Is The Conduit the Wii's best shooter?
One of the bigger pushes for Nintendo's Wii console recently has been The Conduit, a sci-fi first-person shooter from Sega. Looking past the hype, we put it to the test--hoping to find out if the popular Wii is actually good for something other than casual, party, and kids' games.
As with the recent Ghostbusters debate, our CNET editors' gaming roundtable gives conflicting opinions below, and we naturally want to hear what you think in the handy comments section.
Jeff Bakalar:
We're really impressed at how customizable the game is. In addition to completely changing the controls around, you have the option to move around individual HUD (heads-up-display) items at your leisure, so you can build the presentation that's right for you.
Control-wise, the game performs very smoothly, just how you'd want a first-person-shooter on the Wii to play. It's refreshing to see a game like this built from the ground up specifically for the Wii--you'll notice little things like rack focusing and other camera tricks that aren't seen in most Wii games.
While The Conduit is among the best-looking games available for the Wii, the console simply cannot handle that kind of realistic graphics. For instance, enemies set far away look like nothing more than a bunch of jumbled dots until they get much closer.
Alien-invading first-person shooters aren't anything new for video games, but a fresh new title built specifically for the Wii is definitely a welcome change of pace. The Conduit is the best first-person-shooter available for the console and the online multiplayer modes add a solid amount of replay value.
Scott Stein:
When I first played The Conduit, I was reminded of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The first-person Wiimote-aided controls and perspective seemed similar, as well as some of the puzzle-solving. The experience is somewhat fun--in fact, it's baffling that there aren't more quasi-VR experiences on the Wii as opposed to goofy retro minigames--but it's not compelling enough to spend significant time or money on unless you're desperate for a shooter (read: you only own a Wii).
Plus, the aliens are downright uninspiring, feeling like they escaped from Midway's Area 51. It's nice to see that Sega's supporting Wii development of original content, with this, Madworld, and Let's Tap, but this just feels like something that hit the market too late. But again, to clarify: it's still the second-best first-person action game that the Wii's got.
Dan Ackerman:
Nintendo's Wii console seems custom made for first-person shooters, with a motion-sensing handheld controller that's more firearm-like than any analog-stick game pad. So, it's always been a mystery why no one has managed to perfect the formula yet. While it's probably the best attempt so far, Sega's The Conduit is certainly no paradigm shift in Wii first-person shooters.
Perhaps it's the Wii hardware itself. The new Motion Plus add-on for the Wii remote seems to be an admission that the system's aiming was never quite right--but the Motion Plus is not compatible with this game. The system used for actually controlling the game--combining rotating and aiming by steering the Wiimote cursor around an onscreen "dead zone"--is essentially the same inelegant compromise as nearly every other Wii first-person game.
We liked the X-Files/Torchwood style conspiracy thriller vibe, although it's surprising the game uses so many cheap tricks, such as brain-dead bad guys jumping out from behind corners and blatantly repeated locations. The Conduit seems to be nobly aimed at creating more mature, serious games for the Wii, but in that case, why does the guy on the cover look like a reject from a late-'80s Lazer Tag commercial?
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you want good shooters try PS3 or XBOX360
1. Aiming by using an analog joystick (PS3, Xbox 360)
2. Aiming by aiming at targets on the screen with a gunlike apparatus? (Wii)
I've tried both methods, using CoD World At War on PS3 and on Wii. The Wii's control system pwns.
Mouse and keyboard on a PC.
Although its PC Aiming > >Wii Aiming>>>> PS3/360 Analog Aiming
but yeah the Wii is the best around and its a shame it hasnt been flooded with FPS yet
Also, no matter how many times people say it, referring to "realistic graphics" in a game with more weapons and ammo than ten men could carry being shoved in the back pocket of a guy who can take more damage without dying than the Terminator -- oh yeah, not to mention the little green men running around Washington, DC -- just never stops being funny.
That said, both Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 and Metroid Prime 3 are better "games" (though I still fully maintain that Prime 3 is more an adventure game than a shooter). Metroid Prime 3 still controls very well, and MoH:H2 offers a decent amount of bounding box customization and much better level structure and pacing. Both of these other games also offer a 60 frames-per-second framerate, which inherently makes the control feel more responsive. Sometimes I felt like The Conduit was laggy. Very often, I felt the enemy AI completely stank. And almost the entire time, I felt like The Conduit was happy to just give us kill rooms and kill corridors. There's just something... monotonous about the way HVS has structured the levels and enemy placement. Maybe it gets better later. Here's hoping.
Well, Scott, you might notice that Jeff Bakalar DID say "Conduit is the best first-person-shooter available for the console," so maybe the comment wasn't directed at you
Scott just got served > _ <
Actually, The Conduit is a paradigm shift in first person shooters for the Wii. It's the first game where the developers said "ok, here's what the Wii can do and here's what it can't do. Let's make a game that plays to the console's strenghts and shows off what it can do while at the same time compensating for it's weaknesses and downplaying what it can't do". Too many games for the Wii feel like the developers were trying to make a game that would work on any console then almost as an after thought, tacking on a control scheme that would more or less work on the Wii.
Like the Metroid games, The Conduit proves that you can make a lovely looking game for the Wii without having to resort to cell shaded cartoon visuals. I hope that sales of the game prove to game publishers that it does make business sense to make hard core action game exclusively for the Wii. If enough Wii owners buy this game, maybe we'll see even better FPS games for the Wii in the future.
I don't have a Wii anymore because it just sat for a long period since no decent games came out. It'll take several Mario Galaxies and Metroid Prime 3s to make me want to buy another Wii.
From what I've read, Conduit is no MP 3.
There's your FIRST problem...
- by yragcom1 October 29, 2009 12:59 PM PDT
- There's not one person here that has actually PLAYED Conduit AND Medal Of Honor Heroes on Wii and said that Conduit's better. MOHH2 in Multiplayer mode is the best shooter on the Wii hands down, and a very, very engaging one at that
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