The Conduit Review

[Shawn Zipay]

The Conduit

Release Date: June 23, 2009 (US), July, 10, 2009 (PAL), July 16, 2009 (AUS)
Reviewed On: Nintendo Wii
Also Available On: N/A
Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: SEGA
ESRB Rating: T – Blood, Mild Language, Violence
PEGI Rating: 16+ – Violence, Online Game
OFLC Rating: M – Violence; Gaming experience may change online

Playing Sega’s The Conduit is an exercise in longing. Primarily, nostalgia will set in hard and fast; The Conduit feels so desperately like first-person shooters from the turn of the century (e.g. Halo, Goldeneye, Half-Life) it will feel like the Wii came out in ’99. Unfortunately, the second desire The Conduit gives players will likely be that they should have bought a different system more suited to this style of gameplay.

Use the mysterious All-Seeing Eye to reveal... other All-Seeing Eyes.

For Wii owners though, this is the systems first legitimate attempt at the genre. Those of us who were looking for the system’s premiere FPS experience when Red Steel arrived, will finally be given what they wanted; and then some. Not many third-party-developed titles have stood up to the innovative controls, but The Conduit seems to “get it.” Despite this praise - and with the exception of Metroid Prime 3 - The Conduit’s peers aren’t much to measure up to; it’s good, but is it good enough for your cash?

Story:

If Half-Life is a favorite, then playing through The Conduit’s government conspiracy will feel like a less compelling version of Black Mesa’s epic. Michael Ford, the game’s vocal and gruff Freeman, assumes the role of “only person capable of fighting off an alien invasion.” Originally sent to deal with a terrorist situation, Ford learns his agency, The Trust, has deeper roots than he previously thought. It appears that Prometheus, the terrorist leader, has stolen a valuable artifact from the Trust and in his effort to make off with it, unleashed an Alien race called the Drudge on Washington DC.

The Drudge will continue to storm Washington DC's monuments until Ford destroys these Conduits.

The premise is very similar to Half-Life and this is how The Conduit operates: if it worked well before, why not twice? This is also why the Drudge “classes” move, sound, and behave like Halo’s Elites, Grunts, Hunters, Scarabs, and Drones; the latter two names are even Drudge classes, though not their corresponding Halo baddie. These undeniable similarities leave The Conduit feeling standard despite its innovations.

Gameplay:

The most noticeable of these is the All-Seeing Eye (A.S.E.), the most interesting aspect of gameplay. Once Ford gets his hands on the A.S.E., the shooter gains a personality. The A.S.E. doesn’t pull the game out of mediocrity and, more often than not, is a nuisance. Its purpose throughout the game usually gives the pace a nice slowdown, but also forces the player to use it as a puzzle-solving and explosive-disarming device. After a few of these instances, the A.S.E. seems like a mere novelty, which is almost entirely arbitrary to the whole of The Conduit.

Most of the players' time will be spent mauling down legions of Trust “puppets,” agents who have supposedly been turned against Ford, and the various classes of Drudge. Approximately a dozen weapons are at the players' disposal, but each one doesn’t feel very different. Between human, alien, and the Trust’s energy weapons nearly all weapons will kill an enemy with a three shots or less. The Drudge, the most prolific of the enemies, arrive on the scene by way of the eponymous "Conduits," which as much of the players' time will be spent closing with grenades. Overall, gameplay manages to run splendidly throughout the whole 6-8 hours experience and offers everything a Wii owner could ask for in a FPS. All the elements of intrigue and conspiracy are in place for a solid sci-fi shooter and thanks to the Wii’s motion controls, this game stands out from the console's Red Steels.

Precision controls plus a fully-charged Trust weapon will make short work of this room.

What The Conduit does better than 100% of all console games is allowing players to customize every single button on their controllers. PC games have been doing it for years and The Orange Box did it in 2007, and at this point in gaming fully customizable controls should be a standard. The Conduit not only allows players to organize their death stick to a comfortable configuration, it also gives the player options to adjust the x and y axes, player running speed, HUD items placement, and even the amount of pixels the Wiimote will be picked up in. The only issue with the controls is The Conduit is so short that it’s hard to fully adjust to the point-and-shoot gameplay before the campaign comes to its end.

Graphics:

Returning to the theme of “turn of the century,” The Conduit’s graphics are full of simple, low-poly, environments that hardly do the gameplay justice. Today, it’s very difficult to get away with what The Conduit does here; uninspired, but functional level design, boring character models, animation and A.I., and linear, cramped levels. All of these attributes oozes late ‘90s, yet the Wii allows the game to hold a decent frame rate with an added treat of effective lighting.

Guns and a few buildings look pretty great, but other textures leave much to be desired.

The game’s design is one of its weakest areas merely because the Wii can’t handle the level of detail most FPS’ are showing today, and The Conduit really suffers for it. Textures are atrocious and all the surfaces they are slathered over feel too blocky to immerse the player on any level deeper than pointing a controller at the screen. Some portions attempt to bring it up from the mire such as the weapons, which all look good and are animated very well. Unfortunately, the major area where High Voltage had to battle the Wii’s limitations, they weren’t victorious.

Audio:

The requisite upbeat, rock-influenced electronic music is in full force here, but unlike many of The Conduit’s counterparts, it lacks the subtlety, the ambiance, and the instrumentation. It’s really just that genre of music because it automatically makes each situation more intense. It nearly falls flat of even that, inevitably melding into a series of endless repetitive synthesized blips. When puzzling with the A.S.E., or in other docile areas, the music approaches something special, but the action usually picks up before you can notice.

The Conduit's Drones act and sound much like Halo's Elites. Thankfully, gunfire will fix that.

Gunfire and sound effects both add little to the mix other than normality. The best part of The Conduit’s audio is by far the voice-acting. Mark Sheppard voices Michael Ford, and delivers a rough around the edges, but entirely assertive and believable performance. William Sheppard voices the Trust’s leader, John Adams, to an excellent effect. Adams is a brilliant blend of authority and deviousness. Kevin Sorbo lends his voice for the terrorist, Prometheus, and while the added star power is nice, he doesn’t overshadow the Sheppards’ performances.

Multiplayer:

Outside of the main story, The Conduit almost finds its feet. Online multiplayer is definitely a highlight, and because of the level of customization for controls, the playing field actually feels level. "Deathmatch," "Team Deathmatch," and "Team Objective" games manage to add enjoyable hours of 16-player competition, but solidarity is embraced in lieu of innovative modes. Local and regional matches are difficult to come by, so players will have to come together across the world to battle. Other than no local multiplayer, the mode’s worst problem is how buggy it can be. Almost without fail, the first match you’ll enter will be glitched, forcing you to stare into some wall or backdrop until it ends, which unforgivably ruins the experience.

Multiplayer leans heavily on close combat due to the nature of the controls. Bring a shotgun!

Summary:

The Conduit isn’t a let down; it just relies so heavily on conventions from the time when previously mentioned games were defining the FPS genre that it gives you the same feeling everyone had in 2000: imagine where this could be in 10 years. The story has all the components to be a heart wrenching, conspiracy-driven, sci-fi frag-fest. Unfortunately, the production values and brevity of the game don’t allow the positive aspects of The Conduit to fully develop.

For first-person shooter enthusiasts who only own a Wii, The Conduit is must-buy. The control customization is phenomenal and anyone who picks up the Wiimote and nunchuck will be able to completely adjust settings to his or her liking. In theory, players could make The Conduit the most controllable game ever created; if it weren’t for the Wii’s limitations. That’s basically what The Conduit boils down to: for the Wii, it’s great; but because of the Wii, it feels like a polished, 10-year-old FPS.

Story: 7.0/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Graphics: 6.0/10
Audio: 7.0/10
Multiplayer: 7.5/10

Total Gaming Network Rating: 7.7/10

~Eldri