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Conduit 2 Review - Nintendo Wii

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  • Conduit 2 Review - Nintendo Wii

    The original Conduit was muchly hyped as the Wii's "Most Anticipated First Person Shooter". There were others, but this was specifically designed for the hardware featuring mappable controls, etc. This is the sequel. Hype? Nope. Improvement? In places. Oddly, the use of Motion Plus makes no difference to the accuracy of aiming weapons, and can feel too sensitive. Leaving it off negates that worry of course.

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    The single player campaign is rather short and can be completed with a few hours, though the player will definitely be wanting to revisit every stage until they've found as many of the scannable objects (conspiracy objects, graffiti, maps and upgrades) as they can. Not only do these unlock new weapons and abilities, but the player receives credits which can be used to unlock even more weaponry/upgrades.

    So is the story mode simply tagged onto the online/offline multiplayer? Although it is fun on its own, the multiplayer is the real fun of the game, and executed well. The player's performance in each match is accessed and they are awarded experience points and credit accordingly. For someone who has just bought the game to jump into playing it online is perfectly doable, but not recommended. By getting a better feel for the controls, finding what works for them and tweaking where necessary (and unlocking some of the more powerful equipment) the player stands a much better chance. Unlocking weapons in single player unlocks them in multiplayer as well, so playing the campaign first is an excellent idea.

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    There are many modes in the multiplayer, split between Free For All, Team Deathmatch and Team Objective. The standard Deathmatch is ever present, along with Capture the Flag. In Free For All, there is Balloon Battle (yes, just like in Mario Kart) with melee attacks stealing balloons rather than bursting them, ASE Ball where the player simply has to hold the ASE for the longest time to win, and Bounty Hunter where each player is set a target to kill and can only score points by killing the target or the player assigned to kill them. Team Objective has: Killing Override, which is a frag/ASE capture score game; VIP, where one player on each team is assigned special status for the other team to hunt down; ASE Basketball, as the name suggests, the opposing team's ASE has to be thrown into the goal; Annexation, where control points have to be captured and defended; and Power Surge, where each team has to attack the other team's base and destroy their power generator.

    Umm, what's an ASE? That would be the small ball-like object used in the single player mode to scan objects and graffiti.

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    Up to four "load outs" can be configured with one primary and one secondary weapon, one kind of grenade and up to four different abilities like unlimited run, two primary weapons, etc. Even the appearance of the player's in-game avatar can be changed independently for each load out. The load outs themselves cannot be changed mid-game.

    After being fragged, probably by someone camping out with a phase rifle no doubt, the player falls to the ground and can wait for one of their teammates to revive them...Or for an opponent to finish them off for a "double-tap" award and some bonus credits. Then the player gets to view the game through the eyes of one of their comrades until they are ready to respawn and jump back into the fray. Prior to respawning, the player can choose from their personalised load outs to see if changing it will help them to not meet their end quite so quickly again.

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    Weapons are divided into three categories - ballistic, energy, and explosive. Depending on what the player is preferring to specialise in, different abilities can be equipped accordingly - increased ballistic damage for bullet-based weapons, for example. All guns now have secondary modes, which can be more than just looking down the sight. For example, the grenade launcher can switch between timed and proximity. The AR-C Eclipse would have to be this reviewer's favourite. Standard fire has unlimited rounds but a temperature limit which, if exceeded, forces a coolant reload. The secondary function is a cloaking device which cools the weapon to the point the barrel freezes and needs to have the ice broken off it before it can be used again. Switch between doing these two things (they can't be done at the same time of course!) to keep the weapon firing, the enemies confused and the player happy.

    For the eyes and ears, Conduit 2 is very pleasing. Both the single and multiplayer stages are designed, and vary between wide open tundra and tight, claustrophobia-inducing underground tunnels. The "unfocussing" view when the player is reloading their weapon is an excellent effect.

    While the single player story mode may only take a handful of hours to complete, multiplayer will keep the player occupied trying to save up enough credits to unlock everything.

    The Good:
    + Looks and plays the part
    + Range of control systems

    The Bad:
    - Single player is short and more of a warm-up for the multiplayer
    - Too many skilled players online!

    The score: 6/10

    Genre: FPS
    Players: 1-12 (1-4 offline)
    Developer: High Voltage Games
    Publisher: SEGA
    Platform: Nintendo Wii
    Region: NTSC
    Reviewer: Steven Walker

    • Bort
      #10
      Bort commented
      Editing a comment
      Have you actually played Conduit 2 Daragon?

    • charlesr
      #11
      charlesr commented
      Editing a comment
      I presume that's just out of interest. I don't think people should have had to play the games before commenting on the reviews.

    • Daragon
      #12
      Daragon commented
      Editing a comment
      I haven't played it, no. My point is still valid however.

      The Conduit would be no different to a CoD game.
    Posting comments is disabled.

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