If you look across the Internet you’ll find mixed reviews of The Conduit but one thing most agree on is that the graphics and sound aren’t very good while the controls are so incredibly awesome that your head may explode just from seeing them in action. At first I found this very confusing. I was left thinking that perhaps I played the wrong game by mistake. The game I played had really good graphics and sound while I found the controls to be absolutely horrific. I felt as though the world had secretly been taken over by Bodysnatchers and I was the only sane person remaining.

I will start by offering my initial opinions on the allegedly superb control system. When you’re in the menus and on the loading screen the reticle moves around perfectly. This is what you’d expect from an on-the-rails FPS game such as House of the Dead. This title is in the free-roaming category of FPS games but, if other reviews are to be believed, the reticle is just as responsive during the game itself. I found the default settings to be wild and I had to change them as there was no way I could deal with the game if I hadn’t done so. The level of customization is deep in regards to camera speed, reticle speed, and you even have an option of choosing a static camera so the Wii-mote will only control aiming. I spent a long time messing with the settings but couldn’t find anything I liked. Too fast. Too slow. Even on a slower reticle setting if you aim slightly to the left or right the reticle will continue to slide in that direction which makes aiming at an enemy who isn’t standing right in front of you really difficult. After an unsuccessful attempt at playing Multiplayer, which I’ll explain in a bit, I decided to return to the single player and as if by magic the controls were perfect. I hadn’t changed a thing and yet I could now control the reticle with the kind of accuracy I am used to in FPS games. Things were finally looking up.

There is something I really can’t get my head around. While you’re playing you can click the menu button which will pause the game. From the menu you can access control settings but when you click into that screen the game un-pauses which means that while you’re messing with the settings you get to watch as your character stands around being raped by multiple enemies. This is certainly a novel idea but probably one which should have been dropped at the QA stage. Forget my initial comment about being the only sane person remaining as this bizarre aspect has driven me crazy. Save a space for me in the madhouse.

My first experience with the Multiplayer was sitting around waiting for a room to fill up only for an error message to flash on-screen half-way through and close that down. I then made an attempt to connect to a Team Reaper match and had to wait, and this is no exaggeration, more than thirty minutes with five players still “authenticating”. At this point people understandably began to drop out as they, unlike myself who had to write a review, had better things to do than wait around forever. Around the forty five minute mark the game still hadn’t started and the room suddenly closed down without so much as an on-screen message explaining why. My other experiences didn’t produce better results so I’m afraid you’ll need to look elsewhere for a comment on the multiplayer which looks like a great deal of fun if the many videos I have seen are to be trusted.

There are some nasty enemies in this game, especially in the later sections, but nothing more deadly than the low ceilings. I lost count of the number of times I saw a group of enemies ahead of me and threw a grenade then watched in horror as it bounced off a low ceiling and exploded in my face. When I am left open mouthed and lost for words, including my usual tirade of profanities, anyone around me knows that something is quite wrong. Some might say this is “just a videogame” and that I shouldn’t lose my temper with something which, in the grand scheme of things, is relatively unimportant. I would describe the act of lowering the toilet seat after use as relatively unimportant and I’m pretty sure people would be annoyed if a grenade exploded near them every time they did that.

As mentioned in my opening paragraph the graphics and sound are very good for a title on the Wii. I have read comments suggesting that games reviewers should rate this based on a comparison with the quality found in FPS games played on a high-end PC. That is absolute nonsense. I will not look down on any console and speak from the point of view of gamers who happen to own all consoles and an expensive computer. It is not acceptable to ignore the fact that the vast majority of gamers don’t have that kind of luxury. If I compared every game to what is available on every other console and a high-end PC then no Megadrive game would ever have more than a 1/10 for graphics. This is the best looking FPS game on the Wii and the music, especially the main theme which is great, helps to create the feel of an epic science fiction adventure.

As far as I can tell this game has been marketed as a modern Goldeneye/Perfect Dark and it does have a similar feel to those N64 classics. I suppose “Goldeneye plus aliens with additional light-gun action”, despite its unfortunate length, is a more accurate description. Once the control issues were magically ironed out I found this game to be a breath of fresh air. Running and gunning in a videogame has rarely felt so natural. Anyone who likes FPS games and owns a Wii should rush out and buy this game. There is room for improvement, and perhaps a sequel will provide this, but regardless of the flaws this game offers a unique FPS experience which shouldn’t be missed.

8.5/10

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