Playing as Agent Michael Ford you play through the game against three opposing forces although things do change throughout the course of your adventure. Unfortunately the characters you do meet tend to lack personality and are fairly bland so it is hard to care about them, meaning that you will probably dismiss the story after a while.

 

 

Thankfully the same cannot be said of the controls, which are very well designed and easy to use. To play the game you aim your gun with the remote, walk around with the analog stick, and perform other moves by using the genius that is the Wii Remotes motion control. The controls can also be customized, allowing you to set them based on your own style, therefore if you are finding it difficult to move you character in a certain way or want to change the placement of the HUD there is way to do this to suit your style. There are plenty of actions in the game, so it may take you a while to get the controls the way you want them, however it’s certainly worth experimenting in this area.

 

Unfortunately the rest of the game isn’t quite as impressive controls, each of the levels are fairly bland whether you are playing in the government bases, airports or war-torn streets each level seems to play the same way and therefore you will probably find you mind starting to wander to other things. The game doesn’t exactly offer much new either, all of the weapons, the level design and the characters don’t really offer anything you won’t have seen done better elsewhere, which is a shame. Another problem is that the AI of the enemies is quite poor, therefore you will find yourself tearing through the levels without much resistance or without feeling the need to use any type of tactics.

 

For all the downsides of the single player mode when it comes to online it seems that the Wii may have found a game it can call its own. The multiplayer modes consists of your usual deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag style games, in which up to twelve players can take part at any one time. Thankfully the developer has also seen fit to offer a level system and ranked matches, meaning that you also have something to play for. The result of the various games and options means that this is one of the best multiplayer experiences on the Wii and thanks to the care taken here in designing the multiplayer aspect it more than makes up for the disappointing single player campaign.

 

 

Presentation- wise the game is a mixed bag really, like I say the levels are all fairly bland and play mostly the same, on occasion there are times when the game is a looker, but more often than not the quality is certainly nothing to write home about. The sound meanwhile is fairly awful, the voice acting which takes place during the loading screens will really grate on you after a while, though at least the effects of the weaponry is passable.

 

The Conduit did promise to bring us a game which offered action on the Wii like no other, a game which would not only look beautiful to the eye but also play like a dream. Unfortunately as far as the hype goes the game doesn’t really deliver on its promises, the single player campaign is very disappointing and doesn’t really provide anything groundbreaking at all, in saying that though what the game does deliver is an excellent multiplayer campaign which is both varied and exciting and when you back this up with the very innovative control scheme, then at least things start to look a little more positive for High Voltage and The Conduit.