The Conduit has always been a pipe dream – a hope too good to be true. The screenshots? Had to be fake. Videos? Obviously pre-rendered footage. There was no way that a game that looked that good could run on the Wii, which struggled to chug out the horsepower for the original Far Cry. Now that it has been picked up by Sega, the little shooter seems to be on track for a release in the near future. Other than Metroid Prime, which was more adventure than gunning, Nintendo has yet to attempt to deliver a true shooter on the system, but after playing the Conduit a few times over the weekend it appears Sega plans to do what Nintendon’t.

The good news is that, yes, it looks very nice. It isn’t pulling off Gears of War or Killzone 2 graphics by any means, but it’s a proving point for the Wii hardware. Cars are nice and shiny, and the weapon models are exceptional. Everything looks a little blurry up-close, especially the alien enemies, but from a typical distance the game looks like an early-generation Xbox 360 title. The Wii doesn’t really have enough power to do anything more than that, and the developers of the Conduit have done a stellar job of showing up every other developer to push shovelware on to the system. No doubt, the first time you see the game being played you’ll let out a small gasp, no matter how much you hate on Nintendo’s waggle-box. 

Speaking of waggle, the controls are fairly traditional for a Wii shooter. Punching with the remote is the melee, which, while simple, is exceptionally rewarding. It makes complete sense that the remote, which controls the gun, can be trusted to shove the weapon into an enemy's face. In the same way, shaking the nunchuk to throw a grenade is intuitive, and none of the aspects of the controls feel remotely gimmicky. On two separate occasions the aiming reticule completely freaked out on me, but that should be fixed before the game comes out.

I wasn’t entirely sold on the Conduit before playing it, and my play sessions didn’t really blow me away. There’s nothing really bad about it, aside from the occasional control glitches, but there’s also nothing incredibly good. Hopefully the sensitivity is perfected, because the dream of a hardcore first-person shooter has yet to be fully realized on the Wii, and even being an adequate game that makes good use of the system’s capabilities will be enough to earn the Conduit well-deserved praise. 

Related Articles:

NYCC 09: Hands-On Ghostbusters Wii

NYCC 09: Liveish Blog of the Gears of War Panel

NYCC 09: Gabe and Tycho Spotlight Live!