The Conduit is a first-person shooter that utilizes good controls, but is riddled with bland and sometimes dull game play. It features a great control scheme, which uses the Wii Remote in several fun ways, but it sometimes back fires when put up against intense and fast-paced sections. And though the controls may feel good for the most part, the majority of the game seems somewhat slow and just plain boring.

The game centers around Michael Ford, as he battles invading alien races who wish to destroy Washington, DC and, from there, take over the world. As you begin the game, you play a level that is set closer to the end of the game, sort of a preview of what is to come. This does a good job of opening a lot of loose ends and causing questions to begin stirring. Soon, you will find yourself five days previous to the opening stage. From here you will begin to learn about the difference alien races working to take over the world. The story comes across as very weak since nothing too dramatic goes on, but there are a few plots twists that may have raise an eyebrow or your interest. But even with the rare double-crossing the story feels underwhelming and incredibly boring.

Your main tool (besides the game’s weapons) is the All Seeing Eye (ASE), a glowing orb used to uncover secrets, hack computers, and communicate with allies. Using it will cause you to holster your weapon, so you must choose when you use it wisely and be sure that it’s safe to put down your firearm. The best part of this tool is there are several different kinds of secrets in each level and scanning with the ASE causes them to unlock. You will be able to find hidden doors, floating discs, hidden messages and more. It will also act as a sensor and alarm when you come close to invisible enemies or landmines.

Finding all hidden objects in one level will unlock achievements for you. The achievements in The Conduit are a great addition to the game, especially since not many Nintendo titles feature these. Some achievements can be unlocked by simply completing a certain stage, while others will require you to rack up a certain number of kills with each weapon. This causes the game’s replay value to increase substantially as you will want to continue to search for hidden objects and use new weapons as much as possible.

Along with finding hidden secrets to scan and unlock, there are also a wide variety of weapons to pick up and use throughout the game. As there are several alien races (plus the humans) playing their part in the game, each species gets its own arsenal of weapons, and all of them can be used whenever you find one. Also, each weapon is slightly unique when compare to the others. Some will work as normal pistols, while others can zoom in and pick off enemies from afar. There are even some incredibly powerful guns that can only be collected after finding hidden rooms or killing certain bosses. Along with the variety of weapons to increase you attack power; your suit will also be upgraded throughout the game. Your trusted ally that works behind the scenes will continue to unlock new features for your suit. These can range from a higher jump to health regeneration. The weapons and suit upgrades do a great job of making your character feel very powerful and, even though using each gun can be awkward due to the game’s controls, the upgrades and powerful weapons make up for it by letting you deal massive damage.

What you will notice though, is that the game suffers from some very uneven difficulty issues. To make matters worse, I found some of the hardest sections to be on the first couple of levels. Since the game moves slowly (and I'll go into more detail on that in a bit), and with the inclusion of regenerating health, it doesn’t feel that hard for the most part. However, there will be random sections throughout some of the stages that will have the difficulty incredibly ramped up. What’s even stranger is the majority of the boss fights are easier than these awkwardly cruel mid-mission segments. All this does is make the game feel poorly paced and frustrating at some of the most random times.

The Conduit’s most unique feature, when compared to the average first-person shooter, is the Wii specific control scheme. Thanks to the console’s motion sensing capability, players are able to move their guns around as if they were holding them themselves. This works for the majority of the game but can really backfire when put up against some of The Conduit’s more intense and difficult sections. Though the movement for the gun feels nice, it sometimes feels quite slow, for example: when you need to turn around or look to the side quickly. This can become quite frustrating when having to focus on two different directions in more enemy heavy areas.

The controls do work well in some cases however. When there is no need to fight enemies on all sides the game can become quite fun. If your opponents are directly in front of you, the need for quick manoeuvres is moot. And when you have weapons that can zoom in, the controls feel great when you’re slowly moving your hand just enough to line up the shot on the alien’s head. Overall, the controls feel great when facing only a few enemies positioned directly in front of you, but they don't hold up for the harder – and far more important – segments.

There are also some controller waving controls to the game. Shaking the Wii Remote quickly will let you perform a melee attack, while shaking the Nunchuck will cause your character to throw a grenade forward. The grenade throws are probably the most intuitive part of this feature, as the angle at which you are looking will completely alter the flight path and distance of each grenade thrown.

The controls will probably feel the worst when playing the game’s online multiplayer. Though this can be helped by the fact that every player will be faulted by these controls, it still can be a bit of an issue. However, the multiplayer is set up nicely, allowing you to choose to play with only friends, only your region’s players or anyone around the world. This was a good option, as it allowed for less lag and loads times if you choose a closer opponent. There are also many different modes to choose from, such as the standard death match and capture the flag type modes.Added to this is a ranking system for each player. Every time you finish an online match, you will be awarded experience from your team and personal outcome in the game. However, the one downside is that there’s no system in place to separate the high ranking players from the low ones. I found myself playing with some very skilled players on my first try of the online multiplayer; being matched with people closer to my skill level would have been much better. The game also allows the use of the Nintendo Wii Speak peripheral for use in online matches. However, this is only available as an option if you are playing with someone registered as a friend.

The graphics in The Conduit also aren’t much to look at . The majority of the levels are quite generic and many of the textures are extremely dull to look at. There are even several areas you can see that had no extra textures, like fire marks or broken walls, at all, since they weren’t reachable. Looking out the window and seeing bland and dull streets was also quite disappointing. However, the enemies are quite nice to look at, and though they don’t differ too much from one another, they are well detailed. This is most noticeable when fighting some of the game’s bigger boss creatures.

Along with some dull environment visuals, the games voice acting is terrible. Almost every line spoken sounds like the actors were very uncomfortable when they were recording. This not only sets the stage up in a dull manor, but any dialogue that occurs through the missions is just a complete let down.

Overall, The Conduit comes across as unfinished and thrown together. Some of its parts will feel great to play through and you will feel quite powerful as your character’s suit gets more upgrades and you find new weapons and the inclusion of achievements is a great idea, but even that will probably not make you come back to these bumpy controls. Along with a slow paced story, ugly visual environments and awful voice acting, The Conduit doesn’t present itself nicely at all. The online multiplayer is a good addition to the game, but with no proper format to its matchmaking and rank system, it can become tedious and overwhelming when faced against high level players. The Conduit feels like quite the average game, but in a time where great first-person shooters aren’t hard to come by, it doesn’t hold its own.

Overall: 5/10

Verdict: Forget It