Genre: First-Person Shooter

Tag : mass flow controller

When the Wii was first announced, a lot of games sprung to people'sminds. Most people, myself included, thought first of alightsaber-based Star Wars title, but after a bit of thought, what I most was excited aboutwas a first-person shooter. The Wii's great Wiimote and Nunchukdesign seemed custom-made for an FPS, but the initial batch wasdisappointing. Red Steel , which seemed to offer both FPS and sword-fighting action was justsad, and the Wii lacked a real honest-to-goodness FPS until Metroid Prime 3: Corruption . After that, the drought remained, despite games like Prime and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Wii-based FPSes cancontrol like a dream. Thankfully, High Voltage software is out tofix this inexplicable absence with The Conduit .
The Conduit is set in the near future in Washington D.C. The city has comeunder attack by a race of aliens known as the Drudge, who havelaunched an assault on humanity for unknown reasons. The Drudge'spowerful biological weaponry has given them a huge advantage overhumanity, and all hope seemed lost until the appearance of TRUST.TRUST is a Men-In-Black like organization created a long time agoin preparation for the inevitable alien invasion, and they havetechnology and training far above and beyond those of even thearmy's most elite soldiers. Players take control of Mr. Ford, oneof the agents of TRUST, who is assigned experimental new powerarmor and assigned to help fend off the Drudge. It isn't the mostinnovative story, but High Voltage promises a few twists and turnsalong the way to keep gamers interested in the story.

There really isn't enough good that can be said about The Conduit's controls, even in this early build. The Wii controller makes forsome fantastic shooting experiences, even with ports like Resident Evil 4 , but it has had only a bare handful of exclusively-built FPS, andof those only Metroid Prime 3 didn't feel like shovelware. This can't really be said about The Conduit , which allows for quick precise movement and aiming with theWiimote and Nunchuck. Even better, the controls are fullycustomizable. You can not only adjust the button configuration andthe sensitivity of the Wiimote, but even the dead zone whichseparates aiming from turning. The result is an experience thatmakes it possible for almost anyone to configure the experienceprecisely for them. For those who are not great at FPS, or justthose who have trouble adjusting to the Wiimote control scheme, italso includes a lock-on, which is less versatile then free aiming,but keeps the target in your focus.
The Conduit's weapons are divided into three types: Human, Alien and TRUSTweapons. These weapons each use their own unique kind ofammunition, and the ammunition types are not interchangeablebetween different faction's weapons. Human weapons are basicallywhat you'd expect to find in any first person shooter. The one inthe demo was called the SLAY, and was your average sort of machinegun, equipped with a rapid-fire capability and a scope. Alienweapons are biological armaments used by the Drudge, and run offplasma ammunition. The two Alien weapons we saw were the Bio-MassGun and the Shreker. The Bio-Mass Gun was basically a Drudge rifle.It fired slow powerful blasts and could zoom in on enemies forlong-distance sniping. The Shreak however, was my favorite weaponin the demo and easily one of the coolest weapons in the game sofar. The Shreaker is a guided missile launcher that fires powerfulexplosive blasts. The cool part about The Shreaker is that afteryou fire, the missile follows your Wiimote's pointer, allowing youto guide it around obstacles and even make it turn corners to smashinto unlucky enemies in hiding. It takes a bit of getting used to,but once you do, it proves to be an invaluable ally. Finally, theTRUST weapons are melding of alien plasma technology and humaningenuity. The TRUST weapon in the E3 demo was the Mark 4 Atomizer,a high powered laser cannon. By charging the Atomizer, you actuallysplit the crosshair into two distinct crosshairs. Targeting anenemy with one crosshair and firing will cause two shots to flyfrom the Atomizer. One flies right towards the enemy, while thesecond shot will lock in on the enemy. You can even twist the Wiiremote to change the firing angle, allowing you to do things liketarget an enemy hiding behind a car and then sending one shotflying over the top of the car and onto the Drudge's unsuspectinghead. It's the sort of weapon that couldn't be done on anothersystem, and really shows off High Voltage's grasp of what makes theWii unique.

It's a good thing that a wide variety of weapons are availablesince the Drudge are a fairly tenacious race of buggers. The demoshowed off a few distinct types of enemies. There were quick andweak Drudge which rushed at you and tried to claw your face off,the average grunt Drudge who were armed with Bio-Mass Guns, and theflying Drudge who were quick and required you to either lock-on orbe a quick shot to keep up with them. While each individual Drudgefell without too much effort, they came in massive swarms and even moretroublesome, they were effectively capable of sending in infinitetroopers. You see, the Drudge don't just spawn from thing air, butinstead attack Washington D.C. through the titular conduits, giantglowing portals which serve as Drudge generators. In order toactually stop the flow of enemies, you'll need to take out theseconduits with a barrage of weapon fire. Of course, you have tobalance out your ammo consumption, the enemies themselves anddefeating the conduits in quick order, or else you'll meet a quickend. In addition to the grunt Drudge, I also encountered a giantinsectoid miniboss monster which launched swarms of explodinginsects at me. It wasn't too rough to take down, but the developershave promised that later levels will include fights against threeor more of these guys at once!
However, not everything that TRUST has equipped you with is aweapon. They have actually given Mr. Ford two very important piecesof advanced technology. The first of these is the power suit thathe is wearing. The power suit allows him to jump higher, hitharder, and absorb more damage then most humans. Furthermore, itcomes equipped with a personal shield system that further augmentshis defense. The shield is represented as a bar on the upper leftof your screen. Every time you take damage, the bar lowers, and ifyou avoid damage for a while, it recharges. However, if your shieldbar lowers beyond a certain point, you'll be unable to recharge itto full, and may be left with 2/3rds or even 1/3rd of a completeshield bar until you find a TRUST recovery pack. Beyond his suit,Ford is also equipped with an A.S.E device. The A.S.E is an orblike device which emits a powerful beam of light. It seems almostuseless at first, until you realize that both TRUST and The Drudgehave the ability to cloak themselves from sight. The A.S.E uncoversthose cloaks. For example, the Drudge may cloak a group of mines,and the A.S.E device will beep to warn you of nearby mines, whichyou can then disarm by shooting them. Alternately, you can use theA.S.E to locate hidden TRUST weapons caches to resupply in thefield. The developers have promised that there will be many moreuses for the A.S.E in the main game however, so don't think it isonly a glorified flashlight.

A bit of extra good news is that High Voltage is planning onincluding multiplayer. However, from what they say, it isn't thecrappy multiplayer that is so commonly found on non-party Wiigames, but a full fledged mode that actually includes features thatmost of the things non-Wii gamers come to expect from their FPS.For one, yes, it will be online, and while they have yet to confirmthe maximum number of players, they promise it won't be small.Furthermore, they're confirmed that they'll be supporting voicechat through Nintendo's Wiitalk feature, which makes them the firstFPS to include this rather important feature. Barring anythingelse, at very least gamers can expect to have a heck of a lot offun blowing the crap out of each other online.
The Conduit's most notable feature, beyond the awesome Wiimote implementation,is that it is arguably one of the better looking games on the Wii.A lot of work was clearly placed into the graphics, and it shows,with character models, level designs and explosion effects thatlook quite a bit better then most things third party developers putout for the Wii. While it's obviously not going to compare to someof the offerings on the PS3 or X-Box 360, High Voltage has provedthat, at very least, it's quite possible to wring some very nicevisuals out of the Wii.