The Conduit Review

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.





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.

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