The Conduit

Preview - Looks and brains...

With The Conduit, High Voltage Software hope to replicate the same type of FPS experience you'd normally expect from your PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. An ambitious goal you might think, but it looks as though they may succeed in achieving it. Making full use of the Remote and Nunchuk, The Conduit aims to be the first Wii FPS to really get it right by taking a leaf out of Metroid Prime 3's book and then going a step further. We were afforded a rare - albeit somewhat brief - hands-on with the game under the watchful eye of Wout Van Vugt, European PR Executive for Sega and found a very promising title that just might fulfil the remit for hardcore gunplay on the Wii.

Van Vugt is keen to highlight the level of customisation that has been prised into The Conduit's HUD and control system, with options for tweaking the position of all the on-screen furniture such as health bars and ammo counters to wherever you want. Always thought your health bar should be slap bang in the middle of your line of sight? Then put it there! You can also adjust the level of sensitivity when turning and aiming with the remote so there's really no way of blaming the game's controls if you end up being blasted into a red smear on the wall. All of these customisations can be changed in real-time too, which means that the moment you make an adjustment, you can immediately try it out without having to navigate back and forth through annoying menu screens.

Along with House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld, The Conduit is part of Sega's plan to fill the void in the Wii's hardcore game niche. Delivering great games to the people who have been crying out for them on the Wii, The Conduit is another proper, grown up game that involves killing things and making stuff go boom. An all-action FPS with immediate and enjoyable gunplay, although unlike Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (arguably the most successful FPS for the Wii), The Conduit is a more conventional kind of shooter with less of an emphasis on exploration and puzzling.

Nevertheless, these elements are still present in The Conduit and are aided by your funky ASE (All-Seeing Eye) module, which enables you to locate otherwise invisible traps, platforms, doors and interactive puzzles. The example we were shown was one of the earlier, very basic puzzles involving a simple manipulation of a few shapes into the correct configuration. Hey presto, a door opens revealing hidden items. This one we're told is possibly the easiest puzzle in the game and we hear that they get far more taxing later on.

Puzzles or no puzzles, a first-person shooter lives or dies by the quality and indeed quantity of the weaponry on offer. The Conduit doesn't disappoint in either department boasting the usual array of sniper rifles, assault rifles, handguns and shotguns, each of which feels suitably meaty. Your arsenal is later bolstered by the inclusion of alien weaponry allowing for strange, otherworldly guns with interesting reload animations and eerie glowing projectiles that dole out significant damage. We managed to steal an alien rifle at one point and found it to be every bit as satisfying to wield as any of the other standard issue weapons. There are also plenty of intelligent enemies to take on, from infected human soldiers to the game's main threat, the insectoid alien race known as the Drudge. Both possess accomplished AI and are not afraid to confront you head-on should the situation dictate. A few times we found ourselves dashing for cover after a cleverly orchestrated ambush or well-aimed grenade came our way and even managed to foolishly wander into some fiendishly placed alien traps.

What's most important though is how tight the control scheme is, since no amount of customisable tinkering can mask a shoddy interface. Thankfully, The Conduit is smooth and responsive with aiming mapped to the Wii Remote, firing to the B trigger and movement on the Nunchuk's analog stick. Pressing the Z trigger on the Nunchuk allows you to jump, while a smooth throwing motion lobs a grenade and is startlingly accurate, recognising the force of your throw perfectly. Although you're able to fully tailor these controls, we can't actually see how you'll stumble upon a better set-up than the default one laid out for you. Still, it's always nice to have options, isn't it?

Another of The Conduit's strengths - and one of its big selling points - that High Voltage is keen to stress, are the quality of the visuals on show with the developer making every effort to overcome the limitations of the Wii hardware. So here we have bump-mapping, motion blur, high-res textures, depth of field and advanced surface effects all running at a stable 30fps making for some truly impressive results. The Conduit certainly looks the part and while High Voltage's lofty claims that this would be visually comparable to a 360 or PS3 title are slightly wide of the mark, the dev team have nevertheless crafted a very graphically accomplished title.

With the usual multiplayer for 16 players, Wii-speak support and a host of other great features promised, The Conduit should be the complete package. Whether the rest of the game can live up to the slice we were treated to, we'll have to wait and see. If it does, then you can count The Conduit as one to look out for. Keep your All-Seeing Eyes peeled for this one.

The Conduit is pencilled in for a Spring 2009 release.