reviews

The Conduit: Can The Wii Appeal to the Hardcore Crowd?

The Nintendo Wii often offers casual gaming experiences like Wii Sports Resort and Animal Crossing: City Folk. While this makes Wii highly successful, it suffers from a lack of hardcore games the Xbox 360 and PS3 have to offer with Halo and Bioshock. However, High Voltage Software thinks that call all changed when they released a first person shooter for the Wii called The Conduit.

The Conduit focuses on an alien invasion on Washington D.C. in the near future. The alien race, known as the Drudge, deploys their forces throughout the city through the use of portals called Conduits. An organization known as the Trust sends newly-recruited agent Michael Ford into the city. Initially to stop a terrorist threat, Ford soon gets caught in the invasion and must stop the Drudge from taking over the city.

The Wii’s pointer function is perfect for first person shooters as it offers more precise and realistic aiming. The player presses the B button to shoot, the A button to jump, and the Z button to lock on enemies. The player can also perform a melee attack by thrusting the Wii Remote forward and throw grenades by flicking the Nunchuk. If the player doesn’t like the way the controls are set up, he or she can customize them in any way they want. Other customizable aspects includes character running speed, motion sensitivity, the layout of the head-up display.

There are a total of fifteen guns in the game as well as three types of grenades. Some weapons can charge their shots while others feature a binocular scope. A unique feature in the game is that the player can use a Trust prototype called the All Seeing Eye or ASE for short. The ASE allows the player to detect hidden traps and enemies as well as open locked doors and hack into computers. There is also a ton of replay value in the game such unlockable concept art and an achievement system. Achievements are basically accomplishments and tasks that you are rewarded for doing.

The Conduit offers an online multiplayer mode that supports up to twelve players. While it is disappointing that the game doesn’t offer local multiplayer or online split screen, the online multiplayer is a lot of fun. There are three types of matches: Free for All (every man for himself), Team Reaper (one team with the most kills wins), and Team Objective (capture the flag but with an ASE). There are some glitches in the multiplayer like disappearing opponents and preventing the player from moving. Whether or not, these glitches will occur often depends on the player’s connection.

Despite the glitches, The Conduit has an outstanding presentation. The Conduit has an outstanding presentation. The game utilizes a game engine called the Quantum3. The Quantum3 offers several graphical effects such as bump mapping, reflection, refraction, and motion blur. The enemies’ artificial intelligence is realistically smart where they can take cover and tell if the player is open to attack.

Overall, The Conduit shows that a fun first person shooter can exist on the Wii. The outstanding presentation, customizable feature, and online play are also reasons to The Conduit. In conclusion, the game scores 8.5 out of 10.

© 2009 The Daytime.