The Conduit 2 – Nintendo Wii

It’s sad but painfully true fact that in light of the technical leaps and bounds made on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the latest games on the Nintendo Wii look several years older than they should. How To Choose A Nintendo Switch Headset Read more at: https://rightpicktoday.com/blog/top-10-best-nintendo-switch-gaming-headsets-to-buy.

This was a nagging feeling I had when playing Goldeneye last year and once again I found myself thinking the exactly the same thing when I started playing The Conduit 2.

Hell, even my other half must have noticed it, asking me if I was having one of my “retro moments”, when in actual fact I was playing the latest FPS on the Wii. And beyond Sing Star, she has practically zero interest in video games.

Still, if there’s anything time has taught me, it’s that no matter how old a game looks it should not affect how well it plays. Super Mario Brothers is still great. As is The Secret of Monkey Island. As is Doom and many, many others.

Sadly, the dated presentation is not the major problem with The Conduit 2. It’s the tedious motion controls.

They just don’t work for me. Whether it was the addition of the wii motion plus and the sensitivity levels, I don’t know. But no matter which way I amended the settings, I just couldn’t get into the swing of it.

With the motion plus, I just found that Agent Ford would stare up at the sky or towards the ground. I ashamed to say it, but it was almost like all my previous knowledge of playing an FPS game was wiped from my memory and I was playing with dual sticks for the first time.

Yep, give me a dual stick controller any day.

Sadly on the classic controller, things are not that much better. Controls were pretty unresponsive and the layout of the classic controller makes FPS gaming on the Wii a somewhat awkward and uncomfortable experience.

As far as the plot goes, it picks up after the events if the first game yet oddly enough the game makes no effort to tell you what on Earth is going on. Basically, Agent Ford is hot on the heels of John Adams, following him through a conduit to an oil rig in the Bermuda Triangle.

As things progress, you get the impression that things are a bit more comical this time around. Instead of trying to be an earnest tactical shooter like the Halo series, The Conduit 2 plays out more like a schlocky sci-fi, complete with big monsters and b-movie inspired villains. Not to mention the odd one-liner that usually falls flat on the ground, barely raising a smirk let alone a smile.

So cue plenty of running down dull corridors and taking out ineptly trained henchmen who have about as much skill with a weapon as a Star Wars stormtrooper.

Now, maybe I’m being a little unfair on The Conduit 2 – despite it’s flaws, there were elements of the first game that I quite enjoyed.

For starters, it was the first game on the wii that attempted to bring motion controls to the FPS genre. Now in a market that includes lasts years Goldeneye and several Call of Duty titles, that novelty is gone. So when a game like this comes out, it really needs to excel itself.

But the single player experience just left me feeling “meh”. I’ve seen it all done before and more importantly, I had a better time in the process.

Aside from the single-player campaign, The Conduit 2 boasts a multiplayer mode. A welcome feature to those who don’t own a 360 (I would say a Playstation 3 too, but at the time of writing PSN still isn’t back up and running).

Offering up to 12 players online and 4 players on one console, it’s good to see that the split screen market hasn’t completely died out.

So, should you get The Conduit 2?

Well, I personally couldn’t get to grips with it. The dated visuals and the controls were enough to put me off playing a game like this on the wii for a long time.

But if you enjoyed the first game and you don’t mind waving your arms around to a newly released game that already looks dated, The Conduit 2 might float your boat.

Verdict: 6 out of 10

The Good: Somewhat comical Good to see a multiplayer mode

The Bad: Horrid controls Poor AI

Opinion: What do will need?

So Nintendo has confirmed that they will be revealing a new console at this years e3.

Not much is known about it at the moment – there have been rumors of controls with LCD screens, a new and improved motion controller and even compatibility with the Nintendo 3DS. The truth is, at the moment it’s far too early to call and we will not know for sure until this years e3 Expo in Los Angeles.

However, what we do know is that the current Nintendo console residing in 67 million peoples living rooms is becoming somewhat out of date. With Microsoft and Sony releasing their own motion controllers, Nintendo is no longer looking like the innovator. Despite the fact that Nintendo pioneered the way for motion controls, you’ve only got to ask yourself if more people are playing Kinect Adventures or Wii Sports Resort? I’m willing to bet that right now it’s the former.

The wii is also the only console on the market that is incapable to displaying a video game in full 1080p HD. Have you played a wii game on a massive HD television? Compared to the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, it looks rubbish! I know that graphics are not everything, but it really does look dated and demonstrates that Nintendo missed the boat with this.

Which is a crying shame, as a number of games on the wii are nothing but a complete joy to play.

I know that with all the shovelware that bombarded the system, it felt like that gems were few and far between, but for every Carnival Games title, there was a Super Mario Galaxy 2 and originally an exclusive, Dead Space: Extraction.

Another nail in the wii’s coffin is it’s lack of online play – make the process easier with usernames and not numbers. I know that’s a somewhat laughable suggestion in light of what is happening with the PSN this week, but online gaming has grown into such a monster recently, it’s hard to imagine a core game coming out these days without some sort of multiplayer mode shoehorned in.

So where now for Nintendo? What should they do next?

Ultimately, the enigmatically titled Project Cafe needs to take Nintendo back to their roots again. It needs to appeal to both the core and casual gamers alike, not split them down the middle like it’s predecessor.