Now, regular viewers of this column may have noticed the pattern that most of our reviews thus far have been, to some degree, positive. This shouldn't really be a surprise, but if it is, let me clarify- we tend to play games that we enjoy, as spending $50-60 on something you dont enjoy is generally a bad move in most cultures. We like to point out what the best landmarks are in that great sea of Video Gaming so that our passengers don't end up cold and lost without so much as a towel to their names. But, some of us need more guidance than that- just ask the captain of the Titanic. Some people love a good bile-gushing rip on a certain title in order to steer clear of that pretty, sparkly iceberg of disappointment dead ahead. Well, fasten your seatbelts, children, as we embark on a voyage into the often-tapped waters of disappointment. Today, It's Dangerous To Go Alone teaches the much needed class of How Not To Make A Hardcore Wii Game in our review of... The Conduit!
Story
The Conduit's story has all the great emotional depth and riveting characterization that most First Person Shooters (see, FPS!) that don't start with Bio- and end with -Shock have. Aliens invade Washington, DC, and you, protagonist Mr. Ford, are THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP THEM. WITH YOUR GUN. Prior to the invasion, Mr. Ford, a Secret Service agent, is contacted by a mysterious man under the codename of John Adams (Ford? Adams? Oh ho, I see what you did there!). Adams, said to be working with a mysterious organization know as The Trust, assigns Ford to the task of finding a terrorist known only as Prometheus. After going to Prometheus's base and taking the prized "All-Seeing-Eye" (that glowing ball in Ford's hand on the cover), shit hits the fan when aliens start dropping into Washington, DC and razing the place. Ford has to fight the aliens and uncover the truth of what's going on. Unfortunately, the presentation of said narrative is inexplicably handled by a scene before every narrative where a little picture of Ford and a little picture of whoever he's talking to appear on a computer screen, and the two talk through text. Seriously. There are no cutscenes, motion capture, or any sort of actual dramatic flair- just two people essentially emailing one another for every scene. And the story itself is riddled with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese in a room with Dick Cheney. Why are you THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP THEM? When you're walking down the streets or inside a building, there are literally no people except you and the enemies. Where the hell did everyone in the highly populated Washington, DC even go? And where the hell are the military? Chasing effing butterflies in their tanks? To say nothing of the fact that the aliens seem more determined to just chase you through every major landmark in the DC area than actually do anything of any strategic value. This mangling of a narrative is a shame considering that there actually is a somewhat unique script under all this, you just won't ever see more than a glimpse of it behind the filter of pure stupid placed in front of your eyes by the presentation of it.
Gameplay
Gameplay in The Conduit is what you might expect- Walk through a level, point gun at mean person, pull trigger, person go boom, repeat. But, you see, it's on the Wii now! So it's different! In this case, you point the Wiimote at the screen and aim by moving the cursor in correspondance with your gun. Sounds great in theory, right? Especially since Metroid Prime 3 did the Wiimote aiming thing damn near perfectly?Well, theory can go jump out of a physicist's bathroom window. The Wiimote differs from most aiming styles in several ways- 1. It's fat and clunky for this sort of thing. 2. It's constant reliance on the sensor bar greatly hampers your abiltiy to precisely move where you want to go. 3. The cursor itself is too big to precisely aim. and 4. The game sometimes throws temper tantrums and doesn't want you to do anything that would cause it stress. For example, turning requires you to move the Wiimote towards the edge of the screen , making the aiming cursor move closer to the edge and turning Ford to keep up with it. But wait- pointing the Wiimote that far away from the sensor is apparently a no-no! The game will sometimes lose track of the Wiimote while you're trying to turn, freezing you in place and allowing that space monster right next to you to have an unexpectedly easy munchie session. Looking up can be difficult at times too, which is REALLY annoying when there's an enemy spawner on the roof that you just can't get at. And don't even talk about the pathetically stupid system of flicking the nunchuck to throw grenades. I can relate numerous occasions where an innocent in-game bookcase or table had its day suddenly interrupted by the fact that the game read my slight adjustment of hand position as GRENADE TIME! WOOT! I will say that the game does allow you to customize the sensitivty and setup of the controls, but the fact that most of the worst settings are the default ones does not make me a happy camper. One second for a compliment- the game does indeed have an interesting selection of weaponry, populated with guns that are original and quite cool. Compliment second over. The game's unique feature, other than the Wiimote flail aiming, is the All-Seeing-Eye, which acts as a hyper-advanced flashlight that allows you to find hidden symbols and messages, crack codes, and turn invisible things visible. It's actually a fairly cool piece of equipment that I wish that they had allowed more usage of, but it has one major design flaw. Whenever you get close to a hidden object, the machine starts emitting an increasingly loud BE-DEEP! BE-DEEP! as you get closer. Now, imagine standing in a room with one of those hidden things in it, but your attention is slightly diverted by the fact that you're in the middle of a firefight. The thing goes BE-DEEP! BE-DEEP! BE-DEEP! until you want to throw it out the nearest window. The gameplay in the Conduit ranges from mediocre to just plain awful, and when placed next to other shooters (even those I don't like) it tries to hard to be like the big boys and falls flat on its face.
Level and Enemy Design
Oh, God. I thought they didn't make games with this horrendous level design anymore. Level design in this game ranges from just meh to "Oh my God, I've walked through this same stretch of corridor 5 times already in this level." Each mission takes place in a different part of Washington, DC, but aside from recognizable rooms like the Library of Congress that pop up now and again, you really wouldn't be able to tell. You progress through gray corridor after gray corridor after white corridor after stairwell (ooh, bold choice! An effing stairwell!) with the occasional bigger room meant for firefights and cover. it gets so repetitive after a while that you'll be desperately looking for hidden objects, as those are the only noticeable difference between certain areas. Absolutely nothing in the game is even slightly destructable, either, so you can have the interesting experience of pouring gunfire into a bookshelf and watching absolutely no damage occur. Even worse than the level design is the enemy design. Throughout the course of your adventure, you will encounter several hundred clones of- guys in suits, guys in suits with headpieces, little alien crabs, and these guys.
The Conduit's story has all the great emotional depth and riveting characterization that most First Person Shooters (see, FPS!) that don't start with Bio- and end with -Shock have. Aliens invade Washington, DC, and you, protagonist Mr. Ford, are THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP THEM. WITH YOUR GUN. Prior to the invasion, Mr. Ford, a Secret Service agent, is contacted by a mysterious man under the codename of John Adams (Ford? Adams? Oh ho, I see what you did there!). Adams, said to be working with a mysterious organization know as The Trust, assigns Ford to the task of finding a terrorist known only as Prometheus. After going to Prometheus's base and taking the prized "All-Seeing-Eye" (that glowing ball in Ford's hand on the cover), shit hits the fan when aliens start dropping into Washington, DC and razing the place. Ford has to fight the aliens and uncover the truth of what's going on. Unfortunately, the presentation of said narrative is inexplicably handled by a scene before every narrative where a little picture of Ford and a little picture of whoever he's talking to appear on a computer screen, and the two talk through text. Seriously. There are no cutscenes, motion capture, or any sort of actual dramatic flair- just two people essentially emailing one another for every scene. And the story itself is riddled with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese in a room with Dick Cheney. Why are you THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP THEM? When you're walking down the streets or inside a building, there are literally no people except you and the enemies. Where the hell did everyone in the highly populated Washington, DC even go? And where the hell are the military? Chasing effing butterflies in their tanks? To say nothing of the fact that the aliens seem more determined to just chase you through every major landmark in the DC area than actually do anything of any strategic value. This mangling of a narrative is a shame considering that there actually is a somewhat unique script under all this, you just won't ever see more than a glimpse of it behind the filter of pure stupid placed in front of your eyes by the presentation of it.
Gameplay
Gameplay in The Conduit is what you might expect- Walk through a level, point gun at mean person, pull trigger, person go boom, repeat. But, you see, it's on the Wii now! So it's different! In this case, you point the Wiimote at the screen and aim by moving the cursor in correspondance with your gun. Sounds great in theory, right? Especially since Metroid Prime 3 did the Wiimote aiming thing damn near perfectly?Well, theory can go jump out of a physicist's bathroom window. The Wiimote differs from most aiming styles in several ways- 1. It's fat and clunky for this sort of thing. 2. It's constant reliance on the sensor bar greatly hampers your abiltiy to precisely move where you want to go. 3. The cursor itself is too big to precisely aim. and 4. The game sometimes throws temper tantrums and doesn't want you to do anything that would cause it stress. For example, turning requires you to move the Wiimote towards the edge of the screen , making the aiming cursor move closer to the edge and turning Ford to keep up with it. But wait- pointing the Wiimote that far away from the sensor is apparently a no-no! The game will sometimes lose track of the Wiimote while you're trying to turn, freezing you in place and allowing that space monster right next to you to have an unexpectedly easy munchie session. Looking up can be difficult at times too, which is REALLY annoying when there's an enemy spawner on the roof that you just can't get at. And don't even talk about the pathetically stupid system of flicking the nunchuck to throw grenades. I can relate numerous occasions where an innocent in-game bookcase or table had its day suddenly interrupted by the fact that the game read my slight adjustment of hand position as GRENADE TIME! WOOT! I will say that the game does allow you to customize the sensitivty and setup of the controls, but the fact that most of the worst settings are the default ones does not make me a happy camper. One second for a compliment- the game does indeed have an interesting selection of weaponry, populated with guns that are original and quite cool. Compliment second over. The game's unique feature, other than the Wiimote flail aiming, is the All-Seeing-Eye, which acts as a hyper-advanced flashlight that allows you to find hidden symbols and messages, crack codes, and turn invisible things visible. It's actually a fairly cool piece of equipment that I wish that they had allowed more usage of, but it has one major design flaw. Whenever you get close to a hidden object, the machine starts emitting an increasingly loud BE-DEEP! BE-DEEP! as you get closer. Now, imagine standing in a room with one of those hidden things in it, but your attention is slightly diverted by the fact that you're in the middle of a firefight. The thing goes BE-DEEP! BE-DEEP! BE-DEEP! until you want to throw it out the nearest window. The gameplay in the Conduit ranges from mediocre to just plain awful, and when placed next to other shooters (even those I don't like) it tries to hard to be like the big boys and falls flat on its face.
Level and Enemy Design
Oh, God. I thought they didn't make games with this horrendous level design anymore. Level design in this game ranges from just meh to "Oh my God, I've walked through this same stretch of corridor 5 times already in this level." Each mission takes place in a different part of Washington, DC, but aside from recognizable rooms like the Library of Congress that pop up now and again, you really wouldn't be able to tell. You progress through gray corridor after gray corridor after white corridor after stairwell (ooh, bold choice! An effing stairwell!) with the occasional bigger room meant for firefights and cover. it gets so repetitive after a while that you'll be desperately looking for hidden objects, as those are the only noticeable difference between certain areas. Absolutely nothing in the game is even slightly destructable, either, so you can have the interesting experience of pouring gunfire into a bookshelf and watching absolutely no damage occur. Even worse than the level design is the enemy design. Throughout the course of your adventure, you will encounter several hundred clones of- guys in suits, guys in suits with headpieces, little alien crabs, and these guys.
Get used to seeing them, cause you fight approximately 1000 identical copies of these guys throughout the game. If you think they look at all cool right now, just wait until you've seen as many of these as I did without any difference whatsover between enemy. You get so sick of them and just get bored with shooting them. Even the "bosses" are a total joke, as they're just the same boring fight against a big beetle tank thing repeated 3 times, with the intricate strategy of *shoot at it until it dies.* Someone on the design team must have gotten really lazy making this.
Graphics
One of the Conduit's claims to fame is that it has a graphics engine designed to emulate those of the 360 and PS3 in quality and frame rate. I'll wait until you're finished laughing at that sentence. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to attempt to make a Wii game be judged by the same standards as the 360 and PS3? One of the reasons that the Wii succeds at all is that it goes off and does its own thing entirely seperate from the other two giants, which occasionally produces unique masterpieces like Super Mario Galaxy. The Wii always looks its best when producing vibrant, colorful graphics (Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl) or cel-shaded graphics (No More Heroes, Okami). Realism is not the Wii's strong suit, and while the Conduit does look pretty sometimes, at other times the Wii shows off its limits. At one point right after going into a building after seeing a great-looking water effect outside the Jefferson Memorial, I looked out a window only to find what looked like a 2-D painting of the outside city that was hung up outside the window to attempt to convince me that I was looking out the window. Hah hah. Funny. Wii graphics should not purposely be made to emulate 360 and PS3 graphics, as that only highlights the Wii's weaknesses.
Difficulty
The Conduit has a widly uneven difficulty curve. The hardest part of the game occurs only a few levels in, and from then on the levels swing wildly from absolute cakewalks to massive firefights. The game can;t seem to make up it's mind about how hard it wants to be, culminating in an easy final battle and incredibly lackluster ending. Thanks for your hardcore support.
Multiplayer
Ahh, the biggest sore spot for me. See, I initally bought the Conduit for the main reason that, at the time, the Wii was my only next-gen console, and I wanted a multiplayer FPS that I could bring out when my friends were over and have some fun shooting one another. So I brought the game home, popped in the disc, and started it up, only to find... there was no local split-screen multiplayer, only the online multiplayer. What the hell? The lack of a local multiplayer greatly hurts what potential the game might have had and defied my usual understanding of how shooters are supposed to work. But hey, that might be forgiveable if the online is good, right? So, a while later after I actually got a wireless router, i sat down to test out the online multiplayer. I logged in on Nintendo Wi-Fi and waiting for the server to connect me to an available game. And waited... and waited... I literally had to try around 5 times before the server would even find a game for me (not saying there weren't enough people on to get a game, saying that the connection failed to connect to any of them). I was even kicked out of the first game that I actually found due to a "connection error." When I actually did get online into a game, I found a decent online multiplayer with some interesting modes that was greatly hampered by Nintendo Wi-Fi's continual screwups and delays. Sega, clearly the Wii can do good online, Monster Hunter Tri did it just fine. Why can't you? You might enjoy the multiplayer, if you can tolerate the crappy connection, mysteriously stupid friend system that's a lot more complicated than need be, and a total lack of just being able to pal around with your friends on one TV.
Conclusion
You might be surprised to learn after this that, before its release, I was actually really excited for the Conduit. It was a major, high-profile hardcore release for the Wii, something we see less and less of nowadays, and it looked like it had potential. The final product, however, wasted it's potential trying to be "Halo for Wii" and fell flat on its face. A horribly presented story, fiddly and unintuitve gameplay, horrendously repetitive design, and lack of an easy-to-use multiplayer come together to create an experience that simply doesnt measure up. The only reason that the game was even considered by many was because it was for the Wii, a console with few shooters and few hardcore games. The Conduit is definately not the worst game I've ever played, but I can honestly say it was the biggest disappointment of my gaming career. Save your money and go elsewhere, there's not much value in looking into this particular title. So much potential was utterly wasted by boneheaded decisions.
I'm off to go tell the military to be ready for aliens next time. Remember, It's Dangerous To Go Alone!
One of the Conduit's claims to fame is that it has a graphics engine designed to emulate those of the 360 and PS3 in quality and frame rate. I'll wait until you're finished laughing at that sentence. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to attempt to make a Wii game be judged by the same standards as the 360 and PS3? One of the reasons that the Wii succeds at all is that it goes off and does its own thing entirely seperate from the other two giants, which occasionally produces unique masterpieces like Super Mario Galaxy. The Wii always looks its best when producing vibrant, colorful graphics (Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl) or cel-shaded graphics (No More Heroes, Okami). Realism is not the Wii's strong suit, and while the Conduit does look pretty sometimes, at other times the Wii shows off its limits. At one point right after going into a building after seeing a great-looking water effect outside the Jefferson Memorial, I looked out a window only to find what looked like a 2-D painting of the outside city that was hung up outside the window to attempt to convince me that I was looking out the window. Hah hah. Funny. Wii graphics should not purposely be made to emulate 360 and PS3 graphics, as that only highlights the Wii's weaknesses.
Difficulty
The Conduit has a widly uneven difficulty curve. The hardest part of the game occurs only a few levels in, and from then on the levels swing wildly from absolute cakewalks to massive firefights. The game can;t seem to make up it's mind about how hard it wants to be, culminating in an easy final battle and incredibly lackluster ending. Thanks for your hardcore support.
Multiplayer
Ahh, the biggest sore spot for me. See, I initally bought the Conduit for the main reason that, at the time, the Wii was my only next-gen console, and I wanted a multiplayer FPS that I could bring out when my friends were over and have some fun shooting one another. So I brought the game home, popped in the disc, and started it up, only to find... there was no local split-screen multiplayer, only the online multiplayer. What the hell? The lack of a local multiplayer greatly hurts what potential the game might have had and defied my usual understanding of how shooters are supposed to work. But hey, that might be forgiveable if the online is good, right? So, a while later after I actually got a wireless router, i sat down to test out the online multiplayer. I logged in on Nintendo Wi-Fi and waiting for the server to connect me to an available game. And waited... and waited... I literally had to try around 5 times before the server would even find a game for me (not saying there weren't enough people on to get a game, saying that the connection failed to connect to any of them). I was even kicked out of the first game that I actually found due to a "connection error." When I actually did get online into a game, I found a decent online multiplayer with some interesting modes that was greatly hampered by Nintendo Wi-Fi's continual screwups and delays. Sega, clearly the Wii can do good online, Monster Hunter Tri did it just fine. Why can't you? You might enjoy the multiplayer, if you can tolerate the crappy connection, mysteriously stupid friend system that's a lot more complicated than need be, and a total lack of just being able to pal around with your friends on one TV.
Conclusion
You might be surprised to learn after this that, before its release, I was actually really excited for the Conduit. It was a major, high-profile hardcore release for the Wii, something we see less and less of nowadays, and it looked like it had potential. The final product, however, wasted it's potential trying to be "Halo for Wii" and fell flat on its face. A horribly presented story, fiddly and unintuitve gameplay, horrendously repetitive design, and lack of an easy-to-use multiplayer come together to create an experience that simply doesnt measure up. The only reason that the game was even considered by many was because it was for the Wii, a console with few shooters and few hardcore games. The Conduit is definately not the worst game I've ever played, but I can honestly say it was the biggest disappointment of my gaming career. Save your money and go elsewhere, there's not much value in looking into this particular title. So much potential was utterly wasted by boneheaded decisions.
I'm off to go tell the military to be ready for aliens next time. Remember, It's Dangerous To Go Alone!
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