Hear Mii Exclusive: Hands On Impressions With The Conduit

By Michael Turner
A.K.A. Wiinewd

The Conduit, my most anticipated game of 2009 for Wii. After first hearing about The Conduit I was hoping it was going to be the game I've been dreaming of to see on the Wii. As weeks go by and more info is leaked on the game, High Voltage Software gained their new partners in success, Sega. With announcements like 16 players online, confirmation of Wii Speak, possibilities of Wii MotionPlus use and for the first time ever attention to detail of the visual presentation in a 3rd party Wii game as it's highlight. From weeks to months of anticipation, hearing tons of exciting news released about the game, the idea that this could be the game that not only I have been waiting for, but for every hardcore Wii owner is, too starting to seem more and more apparent.

Here you can notice the extremely detailed bump and normal mapping.

It's Saturday February 7th at the 2009 New York City Comic-Con and my anticipation for The Conduit has gone through the roof. After about 2 hours of waiting in line just to get in I rapidly ran off to the Sega booth as it was my reason for being there. At first glance of The Conduit I said, "Wow its really colorful". It was somewhat because of this the game stood out as Sega's flagship title and has the 5 best looking games at Comic-Con in my opinion. As I reached closer, I noticed something great, for the first time high-res textures on Wii that were even more glamorous up close. After staring at the game for 30 minutes, everything was looking incredible. Also the light received a huge upgrade which is now fully dynamic.

As I finally got to play the game after around the first hour, I started off by tweaking the controls and trying out the impossible difficulty mode. Once i realized how impossible it was I thought it would be best to just tone it back down to normal as the A.I. became really aggressive and even at normal still posed a challenge. This is good for anyone wondering if the game was too easy. About 2 minutes in I realized the game was very difficult for me because the controls were too sensitive even at 40 percent. I'm glad at the fact that it has mouse and keyboard precision, but when your standing and pointing at the screen the slightest cough or hand movement could send your cursor flying across the screen. I was beginning to get a little frustrated with the game for the fun factor wasn't really sinking in for me because I spent most of the demo trying to get the pointer to steadily aim at my target.

As far as the game itself goes it kept a really cinematic atmosphere through out the level with perfect passing. It really felt like an action movie. Many have said the game was like Half Life, some like Perfect Dark, and others like Resistance, but after my play through their analysis seemed also-ran as the game felt completely fresh to me. You may have heard this many times before but the controls really changed the experience into something new and amazing and has met nearly every expectation I had for the game and will not disappoint Wii owners when it is released this summer.
Use the All Seeing Eye to solve in-game puzzles to unlock hidden areas.

On most fronts the game lived up to all expectations from the detailed reload animations and bump mapping to the cinematic presentation, with voice talents from Morgan Shepperd and amazing sound design from Diego Stocco. There were a few graphical gripes I experience throughout my play through though such as major slow down and still not locking in 30 frames per second. Also I was a little disappointed at first glance of the game when I saw that even as good as it looks, like every other Wii game it has a washed out pixelated look once your up close to the T.V. which knocked it back from amazing 360-like visuals to amazing high end Wii game. Still the game looks great and I must say I was very pleased. The game will not be released until summer so im hoping these problems will all be fixed and if so then Wii gamers are in for a huge treat. I will even go as far as to say that this might be a game of the year nominee for 2009. There are no reasons to worry about the game anymore everything seems to be falling into place perfectly. Thank you guys at High Voltage Software and Sega for this amazing game and I hope to try out multilayer soon. Please everyone, go now and reserve your copy for summer of '09 now at your local GameStop.

Stay tuned as I get more detailed in my review of the game when it releases!