall depdending on the circumstances in which they are killed, which makes the game feel a lot more realistic than other shooters available for the system. In addition, there are some very nice particle effects on weapons and explosions that give each burst of energy and/or flurry of bullets a little more life, adding some extra immersion into the game’s atmosphere. And while that’s all well and good to have, the game has some terribly boring locations that are modelled fine, but just aren’t textured well enough to give them realism and vitality. It’s a real shame too, because most of the environments fall into this category. In addition, other Sci-Fi shooter fans may notice that the design of most of the enemies are extremely derivative, with the designs of the main characters also being extremely plain.
There is a considerable amount of anticipation behind The Conduit’s gameplay, with the game boasting a lot of customiseable schemes to provide players with a game that feels almost tailored to their needs on the control front. Aiming is performed with the Wii Remote (surprise surprise) while shooting weapons is done with the trigger on the remote. A wave of the nuchuck will make Mr. Ford throw a grenade, and while a great way to immerse yourself in the experience, players will find themselves accidently throwing grenades, and on higher difficulties, killing themselves just by readjusting themselves on the couch and flicking the nunchuck by accident. To further the immersion, if players wish to melee attack an enemy, they must wave their remote in a faster manner, which will obviously disorient their aim. This adds a minor strategic level of planning to the game. The Conduit also allows players to adjust the running speed of Mr. Ford as well as the “dead zone” of the game’s HUD, meaning the amount of movement that must be performed with the Wii Remote to either side of the screen to get Mr. Ford to turn. As previously said, The Conduit DOES offer an amazing plethora of customiseable options to allow players to taylor the game to suit their needs.
The gameplay and gunplay itself, however, is rather disappointing. Most of the levels consist of running between areas that look largely the same (in each level) and defeating all the enemies to move on. Eventually Mr. Ford will discover a new weapon but outside of this there really isn’t a lot of excitement in The Conduit’s single player campaign, nor enough interest to play on. Interspersed throughout the campaign, however, are some collectibles and super weapons that can only be discovered by The All Seeing Eye, a device that eventually becomes pivotal to the story and naturally, pivotal to the player solving “puzzles” in the game. The All Seeing Eye can see objects that exist on a different dimensional plane and disarm them (such as ghost mines), see messages left on the walls by non-human beings and deactivate locks put in place by The Drudge. While it does break up and mix up the gameplay a little, after the first couple of All Seeing Eye puzzles have passed, players will grow tired of their mundane nature and they will become more of a nuisance than something interesting.
Without a doubt, The Conduit’s biggest selling card to the hardcore crowd is it’s comprehensive multiplayer mode. Boasting seven maps, with approximately fourteen weapons and a total of thirteen different team based and individual modes, there is a lot of customisation in the game’s multiplayer mode that ensures players will keep the experience fresh. Thankfully, The Conduit bypasses the use of the cumbersome friend codes system to play a game against the world, but it does require the exchange of them to use the Wii Speak peripheral. Thankfully, the instances where friend codes are needed are indeed minimal. Players can choose to face off against friends, against the world or against players in a region close to them, in an effort to minimise latency. For the most part, these efforts are beneficial, in local matches the game runs like a dream, with some international matches performing more than competently with few hiccups.
There are quite a few modes too, but most of them are your garden variety modes. Quick Play mode simply sets up a game with a pre-determined goal (either in kills or time limit), while Marathon mode is simply a timed free for all match. “Three Strikes” is a mode in which players each have three lives, and have to be the surviving player to win the match; “ASE Football” is similar to Halo’s “Oddball” mode, where players have to hold onto the ASE for as long as possible to win the match, or kill the player to obtain the ASE. Finally, there’s “Bounty Hunter” mode, which has players hunting for a specific player, receiving penalties for hunting anyone besides the specific player. Of course, what would an online shooter be without team based modes? Team Reaper is a team based mode where players work towards a common objective, like a set number of kills. Marathon mode can also be played in team mode as well. “Shared Stock” is an interesting spin that promotes strategical and tactical play, as players all share the same life pool. Finally, there’s Team Objective mode, where players have to capture the flag (or ASE) to win the round.
Probably the first thing that impressed me when I first booted up The Conduit was the game’s soundtrack. The backing track that plays at the game’s menus is brilliant – it conveys a sense of espionage and conspiracy, and really does foreshadow what the game will be about. Upon hearing the main theme I immediately knew what the game would be about and I was exactly right. To me, this is the sign of a game having a good soundtrack – it is foreshadowing future events. The in-game music is pretty well composed too, with the aciton sequences having some nice fast paced tunes for the game. Unfortunately, the game’s sound takes a bit of a hit with the way the game’s voice acting is delivered. While the voice actors for the main characters in The Conduit are some famous-ish celebrities (Kevin Sorbo says Hi) their lines are delivered awkwardly at times making the game feel a little bit embarassing. Regardless, the game’s audio quality is still quite high.
All in all, The Conduit is a very interesting example of how, despite so much hype and expectations can surround a game, that it can ultimately fall flat on it’s face.
Despite having a mediocre campaign with a canned storyline, The Conduit has one of the best available multiplayer modes with online functionality for the Wii. Ultimately, its hard to recommend to those whove already sampled the ubiqitous sci-fi shooters available on other platforms, as this experience will probably feel a little half done, but for those whove never experienced something like this before, its sure to be a hit. I eagerly await to see what High Voltage have learnt from their development of this title and hope thats reflected in their upcoming titles.
Scores and conclusion follow.
Graphics 6.5
The Conduit features some nice modelling and some superb animation. Its just a shame that the game has no memorable set pieces or interesting artistic direction to create the perfect universe.
Gameplay 7.0
While the single player campaign is severely lacking in providing an interesting and engaging experience, the actual gunplay mechanics work perfectly with the Wiis unique control scheme and serve as a very much essential framework to other games in the genre, should they begin to appear after this games release.
Sound 7.0
While the audio is nothing absolutely original, the games soundtrack includes a decent amount of pieces to supplement the gameplay. Voice acting, on the other hand, can be a little hit and miss, despite being from real life “actors”.
Tilt 6.5
While the campaign itself is very short, the games lifespan really depends on how much you utilise its online component. If youre a huge fan of competitive shooters, youll find a lot of lifespan. If that doesnt cut it for you, then this probably is only worth a rent.
Value 9.0
I didnt have much fun playing the single payer component of The Conduit. On the other hand, the multiplayer set up is something that almost every Wii owner should try. In a lot of friendly matches I played there was a lot of enjoyment to be had, with the customiseable nature of the multiplayer mode providing quite a few interesting ways to mix it up.
