The Conduit

The complete customizable controls and almost decent online multiplayer might add some replay value, but the short campaign and less than expected technical achievements make this game fall shorter than it deserved too.

Haven't heard of it yet? It's The Conduit. Remember it now? Maybe not. Even though it's one of the most hyped games of the summer of 2009 for the Wii, it still falls shorter than anybody could've hope for. It is an achievement for the Wii, yes, but it's not the first alien sci-fi game and not the last. Had it been done on the Xbox 360 or PS3, it wouldn't of had a 3/5, and nobody would've been quite so proud of it.

The campaign has you as Mr. Ford mainly, an agent that a government sector called The Trust has hired to soften up what seems to be a terrorist attack. Simple enough, or is it? When you really get started, it turns out that another terrorist attack has been planned near a public transportation place, but it gets more complicated when the people working for

the government go against it and start attacking you. It get's pretty hectic at times when the AI comes out of nowhere and follows you, but the story is pretty simple and doesn't have much in
store for Michael Ford, especially considering the short gameplay of around 9 missions. At times, it does get a little more interesting with the All Seeing Eye (ASE). It can see things that your human eye couldn't see without it, such as written messages and data discs. It can unlock secret passages and unlock concept art, as well as show you the path to your primary objective. But at times it can get just as repetitive, mainly if you're in the middle of a dogfight and it detects something. Plus the secret passages won't really reward you much, and the concept art is just as uninteresting.

When you've finished the campaign or had enough of it, you're probably going to be looking for online multiplayer; it's here. There is no local multiplayer, but the online multiplayer makes up for only that. There are 12 different modes you can play in, each divided up into 3 groups of 4. When you choose one, you automatically go to a server with that gameplay mode running. After a round, you go to a lobby to vote on the rules, the weapon set being used, and the map being used. Free for All has you by yourself with your own tasks. Team Reaper has your team trying to kill the other team. The last one (can't recall the name of it) has your team sharing objectives to win. Some of these modes are very interesting, mainly in Free for All, and especially Bounty Hunter. In it you have a target you

want to kill for points, but killing anybody else results in losing points. While you've got a target, a target has you. Interesting.

Another interesting mode is ASE Football. It's sort of like normal football, but used with the ASE. In general, you want to hold the ASE for as long as possible, before getting killed so someone else can take the ASE. Some other modes can be just as fun, but of course there are problems. Mainly, the servers can be severely unreliable. While playing online, I had mixed results, but many of them weren't too good. In the worse games, there was plenty of lag and you would have no idea what was going on. In the worst case, after the almost 4 minutes of loading, I had a blank, brown screen and considering my TV was working and I didn't shit on the TV, the blame went to the servers.
 
So, in general, this is sort of like a sci-fi version of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 for the Wii, with aliens in it. Besides the customizable controls being different, they both have almost the same number of missions in the campaign, and they both have the almost same multiplayer, except it seems as though Medal of Honor did it better. The Conduit has hectic gameplay on and offline, and the multiplayer is pretty confusing, as well as laggish and buggy. It may have been the best Wii multiplayer game of the year, but that isn't particularly saying much. That's almost like saying Big Rigs is the best buggy, crappy, over-the-hill racing game with spelling errors. Saying The Conduit has the best Wii multiplayer of 2009 just seriously isn't saying much. That's where the game suffers most. Decent multiplayer would've added lots of replay value, as well as another star in this review, but The Conduit doesn't pack the punch in the multiplayer, or really anywhere in this game. It's disappointing for a game that should've been so good.