The Conduit has been treated as some kind of Messiah for the Hardcore crowd on the Wii. That was the case, before the game has actually been released and after the first reviews have been written, many peoples hopes have been destroyed. Sale figures weren't that great, not to mention general reactions to the game. Now that some time has passed since the initial release of the game, I wanted to write a little review of this game and show you my personal experience I had with this title.





Let's start of with the Singleplayer experience. If games have Multiplayer modes, I always first head for the Singleplayer mode in order to gain some experience with the game. It also gives me enough time to get familiar with the Story, Setting and feeling of the game. The game starts of slowly: You get a level that is nothing more than a tutorial version of a level that appears later in the game. I generally hate Tutorials, but this one actually helps a lot and gives you enough time to customize your controls. Now, I bet most of you have already read and heard quite a lot about the customization options of this game, so it makes no sense to repeat them again. To make things short, if you don't like a certain aspect of the controls, chances are that you can change that aspect.




The story is nonsensical, stereotypical and unimaginative science fiction based on several different conspiracy theories that are more or less popular. It feels like a very bad X-Files episode, written by drunken apes and produced by Uwe Boll. While the Voice overs are pretty good, the lines that are provided are terrible and lack any depth. There are no real Cut-Scenes, most of the story is told by transmissions and conversations between missions, which was cutting-edge story-telling in videogames back in 1994. The ending is anti-climatic and leaves everything open for a sequel, which is the writers way of laughing into your face and making fun of you. The story is just a terrible, convoluted mess.

So, if you want to play this game, it's certainly not for the story. What about gameplay? Let's just say, the game is fun enough to keep you going for the six hours it actually lasts. You are mostly restricted to corridors, and I have to say, this gives the game a certain Retro-feeling to it. If you take of your retro-goggles for a second though, you will notice how incredible boring the level design becomes after the first two levels. No surprises here!
The weapons feel good, especially the alien ones. They are interesting and original, certainly one of the high-lights this game actually has. The pacing is a little bit off, many of the best moments of this game are in the middle of the levels, and not in the ends of them. The lack of Boss battles is somewhat irritating, since the nonsensical story would actually allow awesome stuff to happen.





The graphics have been in the focus of many when it comes to The Conduit. It has an engine that has been build specifically for the Wii. In its best moments, it is actually able to put out some great effects. The game has a graphical quality, that many other third party games lack. While it is impressive, I feel like there are many possibilities to improve it. The sky-boxes are terrible and blunt. The overall design shares the “qualities” of the story. There certainly is hope that this fine engine will be used for more interesting stuff than corridors in the future games of High Voltage, because you can't really show off its potential in bland corridors.

The Music on the other hand has not been talked about that much. I have to say that I liked what I heard in the game. The score is certainly more memorable than the story and setting of the game. Sound effects are of mixed quality. The aliens sound like your average alien stereotype ripped right out of another game, while the weapon sounds give the armory of the game its own feeling.





While the Singleplayer experience certainly does not live up to the hype that surrounded the game, it actually is fun, if not a bit short. The highlights consist of a great selection of weapons and the “okay” pacing of the game. While the game is not too difficult, you will die several times because of the respawn heavy level design. Even though there is a harder difficulty setting available I doubt you will return to the singleplayer section of the game. The game tries to pull you back in with an achievement system, but let me tell you something: Achievements, that are tied to a game and can not be viewed by other people, are useless. I really doubt that anybody is really interested in it. Same goes for the hidden disks and messages you can find in every level. While they are a nice addition, you won't come back for them.

I almost forgot to mention the ASE. Oh well, on second thought, it's not really worth mentioning: It is a glorified key/flashlight/underused Puzzle Device. It bleeps if you actually have to use it, which is great and you can use it in order to uncover the before mentioned secret messages and Rooms with special weapons. Since you don't get ammo for these special weapons, their use is pretty limited.

The multiplayer experience on the other hand probably is the best you can find on the Wii so far. I would go so far to say that you can buy the game without even bothering with the singleplayer game. While the Map selection is not that great (only seven Maps), the multiplayer matches are really frantic and there are many options. Game types are varied enough, especially ASE Football is interesting, while not being entirely new to the genre. There is a ranking system that is based on XP, which keeps the motivation up. You can also do Team Matches or Matches with your friends, if you like passing around your friend code. As I do.

Up until now, I did not have too many problems with lags or hackers. In fact, in my seven hours of playing the game online, I encountered both only once. Same goes for the respawn glitch, which seems to have been patched with the last Wii System Update (Version 4.2). Can't confirm that yet since I haven't played the game online since that update. You will come back for this online experience again and again, so if playing FPS online is your thing, you should get this game. Unless of course, you have other systems, then you have better alternatives.

I would give this game a 7 out of 10, mostly due to the multiplayer mode, customisation options and interesting Weapons. Singleplayer is meh.