The Conduit has everything going for it. It's an exclusive first-person shooter for a console that generally only sees second-rate ports. It features a compelling story of conspiracy, betrayal, and alien invasion on the streets of Washington D.C. And it also delivers a robust multiplayer experience on a platform that isn't exactly known for its only capabilities. What could possibly go wrong?

Let us channel the assembled game critics through The Conduit and see what comes out the other end.

Giant Bomb The game's story is your typical alien-filled and shadowy government conspiracy that doesn't really go anywhere. All you really need to know is that the bug-like alien troops come out of glowing portals called conduits. So a lot of the gameplay tasks you with fighting your way up to a conduit, and then shutting it with a grenade. You'll also have to pull out the all-seeing eye, a glowing orb that acts as your primary way to interact with computers and as a beam that reveals hidden objects in the world. Sometimes you'll use this to unlock doors that block your forward progress. Other times, you'll use it to open up secret pathways to additional weaponry, disarm normally invisible mines, and so on.

GameSpot The real draw in The Conduit is the outstanding control scheme. Conceptually, it's nothing special. You aim your gun with the remote, walk around with the analog stick, and perform various moves by hitting buttons or performing specific motions. However, the execution is nearly flawless. You can aim with pinpoint precision, easily lining up headshots from across the screen or spinning around to cut down a critter creeping up behind you. With more than 10 different actions to keep track of, it can be difficult to find the ideal controller setup, but you can customize the controls to suit your play style.

Game Informer Online play works better than I expected on the Wii, which is to say that it's slightly better than what PC gamers had circa 1998. Matchmaking works well enough, and latency issues are present but not catastrophic. An interesting take on free-for-all deathmatching, dubbed Bounty Hunter mode, subtly changes the game by only scoring points for players who have wronged you in the past, giving you an onscreen objective arrow to the current location of your most bitter foe. Beyond that, the old standbys like capture-the-flag and team deathmatch round out a capable online experience.

Gamervision High Voltage has done a fantastic job showing what is possible with the Wii when a developer actually commits itself to the console. Sadly, the answer isn't as much as you'd hope. Claims that the graphics would reach that of early Xbox 360 titles was a bit of an overstatement, and the game is likely outperformed in some areas by a number of last-generation titles. Some enemy character models look fantastic, and nearly reach Xbox 360 levels, but others look downright muddy. It has that same "next-gen shine" that Perfect Dark: Zero took advantage of, but environments can often look rough. For a Wii game, it's likely one of the best looking, but saying much more is really stretching the truth.

Nintendo World Report This is the paradox of The Conduit. Its disappointing single-player component seems hastily-designed with its cookie-cutter plot, limited range of enemies, and myriad elements copied wholesale from popular recent first-person shooters. On the other hand, its multiplayer component is great, matching online shooters on other platforms feature-for-feature and providing a no-hassle experience that's among the best on Wii. Hopefully High Voltage will learn from The Conduit's shortcomings for their next game, but for now, Wii owners will have to settle for something very good instead of truly great.

Nice to see everyone agrees.

At first glance, Gladiator A.D. looks like a rather simplistic sort of fighting game. Players take on the roles of warriors of the ancient world, driving sword against shield and spear against bone in a variety of combat arenas, but High Voltage assures us that it's much more than that. It's also a roleplaying game, complete with quests, statistics, equipment, and a morality system that makes it equal parts historical fantasy fighter and epic adventure.

Let's focus first on what was actually presented to me before we move on to what I did not. What I saw was two gladiators fighting in an arena. Each had a health bar and a stamina bar, with the latter draining constantly as moves were made by High Voltage art director Matt Corso using the nunchuck and Wii remote. Honestly the fighting seemed a bit clunky or unwieldy, though Corso did mention that Wii Motion Plus support would be included in the final version. The stamina bar also dropped way too fast during battle, which is something the developer will be tweaking over time.

Once the battle was over, the camera pans to a placeholder emperor, who either gives his thumbs up or thumbs down. Either reaction will allow you to carry out a bloody and brutal execution - we're talking limbs tearing off here - but going against the Emperor's will will draw the ire of the crowd, which plays into the whole morality system in Gladiator A.D.

Curry the favor of the crowd and they will love you, showering you with gifts and items to aid you in battle, such as life-giving food. Alternatively you can play the bad boy, but High Voltage wasn't quite clear on what would happen if you did.

There's a lot of vagueness surrounding Gladiator A.D., which comes as no surprise with the title at such an early state of development. As it stands, it's looking like at least nine playable characters, all with intertwined stories, a few more unlockables, and a bunch of arenas to fight in. When I asked about online play, I was told that there were no concrete plans, but High Voltage is always looking to take full advantage of the Wii's online capabilities.

From a graphical standpoint the game seems promising, with rugged-looking gladiators and nice details in the various arenas, including alcoves from which I'm told ferocious animals will spring forth, indicating that there is perhaps more to the combat than meets the eye, just as there is more to the game itself.

The single player experience in Gladiator A.D. is a roleplaying adventure. You start off as a captured slave who must work his way up to becoming the most popular gladiator in the known world, earning your freedom in the process. It's an age-old tale, and one that's been touched on in video games time and time again. There will be leveling, side quests, and moral choices, which all sound great on paper, but it remains to be seen what High Voltage actually brings to the table. Until we see more, Gladiator A.D. is a clunky-looking fighter with some grand ideas.

This third title is called The Grinder, and is a four-player co-op shooter for the Wii, where players must battle waves of vampires, werewolves and the undead. So, yes, Left 4 Dead with friend codes. It's currently scheduled for a "holiday 2010" release.

As for other details, the announcement interview is heavy on suggestion, light on facts. Guess we have to wait until E3 next week to learn more.

The Grinder Revealed [IGN]

Described as a "hybrid between 3D Fighting games like Bushido Blade and Boxing games like Fight Night", Gladiator is a 1v1 fighting game set in ancient Rome, where you - as a gladiator, duh - have to punch, kick, slice and dice your way up the gladiatorial food chain.

Like the Conduit, Gladiator looks amazing for a Wii game, and will also be fully supporting the new Wii MotionPlus accessory, with the angle of your blade during an attack determining where it strikes an opponent and what kind of damage it does.

As you can see above, High Voltage aren't afraid of a bit of the old ultra-violence. At the moment, it's slated for a Q1 2010 release.

Gladiator A.D. Revealed [IGN]

Both MadWorld and The House of the Dead received praise from game reviewers, but the sales for both titles we rather abysmal, especially when considering the Wii's massive install base. Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Nofsinger explains why High Voltage isn't concerned about suffering the same fate with The Conduit.

"This is something that gets brought up quite a lot," he said, "but we're not concerned at all. Those games, and you can point to a few others as well… I think they're great games, but they're mature games. I think there's a nomenclature that you need to be certain on. Those games are gory and they are aesthetically niche. They're boutique games. They're great games and I love them, however I know that they're not accessible and they're not the kind of titles that are going to tap into both core and mainstream [audiences].

But what does Nofsinger mean by core and accessible?

"When I say that we're core, I mean that we have a level of detail and depth and customisation and variety that core gamers demand. When I say that we're accessible and that we're also aiming for the mainstream, that is why we specifically chose the art style we did, and the setting. The theme is very much in the mindset of going for that Hollywood blockbuster feel.

If you ask me, the main difference lies in the ratings, at least in North America. There's a world of difference between a T-rating and an M-rating, especially on the Wii.

High Voltage: Conduit won't suffer MadWorld sales fate [VideoGamer.com]

Astro Boy: The Video Game for the Nintendo Wii, DS, PSP, and PlayStation 2 is the game adaptation of Imagi Studios' new CG-animated movie, being released internationally this October. Astro Boy journeys throughout Metro City and the mysterious Surface, taking on hordes of robots using his traditional weapons: Finger Lasers, Arm Cannon, Drill Attacks, and my personal favorite - Butt Machine Guns. Developed by High Voltage Software, the game promises intuitive combat and flight, along with a slew of classic Astro Boy unlockables.

I'll have to wait until I see more from the game before getting excited. While my nostalgia gland says yes, my movie tie-in gland says no. Remember back when film animators used to actually draw? Those were the days.

HV exec Eric Nofsinger says they'll be showing "two big ones" at E3 - no, not that - both of them FPSes like The Conduit. In an interview with the French site Nintendo Master, he said High Voltage is looking "to do some things that are very, very rare, even on the 360 or PS3."

Some of the things we're doing with sheer number of enemies onscreen and things like that are very impressive. We've got a demo that we'll be showing, where the average number of enemies on the screen at a given time is 65. And it goes up. There's areas where you go onto a vista and there's an incredible number of enemies.

I'm not sure that 65 on-screen enemies, on average, is all that "rare" for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, which can handle multiple hundreds. Hell, MAG is gonna do 256 of them in multiplayer. But Nofsinger almost certainly is being mindful of the disappointment in Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop's comparatively sparse zombie horde.

Conduit Dev revealing Two Wii Games at E3 [GameSpot via Cubed3]

The new trailer explores the story behind The Conduit in timeline form, giving us a quick synopsis as to what happened over the course of six months that ended with our protagonist running through Washington D.C. shooting aliens. Note the inclusion of September 11th in the timeline, which isn't a date you include in a North America video game advertisement lightly.

"We know it's a letdown to you," High Voltage Chief Creative Officer Eric Nofsinger told crestfallen journalists. "It's definitely a letdown to us."

So, with little else to do with 10 completely playable builds of The Conduit, journalists were turned loose on the single player mode that we've only gotten mere tastes of over the last nine months. Here's what we came away with.

What Is It?
The Conduit is a sci-fi first person shooter, developed exclusively for the Wii. Players take the role of ex-Secret Service Agent generic name Michael Ford to fight their way through an alien-attacked Washington D.C. Originally, the game was going to have Wii MotionPlus, but that got scrapped because it was deemed unnecessary . It sounds like they're going to keep Wii Speak in for multiplayer, though.

What We Saw
Robbed of multiplayer and with about three times as many journalists as there were builds, I settled for a sharing playthrough with GamesRadar's Brett Elston. Originally, we were going to pass the controller back and forth every time one of us died – but since Brett rarely ever died and I died all the time, we settled for taking turns by level. In about half an hour, we'd made it all the way to level five or so before Brett started dying regularly.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is due out in June, but it still looks like it's in bad need of a polish. I'd like to think two months is enough time, but according to Creative Director Matt Corso, the art team is still changing things like lighting and textures. Here's hoping it'll all come together.

What Needs Improvement?
Polish, polish, polish: Everything from the graphics to the difficulty balancing could use a couple more passes by the developer. There's nothing glaringly wrong with the game, but a series of minor flaws combined with high expectations for The Conduit could cost High Voltage. Example: the textures are dull – no biggie. But combine that with a level that's difficulty needs balancing (even Brett died like four times on the train in level four), a checkpoint that feels like it's in the wrong place and some wigging-out of the motion controls when trying to turn with the Wii Remote. That's a recipe for harsh or mixed reviews right there.

Holding Down To Crouch: Most of the button-controls in the game were easy to pick up. You tap B to shoot, hold B to charge up the weapon and press A to jump, etc. But crouching involves holding down on the C button – which doesn't really feel intuitive. Especially considering that to toggle a weapon's scope view, all you have to do is press down on the D-pad and it just stays that way ‘til you press it again. That, to me, seems like a better, more intuitive way to crouch.

All Seeing Eye Puzzles Don't Make Much Sense: To be fair, I didn't spend too much time with the All Seeing Eye – but what few puzzles I did encounter with it weren't very puzzle-y because they didn't really have anything to do with logic. For example, you get to a door with a bright yellow alien lock on it. To unlock it, you have to use the Eye to look for two yellow nodes somewhere in the room, focus the Eye on it and press B to charge up the lock. You'd think the challenge of finding the nodes would make for some kind of puzzle – but nope. They're just randomly tossed around the room, making you question whether the lock wasn't just some developer device to slow you down while the engine renders the graphics in the next room.

Gets Old Fast Early On: I'm really hoping the story makes up for the lack of variety to gameplay. Sure, the All Seeing Eye puzzles shake things up a bit; but for the first four levels when you don't have it, combat gets really old really fast. Especially when you die more than four times at a single checkpoint.

What Should Stay The Same?
Control Scheme: When the controller wasn't wigging out from whatever external pressures exerted on it (10 other controllers going at the same time, bright lights, cell phone signals, etc.), the Wii controls worked pretty well. I think High Voltage has done a good job of a) finding a natural-feeling default that will work for everyone and b) providing all kinds of customization options just in case it doesn't feel natural enough for some.

Options Galore: You can change a lot about The Conduit on the fly in any level from the Start menu screen. Wii Remote sensitivity, level difficulty and basic audio/visual options are there. But there's also a layer of tweaks that can turn an easy level into a hardcore experience: for example, there's an option to set the Wii Remote so that when you point it off screen, Agent Ford keeps turning in place (the default is that he stops moving when the reticule leaves the screen). It's a very small, very subtle difference, but it can make a level feel like a completely different experience.

Varied Weapons: I didn't get to see more than four guns in five levels, but there's something like 15 weapons in the game (all available in multiplayer). A lot of them are your basic shooter weapons: pistol, machine gun, alien shocking ray gun, etc. But hidden weapons caches will yield higher-level weapons with additional motion control features, such as an alien rocket launcher that lets you control the rocket with the Wii Remote after you fire.

There Will Be Cheats: Think back to Goldeneye, Turok and Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 – they all had weird cheats and unlockables that gave the games tons of replayability and spiced up multiplayer like you wouldn't believe. The Conduit plans to offer cheats along the same line – as well as some pre-order bonus codes for unlockable stuff.

It's On The Wii: I don't care if other developers have abandoned the Wii to the casual games scene – there needs to be a middle ground game like The Conduit that straddles hardcore challenge and Little Johnny's First FPS.

Final Thoughts
The biggest problem I foresee for The Conduit comes from shooter fans that are too used to games on PS3 and 360. It takes a lot of work to unlearn the dual analog stick system of moving and shooting; I could see gamers getting frustrated and mistaking The Conduit's controls as the source of their learning curve woes.

That concern aside, Wii gamers will be pleased; because is nothing else, The Conduit is a step in the right direction. It might fall short of expectations on some fronts (especially if they don't get that difficulty balancing sorted out), but the game goes a long way towards exploring what the Wii can really do for the first person experience – as well as for multiplayer (if they get the servers working, that is).

Of course robust online multiplayer is all relative when we're talking the Nintendo Wii, but High Voltage is packing as much as they possible can into The Conduit. The originally promised 16-players online had to be trimmed down to 12 to keep everything running smoothly, but with a nice selection of maps, weapon load outs, and multiplayer modes we might just overlook those other four people. They were probably campers anyway.

The All Seeing Eye, or ASE, is a device that reveals hidden objects and enemies in the upcoming first-person shooter for the Nintendo Wii, kind of like Rowdy Roddy Piper's magical sunglasses in the 1988 classic science fiction thriller They Live. Any game that allows me to make a reference to a film starring Rowdy Roddy Piper is okay in my book.

Matt Corso, art and creative director at High Voltage, walked me through the options, which not only rival, but may surpass the level of customization found in most PC shooters.

By default, the game's controls are pretty straight forward for a Wii shooter. You move around with the thumbstick and aim and shoot with the remote. A button lets you lock onto a target for strafing, and a swing of the remote triggers a melee attack.

But you can go into customization and switch to any of three presets, or you can just create your own. Every button and action is mappable. Yes, including the motion control. While you can't completely ditch the single motion control in the game, Corso said you could always map it to something you will almost never use if it bugs you.

That's not all though, not by a long shot.

By hopping into the Remote Sensitivity settings you can manually adjust everything, everything. That means turning speed, cursor sensitivity, horizontal and vertical views, thrust sensitivity, nunchuk shake sensitivity.

You can also adjust the size of the deadzone window. The deadzone window is the invisible box that determines when the game sees your remote pointing as aiming and when it sees it as looking. If you want the game to play like a PC mouse and keyboard title just shrink that box to its smallest size. If you want it to be more like Metroid, stretch out the horizontal but keep the vertical thin. The customization is endless.

The game also lets you switch between the five difficulty settings for gameplay on the fly, so you can pause at any time and make it easier or harder.

Finally, the game's HUD is adjustable. When you drop into the settings you can click and drag the bits and pieces of the HUD to wherever you'd like to. You can also tweak the HUD's transparency.

"None of this was really hard to do," said Corso. "I felt there were these old arguments about that's not the way it's
done in console games so we shouldn't do it.

"But we decided to just giving you all of these options and settings," he said. "You can even adjust default run speeds."

And don't worry, you can't use them to make the game unplayable.

"All of the settings work well in the game, so we don't feel you can actually break it."

At a recent hands-on demo, the game’s art director, Matt Corso, was dropping all kinds of techie jargon into my tape recorder. But I can’t blame him; the game looks great, sporting draw-distances, bump-mapping, lighting, shadowing and particle effects that wouldn’t look out of place on the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360.

All that graphical panache was in full force while I was playing through a portion of the aliens-invade-Washington, D.C. title earlier this week.

I found myself treading a crowded urban street as the mysterious Mr. Ford, who works for the equally shadowy Trust, effortlessly shooting insect-like enemy "Drudge" and blowing up vehicles, all while taking in the pretty visual presentation.

Most impressive, especially for the Wii, were the explosions, which filled the screen in fiery detail on more than one occasion. But even tiny touches, like the realistic glare off the front of a newspaper vending machine, stand-out on the Wii. Also, the cool reload animations—an important part of any shooter—had me restocking my arsenal just to check it out again and again.

Just as impressive as the art direction, were the solid controls; I haven’t felt this comfortable pointing the remote like a gun since strapping on Samus’ arm canon in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Character movement with the nunchuck also felt fluid, aiming was spot-on, and even the camera managed to keep up with the quick-paced action.

It will likely still feel awkward to the mouse-and-keyboard crowd and gamepad jockeys—this isn’t the end-all, be-all control scheme for shooters—but The Conduit has definitely hit the sweet spot for shooter gaming on the Wii.

If you don’t like the default controls, you can always customize to your alien-thwarting heart’s content.

One of the title’s more innovative features is its almost stubborn insistence on meeting every single player’s style and preference in terms of personalizing the controls.

You can map pretty much whatever action you want wherever you like; not just the obvious stuff like moving and firing, either, but even things like what motion you prefer to use when tossing grenades can be tuned.

This feature also extends to the HUD elements, which can be placed anywhere on the screen, and options such as look sensitivity and turning speed. Best of all, you needn’t kick out to the main menu to tweak—it can all be done in-game.

The Conduit’s bar-raising visuals, tight gameplay, conspiracy-riddled alien invasion yarn, and gamer-loving customization options make it a real stand-out on the Wii’s 2009 line-up.

Because of technical limitations, a Wii game will likely never match the jaw-dropping power of a PS3 or Xbox 360 shooter, but The Conduit comes as close as the hardware may ever get.

Official The Conduit Site

— Matt Cabral

In an interview with WiiRInControl, High Voltage's Eric Nofsinger hints that the next title might be an RPG for the Wii. “That really is another area [RPGs] that can use a shot in the arm I feel," he said. "Keep your eyes peeled because in the near future we’ll be announcing some other titles that we’ve already got underway in development."

He then goes back to the Wii-needs-better-games-and-we're-the-answer line, which has been part of the High Voltage company story for some time.

We feel that there are a number of genres that are poorly represented on the Wii for core gamers. We want to do games that are high quality. You know, that’s what we are. I think it’s a shame for what is our personal favorite system to be so underrepresented when it comes to core gamers.

RPGs for Wii from High Voltage Software? "Keep Your Eyes Peeled" [WiiRInControl]

“The Conduit is one of the most talked-about Wii games this year and High Voltage Software has only scratched the surface of the game in terms of what they have shown so far...They have proven that graphical and technological innovation can be exciting to the Wii market, and SEGA is thrilled to partner with a team that truly shares our belief in the Wii’s gaming potential beyond the casual market.”

I'd have to agree wholeheartedly. The Conduit is the most exciting thing the Wii has going for it right now. Nice catch, Sega! Hit the jump for the full press release, along with some juice new screens of The Conduit in action.

SEGA Gets Zapped by High Voltage with The Conduit

SEGA to Publish Highly Anticipated Wii Title in Spring 2009

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON—(BUSINESS WIRE)—SEGA® of America, Inc. and SEGA® of Europe Ltd. today announced a worldwide partnership with High Voltage Software to publish and distribute the Wii™ home video game system-exclusive title, The Conduit. The first-person shooter garnered multiple awards at E3 2008, including Best Wii Game by GameTrailers and three awards from IGN: Best Shooting Game (Wii), Best Graphics Technology (Wii) and Best Overall Wii Game. The Conduit is a stunning, futuristic title powered by a new game engine technology that delivers remarkable visuals and effects, as well as a rich interactive experience that is unlike any other title on the Wii.

“The Conduit is one of the most talked-about Wii games this year and High Voltage Software has only scratched the surface of the game in terms of what they have shown so far,” says Simon Jeffery, President of SEGA of America, Inc. “They have proven that graphical and technological innovation can be exciting to the Wii market, and SEGA is thrilled to partner with a team that truly shares our belief in the Wii’s gaming potential beyond the casual market.”

“High Voltage Software's partnership with SEGA to publish The Conduit represents an important milestone for this studio,” said Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder of High Voltage Software, Inc. “SEGA shares our vision for the title and its tremendous potential, which is why we chose them from a long list of potential partners. With their support, we are confident that The Conduit will deliver the definitive shooter experience that Wii fans have been waiting for.”

The Conduit takes players into a dark story in Washington D.C. after a vicious alien invasion has rocked the country. An organization called the Trust has sent in Secret Service agent, Mr. Ford, to go up against the insect-like alien race known as “The Drudge.” Armed with an array of futuristic weaponry and an intelligence-gathering device simply called the “All-Seeing Eye,” players follow an intricate storyline filled with conspiracy, shady government activity and terrifying aliens.

The Conduit’s detailed control system allows players to customize and configure look sensitivity, turning speed, the dead zone and much more. As players delve further into the mystery behind the extraterrestrial invasion, shocking details reveal that the invasion may have been brought on with help from the government itself.

Powered by High Voltage Software’s groundbreaking Quantum 3 engine, The Conduit ensures that players will experience single and multiplayer gameplay with graphical fidelity never seen before on the Wii. The Conduit will also support the recently announced Wii Speak peripheral, allowing online multiplayer gamers the ability to chat as they destroy aliens in each terrifying level. Additionally, the game will take advantage of the Wii MotionPlus for optimal control.

Then we have Kevin Sorbo and his magnificent hair. Kevin will be voicing the terrorist Prometheus. Kevin "Kull" Sorbo, playing a terrorist. Bold move, High Voltage.

THE CONDUIT GOES HOLLYWOOD

High Voltage Software announces the voice-actors appearing in The Conduit

Hoffman Estates, IL – October 14, 2008 - High Voltage Software, Inc., one of the world's largest independent developers, today officially revealed the Hollywood voice-over cast of their exciting first-person action shooter, The Conduit.

Mark A. Sheppard stars as the voice of the main character, Mr. Ford. A British-born actor and musician, Sheppard’s TV credits include Battlestar Galactica, 24, Medium, Firefly, Burn Notice, CSI and The Bionic Woman. His film credits include Unstoppable, Evil Eyes, and In the Name of the Father.

“I think the story in this [The Conduit] is fantastic,” said Sheppard. “I think there’s a lot there for the player to enjoy.”

William Morgan Sheppard puts his incredible voice to the character of John Adams. William Morgan Sheppard spent 12 years as an Associate Artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His TV credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, and Kingdom Hospital. His film credits include Star Trek VI, The Prestige and Transformers. His video game credits include Medal of Honor, Metal Gear Solid 2, Escape from Monkey Island and Star Wars: Force Commander.

“It [The Conduit] has a resonance to it as a story;” said Morgan Sheppard. “It’s really quite exciting… and very well written.”

Last and definitely not least is Kevin Sorbo, who stars as the voice of the terrorist Prometheus. Sorbo is an American actor best known for the roles of Hercules in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda. His film credits include Kull the Conqueror, Avenging Angel, Prairie Fever, Meet the Spartans and An American Carol.

“It [The Conduit] looks like a riot,” said Sorbo, “I’m looking forward to it.”

The Conduit is tentatively scheduled for release in Q1 2009 exclusively for the Nintendo Wii.
###

High Voltage Announces New WiiWare Racer [Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

Less than two builds later, The Conduit looks worlds better. All of the graphics have been smoothed over thanks to new detail mapping, which also gets rid of those pesky blurring textures on walls and stuff. The lighting and colors have been tweaked so that a real sense of atmosphere comes through as you play. And we can finally see what the All Seeing Eye tool is supposed to do when you use it to search for hidden passages and enemies; something I didn’t get to try during my last whirlwind tour of the Wii FPS.

I started this demo somewhere underneath one of the government buildings in Washington (maybe the Pentagon). The long, dark corridors were moody and tense as orders were being given to me over an earpiece about where to go and who to shoot at. Gas-masked foes jumped out from behind crates and steel doorways, bringing on a rush of Time Crisis nostalgia as I gunned ‘em down.

I had to stop and fiddle with the motion controls a bit (mostly just to slow the turning speed). It was every bit as responsive and in-depth as I remembered, letting me set up the control scheme nearly any way I could think of. (I have a sneaking suspicion that The Conduit it would have worked out fine even without MotionPlus).

A “soft” targeting reticule was added to this build and there’s now an objective compass that tells you how far (and in which direction) your goal is. Facing a guy and holding down Z brings up a loose box around the enemy as well as a gauge that gives a rough estimate of his HP. Let go of Z and the reticule vanishes (that also seems to happen if the target gets too far out of range). So by “soft” reticule, High Voltage means you still have to work if you wanna shoot someone.

After finishing off or chasing away all of the gas mask guys, I came to what looked like a dead end and busted out the All Seeing Eye to look for a clue. I had to walk back along the corridor until I saw something flash on the wall and a yellow icon light up on screen. Using the All Seeing Eye, I triggered a secret lock that had me aligning semi-circles around an illuminati pyramid before a panel slid open to reveal a secret passage. At the end of the passage, a short cutscene showed one of the gas mask dudes getting disemboweled by an alien and then I was back to running through shadowy corridors, looking for more clues and more people to shoot.

Before, I compared this game to Turok. What I meant by that was, The Conduit evoked the marvelous feeling that Nintendo FPS games can hold their own against anything Sony comes up with (which I used to believe back when I was 13). I may be more jaded now (and a proud PS3 owner), but I honestly think when I look at The Conduit that I am looking at one of the best shooters anyone could ask for on any console.

Even better is the idea of multiplayer. No one’s gotten a look at this yet, but we have heard that WiiSpeak is being incorporated into this part of the game. Even if it weren’t, I’d still be stoked for multiplayer because if campaign mode is any indicator, The Conduit multiplayer stands to be the next GoldenEye. Which means two of my favorite N64 shooters will have been reenacted. Which means my wallet will be lighter. How about yours?