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I have Crysis.

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So, it has adventure elements, so does Half-Life 2, but that doesn't make it not-an-FPS. Sure, in theory there are no limits, but this industry and its audience more than anything else certainly have imposed limits on what can be succesful and pretty much every genre is stale nowadays, with a few exceptions, just as it always has been. Not to mention the highest regarded games rarely do something new, they just tend to do what they do damn well (Call of Duty 4 for an example in this genre). And new technology has barely done anything for games since we moved to modest 3D representations, see what I said about Mass Effect and Bioshock compared to older titles that attempted a similar fusion. Only eye candy has increased, more or less. Anyway, I've said what I had to say and only bits and pieces have been responded to and only by you, I'll leave it at that.

AAA of GOTY quality is what I meant to say.. and I personally don't consider Metroid Prime as a FPS, and I know many other fans don't also, I see it as a FPA -adventure game, where exploration and puzzle solving is the primary focus. with a notably lesser one on shooting

No genre has a limit, a dead end to face. There's no limits to creativity when there are technical advances pushing forward constantly, increasing the capacity for games to do more.

Um, they already have an AAA FPS on the Wii, it's called Metroid Prime 3, and hopefully Retro is cooking something just as good without the need to stick to particular lore now. No, it doesn't push the genre forward but it's up there. And no FPS this gen has pushed the genre forward anyway, but I guess that's an opinion... Heck, the genre has gone as far as it can. To have something new, you can only blend it with other genres now, but even that's been done (better than Bioshock and Mass Effect for example) in the past with the likes of System Shock and Deus Ex anyway.

I wonder how Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood will be reviewed. I'm having fun with it, but it does absolutely nothing new, feels almost on-rails with how restricted the levels are, it's more or less Call of Duty: Wild West, with some questionable duel mechanics, horses and other set pieces. The story's said to be very short, and so far it's also laughable. The AI is incredibly basic as it takes after the Call of Duty style in that as well. I haven't played the multiplayer yet but apparently you don't have to in order to judge a game nowadays so I'm giving it a 7/10 so far, similar to what I think The Conduit deserves. Maybe Giant Bomb will award it with 4/10, we'll have to wait and see... Gamespot gave it an 8/10. It does look pretty. Meh?

when it's always been hyped as a by-the-book old-school-ish FPS for a platform that has almost none

Or maybe he didn't? Again, did you play it? I haven't, I never praised the game, but to call it out as stangant when the same outlets review games you agree are stagnant much better, when even the hailed-as-horrible Call of Duty 3 has a pretty decent average score, is stupid. I think that's what AgentJ is trying to say, not that The Conduit is the second coming of gaming, when it's always been hyped as a by-the-book old-school-ish FPS for a platform that has almost none. It seems to have achieved that much, better in some aspects than others.

To punish this particular (Wii, of course) game as an example to all others is stupid, when all others don't get such ridiculously low scores and are judged on their own merits and what they try to do, not what they don't try to do, like advance the genre forward. The Conduit from what I've seen seems to deserve the metacritic average. Not the lowest common denominator when it comes to reviewers who can't even play it, don't experience it fully, skip over a major component (the multi player, apparently) and ramble on about easy to switch things (melee on thrust).

Perhaps in an alternate reality where every game was judged fairly, it would deserve a 5/10, but when games nowadays are so overhyped and overestimated, to  try and set an example by punishing a particular game, then call the review "fair" is clearly not the way to go. Fix your scales as an industry, give your 10s and 9s and 8s only where they're actually deserved, and then maybe a 5/10 for The Conduit would be more acceptable, as it would sit alongside games of similar merit, not with the absolute bottom of the pit trash as it appears now, at least from these outlets.

" @Linkyshinks said:

" @AgentJ said:

" @Haziqonfire said:

" The Conduit is a recent game that was released for the Wii - It all started when IGN revealed the game about a year+ ago - and ever since I don't understand the hype.From the very beginning the game looked bland, generic and uninspired. It has an identity crisis - it doesn't know what kind of game it wants to look like.I did rent the conduit, even after I've been hating on it for a long time - and the result? Exactly what I said was bad or wrong about it .. was in the game. The AI is butt stupid, a rock would have the same effect. The controls are great, the graphics are pretty ugly due to the art style. While there is a lot of technical power going on - its all useless when the art direction looks as bad as it did. The online is pretty laggy and the single player campaign was short - I beat it in around three and a half hours.Overall it just didn't impress me - its a decent game, at best. If Wii owners want to play a GREAT first person game - get Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It lacks multiplayer, but the single player is fantastic - actually better yet, wait for the Metroid Prime Trilogy - which comes out this August and includes the three games all with Wii controls.In the end if I had to score the conduit out of 10 (im using a full 10 scale here) - I'd give it a 6.5 - It has the controls down, but everything else is pretty poor to mediocre. "

Seems like a pretty fair review. Bad AI and bland art direction are going to destroy a game even with great controls. My only problem is that most first person shooters with the same problems get nines and tens, but i digress. "

No, great games get nines, not crap games like this. What FPS's are you referring to? "

I'm going to just ignore the "crap games like this" comment, since it's not relavent.


Bland story? Bland art? let's talk about every first person shooter set in world war 2. Or all the space marine shooters. As far as I'm concerned, the only games in the genre that have really mixed things up, and thus deserve a 9 or 10, are Bioshock, Fallout 3 (techniclly an RPG), Mass Effect (again, RPG), and MAYBE Call of Duty 4 (still pretty bland singleplayer setting, even if the story was decent). The conduit certainly has its issues, and probably deserves something in the 5-6 range, but so do the stale shooters mentioned earlier, like Call of Duty 2 and 3, Brothers in Arms, and Medal of Honor. If anything, the setting for the Conduit is interesting compared to those (i've only played a demo, so i dont know much about the story) "

After a few days worth of playing the game I have to say the game is bland. Completely bland, not horrible, not great... not really even good.

The controls also aren't my cup of tea, they certainly seem more "interactive" (if that makes sense) than the vast majority of other FPS's, but they're nowhere near as precise or as twitchy fast as a KB/M, and the WiiMote FPS scheme seems to have problems that even dual analog don't have. I also don't like having to tinker with the controls so much to get them where they're even approaching feeling "right." FPS's should need very little, if any, control customization out of the box. On a console it should be just as simple as Invert look Y/N and extremely minor sensitivity tweaks. 

@AgentJ said:

" As far as I'm concerned, the only games in the genre that have really mixed things up, and thus deserve a 9 or 10, are Bioshock, Fallout 3 (techniclly an RPG), Mass Effect (again, RPG),  "

But Metroid Prime 3's turning speed is its biggest issue... It was great at the time but any game after it shouldn't have that issue. And I don't think The Conduit does from what I've seen of it. I suppose acceleration is a different issue, but they still seem better than Prime's. I don't remember it having such a small dead zone either but it's been a while, I seem to recall having to put the cursor quite far to turn a lot, even in the expert setting.

Good they're not "absolutely horrible" like your first comment indicated since you said they "fall apart" which sounds like a synonym for "horrible".

Well that's bad I guess, but perhaps you need more practice is all. Not many games have this exact control on the Wii, in fact it's the first one where you're even able to set the bounding box so small, isn't it? Maybe you still haven't gotten used to it, or having it so small just isn't suited to you. Perhaps fiddle with other options, maybe acceleration isn't the issue in how it "feels" for you.

If you change turning speed and decrease the bounding box doesn't that in practice increase acceleration even though it's not its own option?

If you change turning speed and decrease the bounding box doesn't that in practice increase acceleration even though it's not its own option? Well that's bad I guess, but perhaps you need more practice is all. Not many games have this exact control on the Wii, in fact it's the first one where you're even able to set the bounding box so small, isn't it? Maybe you still haven't gotten used to it, or having it so small just isn't suited to you. Perhaps fiddle with other options, maybe acceleration isn't the issue in how it "feels" for you.

And yes, Edge magazine gave The Conduit a 4/10. Then again, there are several good reviews as well (from sources big enough to appear on metacritic). There are about 4 bad reviews including Giant Bomb's, and 18 with 7/10 or higher, excluding IGN's. 12 with 7.5/10 or higher.  6 with 8/10 or higher, which is still a few more than the really bad ones, always excluding IGN's. Just saying, since you brought that up.

" But isn't that how it works already? The further to the side you go, the more it turns, depending on the bounding box. The bounding box doesn't seem to be an abrupt trigger, you still turn even within it, if a little bit, then faster when you go close to the edges. Changing turning speed and bounding box options should eventually have the effect you want. And IGN isn't the only place to have scored the game well. The good reviews far outnumber the bad, with IGN sitting on the positive extreme and Giant Bomb on the negative, so they're the first to exclude honestly. "

"No, great games get nines, not crap games like this. What FPS's are you referring to? "

From what I have heard, the controls are actually ok, although they don't reach the precision of a mouse and keyboard or even a regular gamepad. It's everything else that the game offers (generic singleplayer, poor design choices, general jankiness) that make it a mediocre or even bad game. The only reason it has gotten so much attention is because it's a wii exclusive.

" @Haziqonfire said:

" The Conduit is a recent game that was released for the Wii - It all started when IGN revealed the game about a year+ ago - and ever since I don't understand the hype.From the very beginning the game looked bland, generic and uninspired. It has an identity crisis - it doesn't know what kind of game it wants to look like.I did rent the conduit, even after I've been hating on it for a long time - and the result? Exactly what I said was bad or wrong about it .. was in the game. The AI is butt stupid, a rock would have the same effect. The controls are great, the graphics are pretty ugly due to the art style. While there is a lot of technical power going on - its all useless when the art direction looks as bad as it did. The online is pretty laggy and the single player campaign was short - I beat it in around three and a half hours.Overall it just didn't impress me - its a decent game, at best. If Wii owners want to play a GREAT first person game - get Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It lacks multiplayer, but the single player is fantastic - actually better yet, wait for the Metroid Prime Trilogy - which comes out this August and includes the three games all with Wii controls.In the end if I had to score the conduit out of 10 (im using a full 10 scale here) - I'd give it a 6.5 - It has the controls down, but everything else is pretty poor to mediocre. "

Seems like a pretty fair review. Bad AI and bland art direction are going to destroy a game even with great controls. My only problem is that most first person shooters with the same problems get nines and tens, but i digress. "

But isn't that how it works already? The further to the side you go, the more it turns, depending on the bounding box. The bounding box doesn't seem to be an abrupt trigger, you still turn even within it, if a little bit, then faster when you go close to the edges. Changing turning speed and bounding box options should eventually have the effect you want. And IGN isn't the only place to have scored the game well. The good reviews far outnumber the bad, with IGN sitting on the positive extreme and Giant Bomb on the negative, so they're the first to exclude honestly.

There's no turning acceleration option, and that's what it needs (I'd like it to be based on cursor position on the screen, like you could say 10 pixels out turning acceleration increases by 2x).  I'd like a second, third, forth (for 2x, 3x, 4x?) box beyond dead zone that I could modify in this way.

There's absolutely no way to change it.  Turning speed just will send you wildly out of control as soon as you're out of the dead zone box, if you set it too high.

Sensitivity only affects how jittery your wiimote is on the screen, it affects how far you have to physically aim to the left and right in proportion to how far it'll move on the screen (seemingly).

What it comes down to is other Wii games seem to control better.  I think what I personally would have liked is a way to nail the cursor to the center of the screen (which you could turn off by pressing a button).

But I thought there are several sensitivity and bounding box options, surely combinations of them affect the turning speed so that you won't have to turn too far and then adjust the aim? I imagine the bounding box has the biggest effect on that, though sensitivity changes would fine tune it.

The controls aren't as good as other Wii games.  Read the Giant Bomb review, or some of the others (not the IGN, as they basically were the promoter for the game), listen to the Bombcast.

I said in another thread what other people haven't, I think.  The game needs turning acceleration control.  Basically my problem with the game is, to get a decent turning speed without being out of control, you need to aim your wiimote pointer so far to the left or right, and then to shoot you optimally need the camera to be in the dead zone (so the camera isn't swinging when you're trying to aim), and that whole process takes longer than it should (basically you're always aiming both left and right to aim at any target, as opposed to some Wii games, mouse controls and gamepad).

" But this guy says the controls are great, now you say they fall apart? Hmm... And only on occasion? Aren't they the same throughout? "

But this guy says the controls are great, now you say they fall apart? Hmm... And only on occasion? Aren't they the same throughout?

The AI is really dumbed down in the Conduit, enemies on normal difficulty will often just stand in the open, but it's to make up for the mediocre controls, as they mention on the Bombcast.

The game only gets hard when the controls fall apart.

The online is absolute dog shit.  Now beyond taking many minutes to even get in a game, and beyond the disconnects, freezes and laggy play, it's completely hacked.

I played on the third difficulty - I think there are like 5 of them, not sure - I rented it, didn't buy it.

As for the online, most matches I played had lag in it - but I suppose it was the initial wave of people playing.

From what I've seen in videos the AI does a good impression of flanking and taking cover with the odd glitch that causes them to navigate wrong, get stuck, shoot without you being in their line of sight, or whatever, which happens even in the best games, like Half-Life 2. I don't see what's so bad about it? Did you play in the lowest difficulty then complain they're not smart or something? I don't see how else you could finish the campaign in just three and a half hours since most people say there are several instances where it's simply too hard, making the difficulty uneven and causing many, many deaths and retries, but you don't mention that as a drawback so I imagine you either didn't play it, or set it to easy, when it actually has several difficulties higher than that.

As for the online, try more? Again, actual user videos indicate you can have a very smooth, and  fun, experience (though the void glitch is also very real, sadly), so it's probably up to the host's and your connections (much like every game of this type out there), while for multiplayer thrills the only other retail alternative on the Wii is COD: WaW which has very limited multiplayer, so The Conduit certainly 1ups it with its variety of modes.

As you said, it seems to be a decent game.

I agree, a lot of FPS are the same - but The Conduit is overly generic looking - not to mention nothing else in the game has any redeeming qualities, besides the controls.

The Story is pretty awful and the Multiplayer has been pretty laggy for me - and it is pretty boring, because its the standard FPS affair.

The Conduit is a recent game that was released for the Wii - It all started when IGN revealed the game about a year+ ago - and ever since I don't understand the hype.

From the very beginning the game looked bland, generic and uninspired. It has an identity crisis - it doesn't know what kind of game it wants to look like.

I did rent the conduit, even after I've been hating on it for a long time - and the result? Exactly what I said was bad or wrong about it .. was in the game. The AI is butt stupid, a rock would have the same effect. The controls are great, the graphics are pretty ugly due to the art style. While there is a lot of technical power going on - its all useless when the art direction looks as bad as it did. The online is pretty laggy and the single player campaign was short - I beat it in around three and a half hours.

Overall it just didn't impress me - its a decent game, at best. If Wii owners want to play a GREAT first person game - get Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It lacks multiplayer, but the single player is fantastic - actually better yet, wait for the Metroid Prime Trilogy - which comes out this August and includes the three games all with Wii controls.

In the end if I had to score the conduit out of 10 (im using a full 10 scale here) - I'd give it a 6.5 - It has the controls down, but everything else is pretty poor to mediocre.