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When the Wii’s hardware specs were announced gamers were floored. Why, they wondered, would Nintendo come out with a system with hardware only marginally better than that of the current generation? Why would they ignore gamers' cries for superior graphics? Why were they calling it the Wii? Their initial complaints were silenced when a few games took advantage of the system's unique features, but a resistance movement began when Wii titles began coming out with graphics that didn’t even hit the heights reached by the last generation. Everyone knew that the system couldn't push out anything huge, but no one seemed ready to explain why developers were treating the Wii, with capabilities beyond those of the original Xbox, like it was a Nintendo 64.

High Voltage planned on fixing this with The Conduit, a title they promised would show the capabilities of the Wii while delivering a solid shooter experience. Set in Washington D.C., the Conduit put players in the shoes of Mr. Ford (voiced by Battlestar Galactica actor Mark Sheppard), a government agent tasked with ending an alien invasion and unraveling all manners of conspiracies. For better or worse, High Voltage has done what they set out to do, and The Conduit emerges as a perfect example of both the Wii’s strengths and limitations.

Earth is being invaded. The Drudge, an alien race, is flooding the planet through Conduits, which serve as portals between our worlds. If this sounds a bit cliche or generic it's likely because it is. The Conduit’s plot isn’t necessarily its strong point, and it feels as though the game’s story could have been deeper as to create a more fleshed out universe. Even Halo: Combat Evolved, which was criticized for having a somewhat trite plot, managed to involve gamers with overloads of lore and mythology. At times it really feels like The Conduit is well on its way to fleshing out a back story, but it consistently falls short.

Early in the game, Ford collects the All Seeing Eye, or ASE, which serves as an all purpose device that can be used to unlock doors, hack computer terminals, destroy mines, guide him through the levels, and decipher hidden messages. The messages hint at more story opportunities, but none are ever explored, and none are ever explained. Seeing "Colares was more successful than Roswell" scribbled in alien text is fascinating, but nothing ever comes of it, making them more mysterious at best, and utter nonsense at worst. In the end, the game's cliffhanger ending isn't as powerful as it would have been if the game's story was better. The dialog is almost universally weak, which is in stark contrast to the voice acting, which is fairly strong. It's hindered due to a lack of cut scenes, likely in an attempt to make the game have more of a cinematic feel, but it never truly reaches what it's trying to achieve.



Also aiding in the game's attempts at keeping the presentation up is the game's graphics. High Voltage has done a fantastic job showing what is possible with the Wii when a developer actually commits itself to the console. Sadly, the answer isn’t as much as you’d hope. Claims that the graphics would reach that of early Xbox 360 titles was a bit of an overstatement, and the game is likely outperformed in some areas by a number of last-generation titles. Some enemy character models look fantastic, and nearly reach Xbox 360 levels, but others look downright muddy. It has that same "next-gen shine" that Perfect Dark: Zero took advantage of, but environments can often look rough. For a Wii game, it’s likely one of the best looking, but saying much more is really stretching the truth.

Despite those issues, there are some areas where The Conduit shines. High Voltage might be the first non-Nintendo owned company to actually figure out shooter controls on the Wii, and they take advantage of every aspect of the hardware to make the game play as well as possible. Aiming is as simple as pointing at the screen, melee is executed with a simple wiggle of the remote, and throwing grenades is mapped to a shake of the nunchuck.  It gives a tangible feel to the game, something that the other consoles would have a problem replicating well. Even when Mr. Ford shoves his fist into an alien's rectum and uses it as a weapon (they call that the "Hive Gun"), it all feels very physical. Most of the time, it all works fairly well, but the Wii’s tendency to interpret subtle motions means that grenades will often be thrown accidentally and pistol whips can occur by mistake.



Proving that the Wii’s online system is better than most give it credit for, The Conduit hosts a suite of multiplayer options to choose from. With up to twelve players, gamers can engage in a number of different modes, most of which work seamlessly over Wii Connect 24. It's about as fleshed out of an experience as could be hoped, and while it’s nothing revolutionary it shows, yet again, that most companies are simply being lazy when it comes to development for the console. Thankfully, the Wii puts one foot into the current generation with in-game voice chat using the Wii Speak microphone. Sadly, the other stays planted, forcing gamers to swap Friend Codes. It’s not an incredibly polished experience, though, and suffers from occasional spikes of lag as well as other glitches that can occasionally make the game a bit of a struggle. On several occasions players were randomly spawned inside of objects, requiring a hard reboot of the system. There have also been reports of hackers running rampant in the game's servers, something that will hopefully be addressed ASAP.

The Conduit isn't the Wii's Halo no matter how much Nintendo fans want it to be. It's more in line with Killzone 2 for the PlayStation 3, but not in the way of quality. Just as was the case with Killzone 2, The Conduit shows exactly what is possible on the system. The difference is, in the case with the Wii, the answer isn't that much. Regardless, it's a solid experience, and one that every Wii owner should support. Unless everyone is completely content with minigame compilations and PS2 ports, in which case go ahead and skip it. It's fine, I hear there's another remake on the way, go pre-order that.