The Conduit: High Voltage’s Refined Take on Gaming Comfort Food
There are a lot of videogames about shooting mean things from space. Sometimes you’re shooting them in space or on the dreary planet from whence they came. Sometimes you’re shooting them in a recognizable city from our planet. Usually, you are allowed to turn their war tools against them. The mean things from space have three stock forms: the beast, the inhuman bi-ped, and the faceless, armored/exoskeletoned mystery (this last variety also covers robots.) The shooting-things-from-outer-space model is the chicken of game recipes, a flavorless, ubiquitous ingredient that is made spectacular only through delicate flavoring. At first blush, High Voltage’s The Conduit looks like grilled chicken breast: you play as a faceless government agent battling aliens on the streets of Washigton D.C. while also uncovering a massive conspiracy. Heat and serve with garnish, right? It’s hard to shake The Conduit’s inherent familiarity even beyond its premise. The game’s menus, control, and enemy design all recall the Wii’s greatest success in shooting-stuff-in-space field: Metroid Prime 3. But even the simplest dish can become a gourmet masterpiece in the hands of the right chef.
From my quick play session, it seems that The Conduit is a savory game underneath its bland veneer. High Voltage has even given the appropriate spice to those common ingredients listed above. For starters, the game’s space-pirate-deadringers are called the Drudge. (Despite the game’s D.C. setting, these baddies are not associated with Matt Drudge, an ideal shooter villain if there ever was one.) Rather than go with your usual infiltration or straight up invasion, the Drudge are crafty. They start by creating international turmoil by-way-of bioengineered plague (“The Bug”,) assassinating the president, and then polish it off with a full-scale assault on the capital. Much more exciting than the Chimera’s kill-and-assimilate-everybody-at-once approach, right? Protagonist Mr. Ford, a former secret service agent inducted into anti-Drudge organization The Trust at the game’s outset, gets a much needed dose of personality from actor Mark Sheppard. Sheppard is beloved by nerds the world over for his character Romo Lampkin in Battlestar Galactica. Okay, these are not the grandest variations on common themes. It’s really The Conduit’s polish and proficiency as a game that make it stand out, and that’s arguably the highest praise you can give any game.
High Voltage’s much-publicized 3D engine lives up to the hype – The Conduit is the best-looking three-dimensional game I’ve seen running on Nintendo’s hardware, second only to the shimmering gloss of Super Mario Galaxy. Activity abounds in The Conduit’s environments and is rich with the sort of effects core gamers always seek out, from dynamic lighting to particle rich explosions. (I didn’t get to see the excellent water effects so prominent in High Voltage’s original tech demo.) The level I played through seemed tightly bound though; I ran into a few not-so-invisible walls funneling me down a specific path. The actual shooting is very good, recalling Metroid Prime 3’s intuitive interface but losing its obnoxious balancing issues. The enemies I ran into were smart and aggressive, but they didn’t take a million shots to bring down. Excellent stuff. Also impressive is the sheer amount of customization available in The Conduit. Every aspect of the game can be tweaked to a specific degree. Pointer and turning sensitivity just a smidge too high? You can bump it down just a hint, then maybe another hint, to your heart’s content. Find the default HUD too invasive? You can move any onscreen icon anywhere you like or remove them completely for a more immersive experience.
This was an appetizer though, just a brief sampling of what The Conduit has to offer when it releases this spring. This very traditional, very proficient first-person shooter from a developer ready to become a major player in the industry is very appetizing though. I’m very much looking forward to the main course.
Das ist ein anderes Kaliber.
hab nunmal so ne angewohnheit sachen nicht zu ende zu lesen. 