Nintendo has taken a lot of flack over their recent move away from core gamers over the past few years. If you’ve had a Wii for a while and consider yourself one of these core gamers and fancy yourself a fan of Michael Bay style entertainment you’ve undoubtedly had Wii-envy over the past few years as you’ve watched your younger sister play her way through Animal Crossing while hearing awkwardly aged men talk to her about the weather over Wii-speak or your mom gain a ridiculous looking 6-pack that puts your keg to shame thanks to Wii Fit, all the while you’ve been off enjoying games like Halo 3, CoD 4, and Left 4 Dead to fulfill your action-packed desires. Taking note of your absence from the Wii’s calendar game-log, developer High Voltage Software set out to get you back to your waggling ways that you’d long since abandoned much like Nintendo did you, years ago. One part sci-fi, one part Hercules, two parts waggle and a few initial hours of struggling through the controls and you’ve got yourself what is undoubtedly the best first-person shooter on the console. The only question that remains is:
Does being the best FPS on a system filled to the brim with shovel-ware make The Conduit a worthwhile title or simply the top student in a class of failures so awful that not even Michelle Pfeiffer would be able to save it?
Strapped into the role of Agent (Michael) Ford you’re thrown into a world of government conspiracies, battles against alien forces and just general intergalactic thrill-filled mischief. Top to bottom, the story plays out much like you’d expect any other sci-fi shooter that involves an invading alien force and shady government agency. Luckily you’re tossed a few curve balls (some predictable, others not so much) during the ten or so hours that it takes to complete the campaign which help keep the story just fresh enough to be tolerable. Delivered mainly through pre-mission briefings and in-game radio chatter the story’s pacing stays consistent all the way through and the voice acting is commendable if not forgettable except when it comes to the character of Prometheus who is voiced, and amazingly so, by Kevin Sorbo
Throughout the campaign you’re faced with wave after wave of the typical FPS cannon fodder in mercenaries, special agents and of course your garden variety range of aliens (known as The Drudge) all looking to put you in your place. That is of course to say that the enemies in The Conduit don’t go out of their way to be memorable in any significant manner (sans the effing annoying rolling suicide bomber aliens that you’ll come to despise later in the game). The method in which you deal with the ever-advancing foes is fortunately much more impressive. Whether it be through the genre standards such as shotguns, pistols and assault rifles or the advanced weaponry supplied by your enemies, the bullet-chuckers you’ll find in The Conduit are varied enough to keep the combat feeling fresh as you progress through the game. Carrying two weapons at all times usually gives you the chance to carry a reliable rifle or Drudge equivalent and then experiment with a wide variety of secondary weaponry that are simply a treat to fire but the ammo supplies limit their usage just enough to keep you scrounging for the next ammo pickup to add a thin layer of strategy to the gameplay, which, unfortunately is where strategy enters and exits the combat.
The combat sadly can best be broken down to the most simplistic shooter mechanics out there. You’ll be carried down a linear path through the levels leading you from one encounter to another that can be viewed as one-dimensional bullet fests. The enemy AI, while serviceable, doesn’t create a battle atmosphere that requires much in the way of coherent thought. The skills needed to ward off attackers are less based on the actual enemies themselves and much more on your own ability to master the controls. Steep learning curve aside, you’ll find yourself tinkering with the MANY adjustable aspects of the controls to make sure that the game handles exactly the way you’d like it to. The customizable aspects of the controls is where High Voltage absolutely crushes the competition not only on the Wii but also most first-person shooters on the market regardless of what console they’re on. Everything from the turn radius to the button placement to the waggle controls themselves can be altered to meet whatever oddball control choices you may seek.
Technically The Conduit is about as impressive as they come on the Wii. Load screens are kept to a minimum through the use of winding hallways and corridors that hide the fact that the next encounter is being streamed off the disc as you progress which is a nice touch but definitely hurts the level design as you’ll find yourself in very familiar and predictable environments as you trek your way from battle to battle. Visually you’re treated to nice effects and relatively attractive levels from start to finish. Character models get the job done but as is more than common in the genre, are repeated endlessly. I’d recommend making sure you’ve got your component cables plugged in and that you’re displaying at 480p otherwise a lot of the fast paced on screen action can deteriorate into a mucky blur of drowned out colours that make you feel like you’ve been locked in a bathroom with R. Kelly standing over you as your eyes are taped open.
Outside of the campaign you’re treated to the most extensive online multiplayer ever found on a Nintendo console. With support for up to 12 players and numerous game-type variations the online component of The Conduit is not only serviceable, but damn enjoyable. You’ll encounter the odd lag-spike as you will with any other online shooter but the fact that High Voltage has delivered such an in-depth online experience on the Wii still has me a tad shocked.
As you fight your way through the campaign you’ll find yourself frustrated on more than one occasion and perhaps even cursing the game for poor AI or poor level design and so on and so forth. You’ll keep playing, you’ll have your gripes, but when those end credits roll you’ll quickly realize that even though you have your complaints (and they are valid ones), The Conduit leaves a sweet taste in your mouth, a sweat in your palm and a desire for more. As mentioned the campaign lasts around ten hours and the online adds countless more and should continue to do so as long as the community stays strong, which it should seeing as there really isn’t any other viable option for shooter junkies out there on the Wii. It has more than its fair share of flaws but in the end The Conduit delivers an extremely enjoyable campaign and online play that isn’t rivalled on the system. It doesn’t stand up when placed toe-to-toe with games like Call of Duty World at War or Halo 3, but then again – it doesn’t have to. Any Wii owner out there that has a hankering for some action should own this game and any fan of the genre in general, console be damned, should give The Conduit its due and fire it up for a level or two.