The Conduit Review
When this game was first announced, I was very excited for it and wanted it to be great. The lack of FPS games on the Wii boggled me; it seems like the Wiimote is the perfect controller for this type of genre. Let me tell you that High Voltage hit it just right; the controls are the best part of this game. The sad truth though is that the controls are the best part, not the story, graphics, or gameplay. The Conduit is too rooted in the past to hang with the big boys of this generation but is still an overall good game to play, for as long as it lasts… which wasn’t even six hours for me.
The game stars Mr. Ford, a secret service badass who gets control of a secret weapon called the ASE. Aliens invade Washington D.C. in search of this weapon, so its up to Michael Ford (could we be anymore generic) and only him to wipe out the Aliens and protect them from taking this magical ball. This description basically sums up the whole entire story. I never once felt attached to Mr. Ford throughout the whole game; he might as well have been a mute. You have a guy named Prometheus that holds your hand the whole playthrough, so not once do you ever feel like you are lost; but the game would be impossible to get lost without him because there is only one set path. The ending of the game is the worst ending I’ve seen this year. It literally is a build up that left me with the feeling of “thats it.” Also, there really wasn’t a big battle at the end nor did it leave me wanting to play the next one… it just left me staring at my screen fighting back a laugh at how horrible the ending was.
So lets get the good points out of the way first. No one can bark at the controls because the Conduit allows for complete button mapping. Don’t like how fast you turn, where the shoot button is, how far on the edge of the screen before you start to spin, they allow complete control of all of these and so much more. I would love for more games to adopt this procedure because then the debate on people not liking your button layout will be extinct. There might have been one place during the whole game that I seen any slowdown, but besides that the Wii seems to handle everything the Conduit throws at it (which isn’t much to dazzle anyone).
Going into the game, you already know the graphics are not going to impress by any means, but for the system they chose to develop on, they pulled off some great looking environments. For all the good environments comes some of the worst filler stages I’ve seen in a long time. Who knew Washington D.C. was filled with so many rooms with filing cabinets that are laid out the exact same way. You will literally move from one room to the next and it will be the EXACT same room, minus a small item or two. The enemies do offer a wide range of detail and animations but I can count on my fingers how many different baddies their are. One idea they pulled off is no loading times within each stage. They have you traveling through some pointless hallways with hardly any detail or objects to interact with which acts as the loading screen.
Remember in the Metroid Prime series where you had to scan a bunch of items to proceed with the game; The Conduit uses this feature too which gets a bit annoying. There are doors that have switches on them which you must trigger before the door will open. The switches are hidden so you have to use the ASE to locate them. It boils down to you clearing out a room of enemies and then searching the walls for these buttons so you can activate them. There are also hidden rooms to access but you have to play a hilariously easy mini game to get to them; a little challenge might have helped these but it really isn’t anything, there is maybe one per level. There are also hidden discs to find but I couldn’t tell you what they do because I might have collected ten of them the whole game (there are ten in each level). I’m not a fan of searching for pointless items, but I’m sure there are gamers that do.
The enemies in the game look like they could be pulled out of any movie/game that contains aliens. Out of the nine stages that make up the single player, there is probably only one or two times you fight what could be classified as a boss fight. You might fight a boss, but then fight two of them at the same time. The weapons also feel dated as well, but still provide enjoyment to use and kill things with. The game offers a fair amount of difficulty, the AI works well at spots but will sometimes watch them run past you to get to there predetermined destination.
Now lets move on to my experience with the multiplayer. After several attempts at finding a match on all the different game types (all three of them) I finally… gave up. Come the next day and after searching for going on a good twenty minutes, I found a match and was thrust into this mediocre experience. There are not even ten maps and they don’t offer much innovation or challenge; their small, boring, and are not the type of experience to keep gamers hooked. The lag is a major problem so to my judgment the multiplayer is a failure to me. The Wiimote is fun to play with but trying to hit a opponent dead on with it can take some serious skill. Coupling this with Wii Motionplus and you can really tell a difference. I feel that multiplayer sessions can get tiresome after a while because I cannot rest the Wiimote anywhere; you have to constantly place it forward in front of you, which can strain your arm after a long play session.
What I Liked
Controls were handled close to perfect. If you don’t like it, tweak it
Do a pretty good job of hiding the load times
The Wii handles the game fairly well; hardly any lag to see through the whole game
What I Didn’t Like
They don’t explore any gameplay elements besides running and gunning.
The absence of other characters and vehiculary segments makes the repetitiveness feel much more strong
Mr. Ford is a generic character who gets no sympathy from me
I understand I come off a bit negative in the review but breaking it all down, it is still a very enjoyable experience but you can easily get through it in an evening. I hope they can update the multiplayer to include more modes and try to fix their lag problems. The game does nothing revolutionary but it all comes together nicely and acts as a great weekend rental. Hardcore FPS fans will surely be turned away with its ancient aesthetics but newcomers will be pleasantly surprised, but all in all will be left with the feeling of emptiness when the credits start to roll.
6 Comments
I've not played the game so your opinion is more valid than mine could be so I'm not going to offer it, but you should do a little fact checking (terminal reality didn't make this game faux pas sir, faux pas) and please proof read before publishing their is not the same as they're. but aside from you dubious spelling, grammar and factual information… fair opinion, you didn't like it. Although saying that the graphics wont impress ANYONE is pretty shaky journalism too, as in the context of the Wii it look pretty special from a tech point of view and a great many people in the industy are already impressed.
Sorry to lay into you but if you are going to publish any journalistic material you have to understand that accuracy and use of the competent use of the English language are vital; if you expect anyone to take you seriously.
Tut, tut Michael
@ Matt: Michael had very high hopes for this game, I can guarentee he drowned his sorrows straight after playing, hence the drunken mistakes.
As a sort of disclaimer, MOST of the writers at Resume Play write material in sober conditions.
ehhh, what a nob
bitch bitch bitch
@Wsksk: Kill back your spine and eat your ass
Like how, just like yours dear boy, my comment made absoluetly zero sense?
@Matt: Very valid comment, yes I think Mickey was a tad over the amurkican limit when he wrote this though ~o~.
I assure you, I wasn't drunk when I wrote this, I was actually at work slowly working on it. I typed up the review extremely tired and forgot to make sure who the developer was. I understand this was a crappy mistake for me to make.