GamesRelay

Name: The Conduit

Wii owners aren’t new to exclusives on the console, but for a first person shooter, that’s something else. The Conduit has seen been receiving a lot of attention mainly for this reason. The FPS genre is usually a PC, 360 or PS3 affair, but High Voltage Software – the developers behind The Conduit have taken a leap of faith keeping there’s platform specific to the Wii.

The Conduit sees you playing the role of Michael Ford, a secret service agent who is part of a shadow government organization. Michael initially gets sent to disrupt a terrorist threat but becomes involved in a fight to stop Washington D.C. from being invaded and destroyed by an alien race known as the Drudge. While the story behind the game provides an interesting backdrop, the actual plot and story is told through dialog boxes which are uninspiring to say the least. The story feels more like something you must endure while progressing through the game, but while playing through the campaign, you will come across television and radio broadcasts which fill you in with news on the story and the struggle to stop the alien invasion. It’s a nice touch and actually makes you stop to listen if you are interested in learning more about the story, it's just a shame that the cutscenes spoil the rest of it.

The controls for The Conduit take inspiration from Metroid Prime 3 and Medal of Honor from the Wii. Using the remote as your pointing device and the analogue to move around, it’s a tried and tested control scheme which was well received in the latter mentioned games. The available customisation options for the game are great too, offering lots of options to change anything from the control layout, to the bounding box and the sensitivity. It’s a something for all affair, so finding the right controller set up shouldn’t be too difficult even for a novice of the genre.

Graphics wise, the game lives up to expectations, using as much of the Wii’s available graphics power as possible. Thanks in part to the Quantum3 engine which has been used by the developers in several other titles. Unfortunately however, while the graphics do show what the Wii is capable of, the poor level design makes the game repetitive and even boring in some points, often finding the same repetitive gameplay throughout, albeit from the occasional boss which brings a welcome change. The different areas that the game uses do vary somewhat in there graphics style making good use of the Quantum3 engine, but with the same old narrow streets or sewers where you must either kill or be killed. It’s disappointing, you don’t really get a sense of any freedom, more like a rail shooter where you must follow this route and kill these enemies to progress. You don’t get much leeway in how you can overcome your enemies, or strategize on how you will get past a certain point apart from using the classic run and gun type strategy to overcome the enemy.

If you thought that was the worst of it, I hate to say that it isn't. The dull enemies you find in the game become repetitive and annoying after just a few short levels. They are a constant stream of creatures which hatch from their eggs trying to kill you, but killing them isn’t enough, you have to hunt down the spawns and destroy them before the oppressors are stopped. This goes on throughout the game bringing the whole experience down with it. The only respite is when you face one of the boss creatures.

The difficulty isn’t much better either. Being a hit and miss affair doesn’t help, you'll end up finding some parts easy while the rest are an overly frustrating affair, wondering why you were killed when it was practically a breeze earlier is something you'll end up getting used to. More often than not, this is down to the creature spawns which seem to have been hidden in locations you wouldn’t even think of looking. Getting killed from behind isn’t the greatest experience, especially when it’s over and over again. For a seasoned veteran of first person shooters on the Wii, you should find it a little easier and more enjoyable than anyone new to the style of gameplay.

So you should be thinking the game is terrible by now and something you would want to avoid at all costs, but, where the game lacks in it's single player experience, it makes up for it in it's multiplayer. The Conduit ships with 12 player multiplayer and is just as good looking as the single player campaign, running at a smooth 30fps. However, the seven maps that you play are taken straight from the single player campaign, thus giving the same frustration of corridor running and gunning as you found playing it by yourself albeit with other players. The deathmatch and capture the flag are quite fun, letting you use WiiSpeak to talk to your friends, but not anyone else. It is nice to be able to have something which is pretty much standard on other formats, but its use is limited to just your friends so you don't get the opportunity to make any new ones or speak to random people while playing. The multiplayer rewards players with ranks, so playing for top marks to increase your rank is a welcome addition, but it all boils down to how long you can stand playing the same maps over and over again.

With one of the best control schemes for a first person shooter, and more customisation options than you could shake a stick at, they really are the shining light at the end of the tunnel, The Conduit's controls make for a solid and worthwhile experience through the game, if you can forgive its repetitive nature and sometimes frustrating gameplay. With the graphics being a wonder on the Wii as well, you will be hard pressed to find anything as good looking on the platform so far. With multiplayer on top of that, and the ability to use WiiSpeak, the game should be a must purchase for any hardcore Wii owner who wants some of the experiences that gamers on the other platforms take for granted while gaming online.

The only hope for The Conduit is it’s exclusivity to the Wii. If it sells well, then we can hopefully expect more of the same, but while the Wii is aimed with the casual gamer in mind, only time will tell if the market picks up on the shooter and enjoys the limited experience it offers.