The Conduit XXXL-Test

Your name: Michael Ford. Your mission: Finding the cause of the assault on the White House by an alien race named "The Drudge".

Well, things get wacky: A phenomenal, but weird incident occurred on the grounds of the White House. Mr. John Adams, the leader and founder of the mysterious umbrella-corporation called The Truth finds out that the home of the president was attacked by a fiend, the alien race The Drudge. Michael Ford gets on the track of the origin of the alien-attacks. He will not get the answer that he was quiet looking for, but he will find it...


Ok, ok...this kind of sounds like a early nineties action-flick á la Independence Day, but the question with the highest priority is: What will Ford find in the White House? George Bush's unreleased love poems? Terrorists? Moving boxes of Barack Obama? A Mondeo, Ka, or even Focus? Let`s find out !

The story of The Conduit isn`t too original and innovative, but the plain mission-briefings have one advantage toward longer ones: You don`t have to wait too long for busting the crap out of mean terrorist-aliens. The game begin pretty turbulent in a floodgate-area. Admittedly, the first enemies are already attacking - aliens, looking familiar to the creatures of the Metroid planet Zebes - but the actual game begins after you pick up the most innovative and important item in the game: The All-Seeing Eye (ASE). This useful gadget, which can be accessed by simply pressing the "+"-button, will help you find mines, secret weapon deposits, or hack the computer-secured door.

The mixture out of action and "search 'n find" worked pretty good. Nor does the gameplay-speed get reduced, neither does the intelligence-factor sink. There aren't too many mission-objectives, but the correct usage of the ASE and the weapons are fun enough. The hacking into other computer terminals is really fun and exciting, just like in real life [not that I hack ;)] .

Another mentionable thing are the good controls. Almost every parameter is adjustable: The aim- and movement zone (every single pixel), the transparency of the energy-bars, even the position of the TV-screen. Even the rattling of the Nunchuck while throwing the good ol' 'nades. You can decide if you want to jerkily throw the grenade, or gently & fluently. After adjusting a while, all the grenades really went to the direction they were meant to go, which is a big plus. And the usage of the All-Seeing Eye becomes ingrained after a while. Kill a enemy here, switch to the ASE mode, inspect the wall, and voilá! You found a mini-game hidden in the wall, in which fragments of a semi-circle have to be arranged through the digi-pad. After succeeding, a concrete barrier magically opens itself, and there you go: You`ve just found a room full of weapons, power-ups, and ammunition. And believe me, looking after these rooms are always as profitable as you want it to be. The mini-games get harder and harder as you proceed towards the end of the game, and the mini-games in the final and last level, the 9th, really need you to activate your mechanic brain, literally sending the dust out of your rarely-used gamer head...wait a sec, didn't I use that joke before?...whatever.

Well, I have a critic-point though: At the beginning of the game, the enemies seem to be pretty smart, but afterward (mostly at the middle of the game), the aliens just brainlessly attack you. The termites and the insects are also really dumbheaded, but quantitatively they are predominant. So, you my friend, will have to use your brain. The developers High Voltage Software are aware of this fact, but these smart fellas kind of outsmarted the problem: Seldom does a minute pass away without you keeping on the run.

My favorite level , the Washington D.C level is really ace at dramaturgy, awesomeness and epicness (yes, that word actually exists). At some point of the level you will be confronted by a brute of fat greaseball (no, not George Dabbeliu's scotch-terrier). Ok, a real easy situation to master: Just throw a grenade at the conduit where the kids get born and disable any further breeding. But, there! Another enemy is lurking up from behind. Immediately you strike the down button of the d-pad and execute a 180° rotation. Press the B-button, and the aggressor is history from now on. Peng, peng, two further grenades neutralize the other conduits. Then you carefully look around you...realizing that really nobody or nothing is to be found. You proceed to the next room, and are warmly welcomed by the alien reception committee, only trying to set a end to your miserable pixel alter-ego. But that's another long story...


The game-time of approximately 9 hours ( I finished in 8 hours 14 minutes), which is a nice playing-duration, things get really tense: The online mode! With over a dozen modes, you are happily going to be noobing pwns all day long: From a traditional deathmatch to a bounty-hunter mode, from a round of ASE soccer (the longest ownership of the ASE wins) to a Kill-A-Thon, from a Capture The ASE to a quick Team Dathmatch (yes Dathmatch, as described by nobos!!!1!), from a Last-Man Standing to a round of Killing Override, everything's inside. And I think that that is a a good excuse for no split-screen mode. No lags, a consistent FPS rate, and even Wii-Speak voicechat function. YEAH! Buy it, buy it, buy it!!!!!1!!!1!!!1!!!