The Conduit Review
Four out of Five Generic Government Agents agree, Generic Alien Invasions is the best tooth whitening out there!
The Good: Graphics, Multiplayer, Controls, Weapon Feel
The Bad: Single Player, Plot, Gimmicks, Difficulty (The Difficulty Curve! AGAIN!), My Formulaic Reviews
You all know 'that' game. You know. The one that goes into your generic gaming convention as an unknown and comes out as king of the block. Reviewers can't wait to line up to sing it's praises, it wins numerous best of show awards, and the fans go wild. Then...nothing. No word for several months. It slips from our minds. Time passes, and then it's back in the news, but not quite in the way it hoped. Far from being the critically acclaimed gem predicted last generic gaming convention, it's actually quite the mediocre experience. It gets fives and sixes and quickly drops off of our radar once again, only to be dug back up whenever we wish to tell the tale of over hype and its dangerous effect. Will The Conduit, an actual FPS contender on the Wii and a former recipient of several "Best of E3" awards, buck the trend, or will it crash and burn?
Review
In The Conduit, a FPS shooter for the Wii, you play Micheal Ford, your Generic Government Space Marine Agent Secret Service man fighting your Generic Evil Alien Invasion Force Grunts for control of, well, everything. You go through the games generic tutorial only to realize that, gasp, this is five days in the future, at which point you quickly warp back five days so you can play through exactly what got you to your standard generic tutorial. As you can probably tell, the best way to sum up the plot (And your interaction in it) would be...generic. The game doesn't even attempt to deviate from the norm in any way, shape, or form. You'll fight your generic ancient evil conspiracy, kill your generic looking alien enemies, and blaze through several generic story cutscenes. The game barely has any plot twists in it, and when the game occasionally does decide to toss a curve ball your way, it's so predictable and so yawn worthy that it's barely worth mentioning.
Micheal: He's Generically Generic!
Thankfully, the game makes up for its lackluster plot with pretty solid gameplay. You have your standard assortment of pistols, sub machine guns, assault rifles, grenades, and rocket launchers, and all of those in both plasma/beam form and bullet form. The game also adds in a few different weapons, from a Golden Gun homage to a plasma rifle that, once charged, becomes a plasma shotgun. If there's one gripe with the guns, it's that many times ammo crates are few and far between, and each ammo crate only services a specific type of gun (Alien, Human, or 'Trust'), meaning that you'll most likely be stuck using whatever type of gun your enemies are dropping. Not that you'll particularly mind using whatever weapon given to you. For the most part, each weapon has a distinct feel and look to it. Shotguns have a particular oomph, alien rounds have a slimy, other world-y presence, and advanced human weapons have a unique blue and purple glow about them.
Enemies, likewise, generally feel different from one another, although they don't deviate much from science fiction norms. There's your standard small and quick enemy with blades for hands, your standard tall one with the deadly weapon who takes more damage than the rest, and the usual even smaller and even more deadly one that blows up when you're too close. You'll also fight some human enemies, but there's really no difference between two human enemies except for skins and what weapon they're wielding. Most enemies will do basic tactical maneuvers, such as taking cover behind boxes and tossing grenades, but the overall strategy for the big bads usually winds up being 'run at him until he dies'.
The sad thing is is that suicidal rushes will usually work. For the first part of the game Generic Hero Man Ford doesn't have a recharging health bar, and even after getting a rebounding health system, it's *ssllllloooowwww*, forcing you to scavenge dead enemy corpses for health vials or else wander the level, hoping to run into a convenient health pack hanging on a wall. Add on to this enemies that will happily take 20 to 30 percent off of your health bar with a single attack as well as constantly warp onto the field until you kill their hatcheries (Called Conduits, thus the title) and you've got a recipe for frustration. This leads to a pretty spiky difficulty curve, as fights become progressively more and more difficult until the last battle before you get a suit upgrade, which tends to border on insanely one sided against you.
The fights become a little less one sided once you factor in the controls. The Conduit is a rare Wii game with some pretty good precision controls. There are several different preset control schemes to choose from, both in how the controls are mapped and in the sensitivity of the wii mote. You can refine the controls further to allow for things such as camera movement when the wii mote is pointed away from the screen and to pick just how far you want the reticle to move before your character starts to turn his head. To top it all off, you can do all of this with immediate feedback due to the controls menu giving you about half of the screen to look around whatever you are while messing with the controls. That being said, The Conduit fails to overcome several of the wii mote's defects. Readjusting your hand can be a downright annoyance, and sometimes the reticle will get stuck in a corner and will take some doing to reset your point of view. The wii mote still doesn't recognize small movements, either, which can make using melee or grenades (Stabbing the Wii Mote and Nunchuck forward, respectively) on the standard control settings a royal pain in the elbow.
Likewise, the graphics and sound, for the most part, are quite good. The water effects are very nice, and reloading uses the wii mote's speaker to enhance the reloading sound of certain weapons. Most weapons look like their generic science fiction counterparts, but they (And the parts of your suit you can see) look, and sound, decent enough. As usual, however, they're both restricted by the Wii. The sound and graphics are quite a step above most Wii games....but that's still several months to two years behind the curve of the top notch PS3 and Xbox 360 shooters. Most enemies look and sound unique enough from their counterparts, but get up close and you'll see some blurring and some bad textures. The game can't even make up for it by putting a load of things on screen at once; the most enemies you'll face at one time will be roughly ten or so, and although those ten might kick your can up and down the street, it would've been nice to see some larger battles.
You won't be seeing many groups of ten baddies, either. The Single Player clocks in at a relatively quick five or so hours. There are ten collectibles to find per level, but you've got to find them using the ASE, and you'll never want to see that little ball again. Near the beginning of the game, you pick up the All Seeing Eye (ASE for short), and you use it for the rest of the game to find secret rooms, hidden items, solve puzzles, and find 'ghost mines'. The problem, once again, lies with the permanently respawning enemies. The game *loves* to lay a path of ghost mines, which can only be defused by the ASE, in front of a blind corner with a hive of conduits and hatcheries just out of sight. As you're being assaulted by the never ending stream of enemies, you have to both fight them off and sit around twiddling your thumbs for several seconds while the ASE slowly defuses and blows up the ghost mine. It's gimmicky, annoying, and serves no purpose other than to force the player to replay some sections several times as they try to get the correct balance of not dying and defusing explosives.
Oh how we hate you, ASE
The multiplayer is quite good. Twelve players can duke it out in both team and free for all based modes, and there are generally a few standout modes. There's a FFA version of Halo's oddball in which you score points by holding onto the accursed ASE for the longest time, as well as a Bounty Hunter mode in which you gain points by killing the person you're assigned to kill, and lose points by killing anyone else. It also includes online voice chat, a rarity for the Wii. However, most of what the Conduit does on the multiplayer front has been done, and done better, on another consoles FPS. Still, the multiplayer is easily the best the Wii has seen.
Conclusion
The Conduit, while not quite crashing and burning, isn't quite the next coming of Halo it was hyped to be. For those with only a Wii, The Conduit is easily the best FPS the system has seen and a proof of concept that the wii mote can be used to great effect in an FPS, even without Wii Motion Plus. However, what The Conduit does has been done better and with less of a hassle on other consoles. Rent It before buying, but definitely give it a try. It's worth it.
Four out of Five Generic Government Agents agree, Generic Alien Invasions is the best tooth whitening out there!
The Good: Graphics, Multiplayer, Controls, Weapon Feel
The Bad: Single Player, Plot, Gimmicks, Difficulty (The Difficulty Curve! AGAIN!), My Formulaic Reviews
You all know 'that' game. You know. The one that goes into your generic gaming convention as an unknown and comes out as king of the block. Reviewers can't wait to line up to sing it's praises, it wins numerous best of show awards, and the fans go wild. Then...nothing. No word for several months. It slips from our minds. Time passes, and then it's back in the news, but not quite in the way it hoped. Far from being the critically acclaimed gem predicted last generic gaming convention, it's actually quite the mediocre experience. It gets fives and sixes and quickly drops off of our radar once again, only to be dug back up whenever we wish to tell the tale of over hype and its dangerous effect. Will The Conduit, an actual FPS contender on the Wii and a former recipient of several "Best of E3" awards, buck the trend, or will it crash and burn?
Review
In The Conduit, a FPS shooter for the Wii, you play Micheal Ford, your Generic Government Space Marine Agent Secret Service man fighting your Generic Evil Alien Invasion Force Grunts for control of, well, everything. You go through the games generic tutorial only to realize that, gasp, this is five days in the future, at which point you quickly warp back five days so you can play through exactly what got you to your standard generic tutorial. As you can probably tell, the best way to sum up the plot (And your interaction in it) would be...generic. The game doesn't even attempt to deviate from the norm in any way, shape, or form. You'll fight your generic ancient evil conspiracy, kill your generic looking alien enemies, and blaze through several generic story cutscenes. The game barely has any plot twists in it, and when the game occasionally does decide to toss a curve ball your way, it's so predictable and so yawn worthy that it's barely worth mentioning.
Micheal: He's Generically Generic!
Thankfully, the game makes up for its lackluster plot with pretty solid gameplay. You have your standard assortment of pistols, sub machine guns, assault rifles, grenades, and rocket launchers, and all of those in both plasma/beam form and bullet form. The game also adds in a few different weapons, from a Golden Gun homage to a plasma rifle that, once charged, becomes a plasma shotgun. If there's one gripe with the guns, it's that many times ammo crates are few and far between, and each ammo crate only services a specific type of gun (Alien, Human, or 'Trust'), meaning that you'll most likely be stuck using whatever type of gun your enemies are dropping. Not that you'll particularly mind using whatever weapon given to you. For the most part, each weapon has a distinct feel and look to it. Shotguns have a particular oomph, alien rounds have a slimy, other world-y presence, and advanced human weapons have a unique blue and purple glow about them.
Enemies, likewise, generally feel different from one another, although they don't deviate much from science fiction norms. There's your standard small and quick enemy with blades for hands, your standard tall one with the deadly weapon who takes more damage than the rest, and the usual even smaller and even more deadly one that blows up when you're too close. You'll also fight some human enemies, but there's really no difference between two human enemies except for skins and what weapon they're wielding. Most enemies will do basic tactical maneuvers, such as taking cover behind boxes and tossing grenades, but the overall strategy for the big bads usually winds up being 'run at him until he dies'.
The sad thing is is that suicidal rushes will usually work. For the first part of the game Generic Hero Man Ford doesn't have a recharging health bar, and even after getting a rebounding health system, it's *ssllllloooowwww*, forcing you to scavenge dead enemy corpses for health vials or else wander the level, hoping to run into a convenient health pack hanging on a wall. Add on to this enemies that will happily take 20 to 30 percent off of your health bar with a single attack as well as constantly warp onto the field until you kill their hatcheries (Called Conduits, thus the title) and you've got a recipe for frustration. This leads to a pretty spiky difficulty curve, as fights become progressively more and more difficult until the last battle before you get a suit upgrade, which tends to border on insanely one sided against you.
The fights become a little less one sided once you factor in the controls. The Conduit is a rare Wii game with some pretty good precision controls. There are several different preset control schemes to choose from, both in how the controls are mapped and in the sensitivity of the wii mote. You can refine the controls further to allow for things such as camera movement when the wii mote is pointed away from the screen and to pick just how far you want the reticle to move before your character starts to turn his head. To top it all off, you can do all of this with immediate feedback due to the controls menu giving you about half of the screen to look around whatever you are while messing with the controls. That being said, The Conduit fails to overcome several of the wii mote's defects. Readjusting your hand can be a downright annoyance, and sometimes the reticle will get stuck in a corner and will take some doing to reset your point of view. The wii mote still doesn't recognize small movements, either, which can make using melee or grenades (Stabbing the Wii Mote and Nunchuck forward, respectively) on the standard control settings a royal pain in the elbow.
Likewise, the graphics and sound, for the most part, are quite good. The water effects are very nice, and reloading uses the wii mote's speaker to enhance the reloading sound of certain weapons. Most weapons look like their generic science fiction counterparts, but they (And the parts of your suit you can see) look, and sound, decent enough. As usual, however, they're both restricted by the Wii. The sound and graphics are quite a step above most Wii games....but that's still several months to two years behind the curve of the top notch PS3 and Xbox 360 shooters. Most enemies look and sound unique enough from their counterparts, but get up close and you'll see some blurring and some bad textures. The game can't even make up for it by putting a load of things on screen at once; the most enemies you'll face at one time will be roughly ten or so, and although those ten might kick your can up and down the street, it would've been nice to see some larger battles.
You won't be seeing many groups of ten baddies, either. The Single Player clocks in at a relatively quick five or so hours. There are ten collectibles to find per level, but you've got to find them using the ASE, and you'll never want to see that little ball again. Near the beginning of the game, you pick up the All Seeing Eye (ASE for short), and you use it for the rest of the game to find secret rooms, hidden items, solve puzzles, and find 'ghost mines'. The problem, once again, lies with the permanently respawning enemies. The game *loves* to lay a path of ghost mines, which can only be defused by the ASE, in front of a blind corner with a hive of conduits and hatcheries just out of sight. As you're being assaulted by the never ending stream of enemies, you have to both fight them off and sit around twiddling your thumbs for several seconds while the ASE slowly defuses and blows up the ghost mine. It's gimmicky, annoying, and serves no purpose other than to force the player to replay some sections several times as they try to get the correct balance of not dying and defusing explosives.
Oh how we hate you, ASE
The multiplayer is quite good. Twelve players can duke it out in both team and free for all based modes, and there are generally a few standout modes. There's a FFA version of Halo's oddball in which you score points by holding onto the accursed ASE for the longest time, as well as a Bounty Hunter mode in which you gain points by killing the person you're assigned to kill, and lose points by killing anyone else. It also includes online voice chat, a rarity for the Wii. However, most of what the Conduit does on the multiplayer front has been done, and done better, on another consoles FPS. Still, the multiplayer is easily the best the Wii has seen.
Conclusion
The Conduit, while not quite crashing and burning, isn't quite the next coming of Halo it was hyped to be. For those with only a Wii, The Conduit is easily the best FPS the system has seen and a proof of concept that the wii mote can be used to great effect in an FPS, even without Wii Motion Plus. However, what The Conduit does has been done better and with less of a hassle on other consoles. Rent It before buying, but definitely give it a try. It's worth it.
