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The best FPS on the Wii, and worth picking up for the multiplayer alone.

The Conduit from developers High Voltage seemed to be one the most talked about titles coming to the Wii last year, but the interest in the game prior to its actual release this year seemed pretty lukewarm to me, at least going by general internet chatter and overall word of mouth. I'm not sure what caused interest to fall by the wayside for the title, as I hadn't heard anything significant about problems with the game or issues prior to release. That said, if you're a Wii owner looking for a FPS title to play, you can't do better than The Conduit, it's a really solid shooter for the system, and the first one that manages to nail the controls I'd like to see from a FPS title on the system.

It helps that High Voltage went all out with the controller customization for players. The default settings feel ok at first, but since you're given the ability to literally adjust anything you want about the basic nunchuk/remote set-up, you might as well toy around with it and find the settings that'll work best for you. You can adjust cursor sensitivity, the dead zone for camera movement, all the button placements, running speed and more, and I'd love to see more developers take this approach to Wii controls, because I've always felt that motion controls aren't as universal for everyone in the same way that a regular button controller layout would be. It works well here, and after a few minutes of fine-tuning my own particular set-up, I was ready to go with the single player game.

Conduit's story revolves around a few conspiracies, alien overthrow plots, and a big section of the game takes place in the nation's capital. The location setting isn't completely new, but I couldn't think of a lot of games that would put you down in Washington for the majority of the campaign, so I appreciated a change of pace from say, New York or something along those lines.

Unfortunately, the level design doesn't always make the best use of the setting. Sure, you'll see some landmark areas, but a lot of places will come off as too generic, in part because the game tends to tunnel you around a lot. Certain sections early on are just corridors and small rooms, with little exploration involved and a set-up that's almost like a rail gun shooter. One section on a series of train cars especially feels that way, as you'll open a door, gun down the enemies in front of you, move forward, and repeat. It's not a big sequence, but it lacks any real innovation for a shooter. There are a couple areas, especially towards the second half of the game, that open up a bit more, but for the most part I felt like the areas you run around in were a little confined.

However, when it comes to the multiplayer stuff, the maps are actually pretty good, and open enough to hold 12 players comfortably without shoehorning them into one room or section, but at the same time they're not so big as to keep the action from being intense. I actually enjoyed the multiplayer stuff far more than the actual campaign, and I think that'll be the case for a lot of players jumping in. The layout for Conduit's multiplayer is handled extremely well, and it's probably the best effort I've seen from a third-party title in making Wii's somewhat unique online system work out quite well. You can connect via friend-codes if you want, but they're certainly not required, and the game gives you an option to connect to regional or worldwide opponents as well. There are about eight maps to toy around on, with free for all, team deathmatch, and team objective options to pick from. There's also a rank system with XP from every match, and a variety of weapon sets to choose from. Before a match begins, all players will get to vote on the game type they want to play, the map, and the weapon set, which is an interesting approach that allows the majority to choose the game they want. Of course, you can get into a group that's not going to fit your interests, but you'll realize that quickly enough. Motion controls don't hamper the gameplay online either, as all your settings will carry over, and the gameplay feels very smooth and lag free. There's no shortage of players online either, I had no issues jumping into full groups at any time, which was definitely nice to see.

Back to the single player game, I was pretty surprised to find that the enemy AI was handled really well, as I expected the game to be a bit basic considering High Voltage hasn't had a great deal of FPS experience up to this point. However, the enemies will react well to what you're doing, and they won't be content to let you hide behind cover and pop out with shots when you want to. They'll either try to flush you out with grenades, flank you, or simply rush up to your location and melee you to death, so you can't get by with sitting still. This is where the level design really irked me, as I always felt that if the stages were a little more open the enemy AI could have really shined as something well done, allowing for more interesting situations to pop up then what we get here. Still, it's a really good effort on High Voltage's part, and I'm hoping we'll see that improve even more if we ever get a Conduit sequel.

I definitely think Conduit's worth checking out if you're a Wii owner, it's easily the best FPS on the system, and the multiplayer is handled quite well. I'm a bit hesitant to suggest it if you're only going to play the campaign, as I don't think it's particularly strong or interesting, but even then it's worth a rental. However, if you plan on going online with the game at all, I'd suggest it as a blind buy, and it's certainly a lot of fun with a group of people to play with. The controls work well, and there's no reason you can't make the customization work for you in any case. Visually the game looks pretty solid, with some interesting weapon design to boot, so I can't find much to complain about there. Definitely check out The Conduit if you get a chance, and hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as I did.