The Conduit (Wii) > Reviews (2)

The Conduit is a first person shooter title from Sega, designed from the ground up for Nintendo's Wii console. It follows the exploits of secret agent Michael Ford as he discovers a mysterious alien conspiracy unfolding in the shadows of Washington D.C. Taking orders from "The Trust," a covert (and very patriotic) branch of the secret service, Ford must save the day while visiting a series of D.C's most famous landmarks.

Of course, The Conduit is Sega's answer to gaming's biggest mystery; why is the Wii so devoid of decent first person shooter games. As a big fan of the genre, I can say that shooters were one of the deciding factors in my Wii purchase. Unfortunately, the dismal reception of launch title, Red Steel, and a run of further poor responses has killed off the Wii-shooter. It's a bit of a surprise when you consider that the pointing and aiming function of the wii-mote is the one area where the Wii fully delivers on its many promises. Some of the most immersive titles on the console are arcade style on-rails shooters.

The Conduit built up quite a bit of hype pre-release by promising to change all that, boasting a game engine designed for the Wii from the ground up, anticipation was high. Sega also promised to turn the tide of cheap, ugly games slumping on to the Wii with an engine capable of sophisticated shader effects and mapping techniques, somewhat ambitiously promising "comparable to Xbox 360 and PS3" visuals. So, does The Conduit deliver on its many promises?

Graphically, it's honestly quite hard to tell. I have come to the opinion that the Wii's biggest shortcoming visually is its failure to support higher resolutions. While resolution isn't everything, on a digitally rendered image it certainly counts for something. Unfortunately, any visual flair The Conduit does have is obscured by a lack of pixels. It just doesn't have the dots to show off. A lack of resolution certainly doesn't hamper a nice, colourful yet simple game like Super Mario Galaxy but really doesn't help a crowded airport much. The shading and lighting effects in the game could far excel anything on a high end PC and it wouldn't matter because the overall picture just isn't detailed enough to see it. That's not to say the graphics are bad, they're actually quite effective for a wii game. Of course, the important part of that sentence is, as always, "for a wii game." But its nice to see the a developer is not settling for any old rubbish because it will sell a million copies anyway (of the "wii special" as it's known.) While it might not live up to the hype, it is still one of the few Wii titles where it's clear that some effort has been taken with both the graphics and the style. They are functional, if somewhat drab, though never beautiful. If I had one criticism it was that often very dark scenes totally obscured pathways or doorways, leaving me exploring the same room over and over looking for some hidden switch when I actually needed to walk up a set of stairs effectively rendered invisible by shadow.

The game does have a "flashlight" of sorts but it's really more of an Arkham Asylum style detective mode device and only lights up one tiny spot at a time.

Thankfully, the gameplay is quite solid. A lot of effort has gone into making The Conduit play better than most other shooters on the Wii and it definitely achieves this goal. Aiming and turning is done with the Wii-mote and it certainly works a lot better than Red Steel though probably not as tightly as Modern Warfare. Beyond aiming, they keep motion control limited. Flicking the nunchuck will throw a grenade and that's fairly natural. I didn't particularly care for the melee attack, where a flick of the wii-mote would have felt natural they have opted instead for a "push toward the screen" motion that is hard to get used to. However, the overall setup does become comfortable eventually and there's a nice range of options included to tweak the various sensitivities. Eventually you'll get it set up nicely for you and you can blast through the game. You will also make use of the "all seeing eye," essentially a magic eight ball that can find invisible messages and switches and hack into computers. It's a nice addition at first but soon becomes routine.

It's a pity that a rather solid control system is used for a rather mediocre game. The campaign is not particularly long, I got through it in around six hours I think, and not much happens in that time. The plot is bizarrely complex, providing very little background info, and at the best of times it seemed to be an excuse to lead you through the bowels of various landmarks. I'm not genius but by the end of the story I honestly had no idea what was going and had given up trying some time ago. I had kept up until the first plot twist but after that it got away from me somewhat and I decided to just ignore that aspect and move on.

In game action is usually pretty fun, there is a nice variety of different settings though they are punctuated by a series of very similar basements. Eventually eponymous conduit's are introduced and you will encounter more alien elements, unfortunately even with the universe at their disposal the developers rehash a lot of monsters, even bosses. Often this game reminded me too much of Half Life 2, the basic enemies are the same combat gear clad, faceless wonders interspersed with the occasional alien and the game has definitely taken inspiration from there along the way. In the end though there are some pretty enjoyable moments and despite the repetitive nature, it doesn't get boring.

There is a multiplayer mode which is nice to see. It's the usual First Person Shooter style arenas and games that I'm frankly so bored of now I didn't play it for too long. However, I certainly wouldn't be deducting any stars because I didn't enjoy it; I don't enjoy any of them and I freely admit they're not there for me. If you enjoy online multiplayer with your FPS, I'm sure you'll have a blast. This mode seemed particularly good for a Wii online function, I didn't have trouble finding a game nor did I get booted out repeatedly.

It is also compatible with wii speak but I don't own one so I can't comment.

When I arrived at the end of The Conduit I wasn't sure exactly how I felt, it hadn't been the rollercoaster ride of fun and excitement needed to make my favourites but it wasn't bad either; and that in itself is significant. This is a game that was pitched as a "halo killer" and if you go into it with those expectations you'll be disappointed. The Conduit is not in the same league as Halo, Metroid Prime, Killzone 2 etc. but it deserves points for being the first Wii game that's actually playing the same sport. It puts me in a difficult position really, on the one hand The Conduit really isn't that remarkable a game. On the Ps3 or Xbox 360 it would probably be a flop but Wii owners have remarkably small choice in this area and it does offer comparable gameplay, if not visuals. On top of that, the Wii-mote is fun for shooters when you find a good one and so gamers familiar with the best shooters on other consoles will probably still enjoy that aspect of it. Despite its shortcomings, I'm glad I own it and I did have a lot of fun playing it.

The Conduit comes packaged in a pleasant cardboard sleeve, sporting some guff about Special Edition and exclusive unlockables. This is the only version available however and even if you see it without the outer sleeve, you're not losing anything but a little booklet with some art and developer quotes. It's been out a while now and if you shop around you can probably find it for around the £10 to £15 mark, definitely worth a buy.

The Conduit is a relatively mild shooter, it's clearly grounded in a fantasy style setting (think slightly more serious Men in Black film type action) but while it doesn't feature gore or blood, you do shoot a lot of people along the way. There doesn't seem to be too much in the way of profanity, casual sadism or wandering erotica but I'd still advise parents check out a few vids on youtube of the game (or better yet, give it a play) before placing it in the hands of young children. I'd have no qualms about handing it over to a 13 year old.

Enjoy.