The Conduit (Wii)

[Yakumo]

The Wii has always been criticized as not being a gamers console but more of a family box. Over the last 8 or so months that BS has finally been put to rest with the likes of Fatal Frame 4, House of the Dead Overkill, Mad World and Ghostbusters. Now The Conduit has been released. This game has been hyped to hell about it's graphical powers and "unique" game play. Normally this basically spells out that the game is a load of crap which is why it's hyped so much in order to make it sell. I'm very happy to say that The Conduit is actually one of those few games the lives up to the hype.

I'm no first person shooter nut but I do enjoy the style. The Conduit provides fast, smooth and a solid frame rate throughout the game. Controls are so fluid that it's hard to fault them. High Voltage have even given us the option to change the controls to ANY configuration you could want. how about that for service!

On the normal level setting I found the game to be way too hard which worries me because there's another two higher difficulty levels above that. I ended up playing the game on the easy setting but that doesn't punch much of a challenge except for a few parts. The normal setting is probably difficult to me though because I don't play First Person Shooters much.

Graphically, The Conduit is beautiful. Yes, it only runs at 30fps progressive scan but it's solid. The graphical effects really do show what the Wii is capable of. There are times you'd swear you were playing a first gen 360 game it looks that good in parts.

If you have a Wii you'd be a fool to pass on this game. Well worth importing from the US. Great news is that it works fine with Gekko1.9.

Yakumo

[briareos_kerensky]

Keep impressions flowing, I would like to test it but it looks like any other FPS with space marines plaguing other consoles.

[parkinho]

My copy arrived on Monday and I have only played it briefly, so I will keep this short, but my initial impressions are very positive. Firstly, the controls are superb and pretty much everything can be customised. This includes mapping actions to different buttons, adjusting the size of the 'dead zone', controlling the sensitivity of the waggle on the nunchick/remote and so on. If you got on well with the controls for Metroid Prime 3:Corruption, the default settings here are very similar so you should feel right at home. My only slight concern is that some of the buttons on the Wii-remote aren't easy to access in the heat of the battle, but fortunately you can choose the functions that aren't always necessary to take up these buttons. Additionally, the whole HUD is customisable so you can place your health meter, ammo count etc exactly where you want. A neat feature that would be much appreciated on most FPSes.

The game itself doesn't look as if it will push any new boundaries in terms of gameplay, but I found myself having lots of fun in what on first appearances does seem like a solidly crafted title. It reminds of Turok 2 in way, can't quite put my finger on why, but I do mean that as a positive! Not played the multiplayer yet but I hear it's meant to be good - certainly the best on the Wii.

It most likely isn't going to win any GOTY awards or reinvent the wheel, but if you are after a solid FPS with excellent Wii controls then this is probably worth picking up. And like Yakumo, I am hardly a FPS nut, but finding myself enjoying the ride so far!

[mugetsu]

i heard that the online play in this is meant to be really good fun unlike most games with horribly shoehorned in online play.

any of u played online yet?

[SuperBeatBoy]

Think of the most generic dull lifeless level design to plague an FPS and you have The Conduit! Its all one way corridors. I have more fun playing the original Doom on Ultra-Violence.

The Wii can do better than that, i'm being serious.

I've only done the first 3 levels, but i can't see it improving at all. The controls are solid, but the way you use grenades and melee attacks take you right out of it.

6/10 so far, but i can't see it improving from that.

[abigsmurf]

It's an impressive engine and such but... There is zero art design. Haven't seen such a generic looking game since the days of the Quake 2 engine when there were scores of games and mods churned out.

The engine is being put to much better use in their next two titles but I get the impression this was a game churned out on the cheap to fund the engine development.

[egparadigm]

...pretty much everything can be customised. This includes mapping actions to different buttons, adjusting the size of the 'dead zone', controlling the sensitivity of the waggle on the nunchick/remote and so on...

Additionally, the whole HUD is customisable so you can place your health meter, ammo count etc exactly where you want. A neat feature that would be much appreciated on most FPSes.

That's insane!

[Yakumo]

All I can say that to the gamers who don't play FPS (as in many Wii gamers) then this is an excellent title. To those of you who play PC and X360 you'll probably find it a bit on the dull side.

The only bad point I can really think of is that it's far too short. I finished it in 5 hours. 9 levels don't last that long in a FPS game I'm afraid. Still, the online mode really kicks arse so that will keep me going for quite some time plus you can play without hose stupid friend codes.

Yakumo

[gunrock]

Think of the most generic dull lifeless level design to plague an FPS and you have The Conduit! Its all one way corridors. I have more fun playing the original Doom on Ultra-Violence.

The Wii can do better than that, i'm being serious.

I've only done the first 3 levels, but i can't see it improving at all. The controls are solid, but the way you use grenades and melee attacks take you right out of it.

6/10 so far, but i can't see it improving from that.

Given what you are saying here, I'd say 6/10 seems a bit high.

[Yakumo]

After completing the game 3 times on different level settings (it really is too short) I decided to give the online mode a go. Now according to some ass-hat over at gamefaqs, the online mode takes forever to connect, you MUST use Wii Friend codes, the game keeps crashing, you end up with nasty lag issues and many times the screen blacks out. All I can say is "what a load of Bull ****!"

I've been playing on-line now for a week and have come across none of the problems mentioned above. You can use Wii friend codes if you like or just play without them. You can choose between friend (Wii codes), Local (same country) or worldwide. I play worldwide with the longest connection wait of 40 odd seconds which isn't bad when you consider once you're connected you'll be playing for at least an hour.

I'm lucky enough to have a 100MBPS connection so I know there is no lag on my part but what surprised me is that there seems to be next to no lag with other players. Occasionally one player may suddenly teleport a few inches but this rarely happens and when it does there's no real effect on game play.

The on-line areas are quite vast and far more open than the ones used within the main 1 player game although they are based upon the same stages. There are also a variety of multiplayer modes to choose from. Mode and area selection is put down to the vote which is cool. Sometimes you'll get what you want, other times you won't.

Up to 12 players can play in one game with the minimum time limit being 10 minutes. If someone decides to leave the group another player can join. Pretty much what you'd expect really.

Players with Wii speak will be happy to know that you can use that as well. Even if you don't have a Wii speak unit you can still hear the voices of players that do have one or you can just switch the Wii speak option off if there's some annoying turd shouting down it.

All in all, The Conduit is a good 1 player FPS if you're not a hardcore FPS gamer. For Wii it's　the ultimate on-line game so far. Excellent in pretty much every way!

Yakumo

[parkinho]

^ Good impressions of the multiplayer - I'm looking forward to getting stuck into that when I finish the campaign. Did you bother to collect all the secrets in the single player game?

[Yakumo]

nah, I tried with playing it 3 times but i'm still missing 4 discs and about 13 messages. The messages are a pain in the arse though so I couldn't really be botheed looking for them.

Yakumo

[parkinho]

Finished the single player mode today - good stuff

Only took me 7.5 hours to complete and, as previously mentioned, doesn't do anything you couldn't find elsewhere, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Plus it has been the only game in recent weeks to pull me away from L4D for a reasonable length time!

I wanted to try out the online mode earlier but both times it caused my Wii to freeze while searching for opponents - has this happened to anyone else? Don't know if it's a fault of the game but no doubt the problem lies at the feet of Nintendo's shoddy online service.

[Yakumo]

I play online almost every night and have never had any problems. I'm using a Japanese Wii with the US game running through Gekko 1.9.1 My net connection is 100Mbps but I doubt that has anything to do with the game not crashing. I normally play worldwide games but have tried to play local games. Needless to say that there never is anyone on line since most Japanese don't import so then I go to Asia and find quite a few players from the likes of Singerpore.

yakumo

[Adam Stone]

Really enjoying reading your comments Yakumo, in fact if it wasn't for your enthusiasm I would have struggled to see the end... but i'm glad I did :-)

But!

I bought The Conduit on the same day as treating myself to the ‘New Play Control’ version of Pikmin 2, expecting fully to be into the conduit for at least a few good days before I tip-toed into Pikmin, yet i've found myself totally gripped by revisiting this old-classic yet completely under-whelmed by High Voltage's effort. It seems almost blasphemers to belittle the title considering the developers’ obvious passion... yet for a title that won it's intrigue for boasting it's visual excellence, it is at times very ugly!

...There's lots of pretty effects here and there, amongst splashes of colour, ripples of mapping and bursts of bloom... but everything else is bland and unappealing with almost no artistry. Although it is obviously technically impressive, it means absolutely nothing whilst sitting next to titles like Metroid Prime, Lost Winds, World of Goo, Mario Galaxy and titles like Madworld, Little King's Story, Ico, Okami etc etc... dare I say even Wii Sports and titles like Super Mario World on the Snes and Earth Worm Jim and Donkey Kong. The Conduit looks quite amateurish compared... as an overall package i mean.

There's obviously been a lot of time and a hell of a lot of effort poured into particular details yet it seems to fall short of an overall quality. I think that's probably the key thing that rests uneasy with me... On paper singular details appear impressive yet when fused together it all rests a little awkwardly...

I hate focusing on the visual side of things, yet for a title that earned it's popularity by boasting such a stance, The Conduit seems strangely bland and visually unappealing! Maybe its because i've always been a bigger fan of style over substance... And the conduit surely has - and commendably so - technically a lot of substance... just very, very little style.

Still, with that said it does hail black to the classic days of run, shoot and kill - and the fundamental gameplay is fun if somewhat underwhelming... I have to be honest and say... as an overall package... I actually enjoyed the single player wii experience of Call of Duty: World at War more then i did the Conduit.

... But then i find myself hating myself for saying these things! Ha! It's a strange world...
I really do appreciate and commend what High Voltage were trying to do, and I also understand the importance of The Conduit's success for other future 'mature' titles (it's been made very clear developers are keeping a watchful eye on sale figures) - but i find myself wanting a sequel more than i’m wanting to play this title. The Conduit certainly shows promise, and whilst looking at the bigger picture it’s most definitely worth supporting.. but it all falls a bit short for me personally...