The Conduit

The Conduit was released yesterday in North America, and it was awesome. If you haven't picked this game up, you owe it to yourself to stop what you're doing right now and buy it. First Person Shooters have not had much success on Wii. Outside of The Call of Duty games and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption they've not fared well in the retail department. Even well received games like Medal of Honor Heroes 2 that improved FPS controls didn't sell well.

The Conduit aims to change that and I think they've done a wonderful job. The story of the game is not ground breaking. It won't win any awards for creativity. The world was invaded by aliens, secret government agencies have to clean up the mess and betrayals occur. You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again. Where it does succeed is in sheer fun. The game is a blast to play. High Voltage Software has delivered a game that redefined shooters for Wii in ways other than story. The customization options allow for any control scheme you can imagine. You can map the controls to any button or motion that you choose and that means that controls should not be a problem for you. Map the options you don't use very much to controls you don't like and put the more used options in positions that you can get to easily.

It also brings life like graphics on Wii to the same level as early Xbox 360 and PS3 games. The game is gorgeous to look at. The environments may be bland and stereotypical, but the level of detail that High Voltage has reached is unmatched to this point on Wii. The Quantum 3 engine designed by High Voltage has allowed them to use techniques that are common on the higher powered system to provide lighting effects, depth, and detail that many thought were not possible on Nintendo's little white box. It's still not as powerful as you see on the other systems. For instance you can't read documents sitting behind glass in the Library of Congress, which would have been a nice touch, but they're also not blurry messes that blend in with everything else when you get close. You can see where words begin and end and paper is raised above the surface it's sitting on. Flags have well defined stars and stripes that don't blur once you touch them. It's not the same experience you get with Halo or Call of Duty on 360, but it's a great first effort for the developer on Wii. A sequel and some more time means they'll be able to do even more to improve on the visuals.

The multi-player portion of the game blows everything else to this point on the system away. There are more modes of play with as many or more players in matches. They have voice chat, friends list, and the ability to add friends without having their friend code. All of those things were thought impossible on Wii, but High Voltage proved they can be done, and done quite well. This game could very well be the Halo style game people have been wanting on Wii.

I hope this game does well, because High Voltage Software has done everything that was necessary to deliver a solid shooter experience on a platform that people dismissed for shooters. They've got two more games on the horizon that should improve on this first offering and hopefully we'll see a sequel to this game because it's an experience that I'm looking forward to again.

High Voltage, you've done well, and you've cemented your place among my favorite developers.

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