Almost 6 months ago I wrote an article asking the question “Can Conduit be Wii’s Halo?” Well in this entry I hope to answer that question. In the end did the “definitive” FPS for Wii meet the promises made by HVS? Perhaps not entirely but it is a great base to make a new IP that is Wii exclusive.
In this Blog I will cover all my points from the previous article and see what stood up and what fell down. This will also double as my review for the title. Mind you I am only comparing to Halo and Halo 2. I wish I could compare to Halo 3 but I feel that isn’t quite fair seeing as Halo 3 does beat Conduit in quality hands down. Bungie has 2 epic FPS titles under it’s belt and of course their third HD offering trumps anything a little Dev like HVS can produce. So it is only fair to only compare this to Halo 2 and Halo. This is to avoid confusion and unnecessary flaming.
In my previous entry I stated 3 main building blocks are necessary to create a quality FPS experience. Controls, Graphics and Multiplayer. I argued that based on released info at the time. I stated that it already had graphics and controls but multiplayer was awol for analysis. Now I’ll say that Perhaps I should have included 2 more blocks to the equation. Namely... story and challenge.
Now after playing through the single player I have to say we got a little of the first block and alot of the second block. Story was absolutely lackluster I am sad to say. In a day where stories can be adequately told through characters in game HVS seemed to choose the voice over route to tell their story. Almost the entirety of the storyline is told through MGS esqe back and forth cutaways and voices in your head. Perhaps this was done for time since this title was developed fairly quickly. However it’s not a very good excuse. COD: WAW hands down executed the story so much better. They had people screaming at you and forcing you into the world the FPS takes place.
The way they chose to tell the story in singleplayer really almost makes the story seem separate to the challenge of having to take out these endless streams of enemies. Which brings us to the Challenge block of a FPS... surprisingly the challenge is as hardcore as the most legendary FPS titles. While the story stayed under 5 hours you rarely can get through the game in that time. Mostly because of the many unexpected difficulty spikes in the game. At first I was going to join the herd of whiney gamers claiming it’s too hard until I thought back to what this was a callback to. The N64 shooters such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I suddenly had to memorize the order of enemies and where everything was in the level in order to make it through these challenging parts.
For example... the part making people throw their controllers and instantly dismiss the game is the last part of mission 3. Even I was stumped for quite a while on this part. (spoiler alert) Enemies seem to come endlessly at first glance and they can kill you quick. I was in awe that it was so hard. Then I realized I wasn’t approaching the problem correctly. The game wanted me to plan for this attack.
Quickly I figured out the drudge solders come out in groups of 3 with 2 exploding ther-mites at the start and 2 more once you breach the Lincoln Memorial. I learned that but found it wasn’t enough because after you took out 6 drudge and 2 of the mites I was still losing too much power by the time I hit the doorway and while I could decimate 3 of the 4 Conduits where enemies spawned, by then my health would be so low (before regeneration mind you) that a rogue drudge hucking a radioactive grenade killed me almost every time. Again I was stumped. That is until I explored my battlefield more closely. What I discovered is that there was health hidden on the left side of the doorway into the room full of conduits. They really made you work for your next checkpoint!
Now many can whine that it’s too frustrating but if you have the patience and the skills to learn your way through it. It makes that moment of victory feel that much better. I argue that this game offers better challenge then Halo ever had. No FPS games seem to think parts of their games ever need to be difficult. Most FPS games make it almost too easy to beat it. I guess in HVS’s line of thinking this was hardcore and in many ways they are totally right. I was called back to some of the crushingly difficult parts of Perfect dark as well as Goldeneye. Which made me very happy regardless of the lackluster story.
So while Conduit didn’t deliver like it should have in story (namely the 12 hour epic they claimed once upon a time). If you compare the story to Halo or Halo 2 you will find there is no comparisons to be had. Both still deal with alien invasions but the Halo series put so much more emphasis on epic storytelling even if it did reduce difficulty to do it. However, It did deliver on old school hardcore singleplayer challenge. In this way it differs from Halo where it becomes blatantly obvious that Conduit knows it’s about the multiplayer. In the end you kind of have to look at the singleplayer as a bonus and for training in regards to what the multiplayer offers. It also offers you the chance to make sure your controls just how you want them before you challenge the world.. speaking of the controls... lets cover that.
The controls are exactly the point where Conduit blows other FPS games completely out of the water. Throughout your singleplayer campaign you will find yourself making numerous alterations to how you play the game. Out of the 8 hours it took me to totally bang through it I probably spent 45 minutes to a full hour just tweaking little details in button placement, sensitivity, turning speed and my dead zone. One of the biggest selling points about this titles shines extremely bright. Their is an unfathomable joy about seemingly creating the way a Wii FPS works just for you. By the end of the tweaking the controls felt just perfect. 
As one of the now 5 building blocks of an awesome FPS this one shows through all the criticism. It is because of these revolutionary feeling controls that it is tough to dwell on the low points of The Conduit. Somebody finally got it right. Red steel just didn’t seem to get it. Heroes 2 and WAW controls felt stiff and sometimes felt just plain wonkey. This game pretty much makes it so you will never be able to blame the controller for poor performance online. That is unless your batteries fail which happens to me more and more as I play the Conduit online. In fact I have been so deeply entrenched in online that I ripped through 4 sets of batteries in the last 2 weeks. Conduit seems so controller intensive that it actually kills wiimotes faster then ever before. Which of course brings us to multiplayer... block 4 of the 5 part structure that is an perfect FPS title.
Multiplayer is a huge part of what makes Conduit an attractive title. Heroes 2 and WAW proved it could be fun but limited you to the World War 2 setting. Conduit sets itself apart as the first Wii FPS set with fancy sci fi weapons as any FPS game should have. Though what truly sets The Conduit apart from other FPS titles for Wii is the sheer amount of modes. Here’s the rundown...
I popped in Halo and took a look to compare and still Conduits graphics did break original Xbox standards as I had hoped. The multiplayer and singleplayer are not always running at 30fps but the graphics are undeniably crisp for the little white console. This is the kind of stuff that 3 years ago many would look at and drool. Now however people are completely spoiled with computers with 1 gig SD ram video cards and consoles capable of pumping out 1080p at 30-60fps. How can our little Wii compete when compared to those things.
Halo was the hinging point that kept Xbox from failing last generation. It gave the console the lil jump it needed to just barely top Game cube numbers. It and it’s sequel defined Console online multiplayer for this generation and even Killzone 2 owes alot to Halo. 
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company's Pokemon Gen 10, codenamed Gaia, will be exclusive to the upcoming Switch 2, based on a new rumor.
Is anyone expecting anything less? It will be exclusive to Switch 2 eventhough it will still look like a 3DS game
Bethesda Game Studios writes: We are so grateful to the over 4 million of you that have already ventured into Cyrodiil with Oblivion Remastered. Thank you!
Congrats goes to Todd and everyone at Bethesda and team Xbox for another huge milestone!
Hopefully after this huge success, Phil might greenlit New Vegas Remastered powered by UE5 as well.
Fingers crossed!
I wish for, at the very least, maybe Fallout 3 remaster? I mean the success of the show proves that not just hardcore gamers are ready for a great updated Fallout game. I believe it could potentially be even more successful than the Oblivion remaster. But I do like your idea of a New Vegas UE5 , because I actually never played that. Bethesda are better under Microsoft, I agree with you now after this "remaster". It's much cheaper and faster to do something like this for an old classic game. Reminds me of when Capcom started doing that with RE2. Gamer goodwill became skyhigh for Capcom. Fingers crossed indeed
F3 Remastered already came out on the court documents, so unless it was cancelled, which sounds unlikely as it would the best they can hope to have to match any releases of the TV show since F5 isn’t coming out any time soon.
That said, I do agree that if this has proven to be a hit and I don’t see why F3 wouldn’t be if it gets the same level of treatment, they will probably want to do more
It's on GamePass. According to Steam DB: it has a 190k peak, which is not close to 4 mil. It didn't even reach 500k on Twitch stats and owner estimations are hovering around 1 mil or less.
Well done, despite not getting exact sales, this is still great news because the budget for this and the development time wouldn't have been much at all when compared to a full 6 or 7 year development window and the cost that would entail. So it does seem like a great success and even better when you consider that they shadow-dropped it without paid marketing. Hope this team is already past pre-production on another "remaster" of another classic, I'm personally hoping for Fallout 3 remaster
Microsoft realised how stupid they had been and delayed following Sega's example.
There you go MS, worldwide lots more people own PS5 or PC than Xbox. You got the money you're desperate for.
To be truly Sega, don't bother releasing a new console. Just focus on software.
"To be truly Sega, don't bother releasing a new console. Just focus on software."
MS will continue to release new consoles as they´ll continue and make tons of money out PC, PS5 and Switch 2 as well.
Gamers on other platforms will happily pay full price for amazing Xbox games while we get everything day one on Game Pass.
It´s a win win for everyone.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is a reflective lens that highlights RPG evolution while proving the appeal of certain design philosophies.
no
That was a awsome blog post. I agree with alot of it.
You do have a good point. I would like to see a review. I hated the dialogue boxes that they called cutscenes. If they wanted to tell a conspiracy story, they would have the story be explained through Mr. Ford's eyes. The game needed several things to improve it (more maps, DLC, a sniper rifle!!)
Well, we will always have a sequel. I am hoping this game is going to experience a Killzone franchise situation. The first one wasn't impressive, but the second one was AWESOME.
To HVS: Add co-op!!
the conduit isn't even as good as a game released almost 10 years ago?
not going to lie, best review i have read for the game thus far.