The Conduit is a futuristic first-person shooter video game developed by High Voltage Software for the Wii console. The game uses a new game engine called Quatum3, which has been designed by High Voltage specifically for the Wii. It’s quite a well made engine judging by the game play as the engine allows a number of effects such as bump mapping, reflection and refraction, and gloss. It is a very good effort by High Voltage to bring the Wii experience as close as possible to that of a PS3 & 360; they have really pushed the Wii’s limits hard with this title.

The story line follows a newly trained agent called Michael Ford who, while on a relatively routine mission to stop terrorism in the US capital, gets embroiled in a fire fight with an alien invasion. The alien race is known as the Drudge, and they use portal-like Conduits to teleport and deploy troops over Washington D.C. I’m not going to give any spoilers away with regards to what happens to Mr Ford. All I’m going to say is that it is a typical story line for a First Person Shooter. It works well and does the job.
The story line is generally told through cut scenes between the levels. However, there are small plot enhancements inside the levels through communication with Ford’s bosses. In addition to this, there are television and radio broadcasts to look out for in the missions as these further enhance the background knowledge of the game.

Apart from the run-of-the-mill FPS game play, The Conduit includes a unique feature called the ‘All-Seeing Eye’. This object is used by the player to uncover secrets hidden in the game, solve small puzzles as they go along, and detect traps as well as enemies. It’s a nice addition to the normal ‘shoot and kill’ aspect found in all FPS’s.

The Conduit’s game play is reminiscent of Metroid Prime 3. In my personal opinion, the control system is bit more refined and solid than that found in Metroid. It seems that the developers has taken the best bits from Metroid and Medal of Honour Heroes 2, and in turn have steered clear of the poor attempt at FPS game play on the Wii that Red Steele produced. In fact, the controls are so detailed and well thought out that there is the option for the user to completely redefine the control configuration. Best of all is that these controls can be altered as you go along without even leaving the mission. However, I found that the best set up was the default.

On top of the controller customization, High Voltage has also included a complete HUD customization menu. The user can move and place HUD elements on the screen wherever they please. Again, this can be done without leaving the current mission. I found that, again, the default way is the best way, however, it is very nice option to have included in the game.

The game features all of your basic weaponry such as pistols, SMG’s, rifles, and grenades. In addition to these it also features a number of alien like weaponry that have a number of unique fire techniques. The alien weaponry follows the same line as Metroid’s main weapon where you can charge your fire for a bigger hit. All the guns feel good to shoot in game as the physics are generally well put together. The only problem I found on this was some slight collision detection problems with walls and bullets. So steer clear of trying to catch the thin edge of an alien round a corner.

The last BIG feature of The Conduit is the multiplayer. It features 13 competitive modes in online play, with 7 different maps, and 15 weapons. The main categories are Death Matches and Team Based. Both categories have a number of sub-game modes such as “Three Strikes”, “ASE Football”, “Team Objective” (a ‘capture the flag’ like mode), and many more. Each of them are very enthralling and can be played with “Friends, Regionally, or with World Wide Players”. I found the online mode to be the biggest selling point of this game. Matches are started relatively easily and matches are very well balanced. After only 5 minutes of playing you will find yourself getting plenty of kills! A tip from me is to remember you do have grenades; use them, they are very helpful!

The online game play also supports Wii Speak, although I am yet to find anyone using it. I have thought about investing in one, they aren’t that expensive on eBay these days.

All in all SEGA’s second mature game for the Wii (after Mad World) has been a success in my opinion. I think FPS fans are going to be very happy with this title. I’m a big Counter Strike player and have found The Conduit a great and fun challenge. High Voltage haven’t created a revolutionary FPS title but have certainly put together the most comprehensible Wii FPS yet. Hopefully we will see more games like this from them in the future, but not just yet, as The Conduit will have you hooked for a few months yet!

Final Score: 9/10

I am not a very big RPG fan myself, for example I have never played any of the Final Fantasy series; they just never really interested me that much. However, since this is a Sonic game, I couldn’t really stay away.

The gameplay is split into two main areas: battle and free-roaming puzzle solving. Lets start of with the free-roaming exploration part of the game. The Chronicles world is split into six different areas, the names of which any Sonic fan would recognise (Green Hill Zone, Metropolis, Angel Island). Each area has a certain amount of rings to find and a certain amount of Chao to discover (I will get into that a bit later). The artwork in these levels is fantastic! The whole game has a comic book feel to it, and the level artwork is also of this nature; really nice bright, vibrant colors. The level design is interesting as well! As you are exploring the levels you can select a character to use from your team (team of 4 that is) and there are areas of the levels where only certain characters can access. For example, little gaps between platforms that only a flying character could get to. As you play through the story you have to keep returning to different areas to do certain things for the mission you are playing through. All in all this part of the game is generally very enjoyable. You don’t find yourself saying “Ugh! I’ve got to go all the way over there again, FOR THAT!” like you would in say GTA San Andreas because of the size of the gameworld you’re in. You’re not going to find it repetitive, because if you have to go back to a previous area, it’s generally going to be a new part of the area that you are going to, using a different character!

The battle system is first-rate and very well done! It’s a turn/round based system. At the start of a ’round’ you select what each character is going to do during each turn in the round (each character has two turns each); this can be from either Attacks, POW Moves, Defend, Items, or Flee. They all do exactly what is said on the tin other than POW Moves, POW Moves are like special attacks. These special attacks are gained as the characted levels up, and the attacks themselves have three levels. There are 8 POW Moves to get per character, and what’s interesting about them is that with some, you can only use in them battle if you have other characters in your party. This makes the choice of characters in your party even more tricky. The POW Moves are a really fun addition to the gameplay, as to make them effective in battle you must follow some touch screen gestures, otherwise the move fails. There are some great attacks that Bioware have created for this game as well. The in battle presentation and movement of the characters are brilliant, it really has a good Sonic feel to it. This is also true of all the character movement in the exploration parts of the game.

That’s the gameplay in a nutshell. However, Bioshock couldn’t just do these two things well and come away with a successful Sonic game could they? Us fans need a good story line that follows the history of the series that we have come to love over the years. It was a potential hurdle for the studio, and hurdle that they succeeded in getting over well!

To quote Wikipedia: “Sonic is on vacation after defeating Doctor Eggman some time ago, when he receives a call from Tails, stating that Knuckles has been kidnapped, and that the Chaos Emeralds are disappearing.

The story is split into two acts. The first takes place in Sonic’s world, with the team attempting to unravel the situation they are in, whilst also stopping the Master Emerald from being taken. The second act sees Sonic and the team travelling to another dimension in order to stop a new threat to their own world.”

It’s a story line that fits and works really well! Along the similar lines of the Rush series where you have another dimension that the characters get taken too and a new foe to battle against! I’m not going to divuldge more into this as that would be giving the story away. Your going to have to play the game to find out what happens! All I can say is that Bioware did a fantastic job on it.

Something else to note about the game is the music. Most, if not all, of the music are arrangements of some of our favourite tracks from two great Sonic games (both known for their great OST’s!). These are Sonic 3D (both Saturn and Genesis versions) and Sonic CD. This was a great move by Bioware. There are some really great arrangements to listen to. The game had to feature a good soundtrack, simply because of the amount of time the player spends in one area, listening to the same track.

The things I have talked about are all good, and I have only just noticed that I haven’t talked about things I didn’t like about the game!

There isn’t much to be honest, the game ticks a lot of boxes. The only major things to me that stick out as not being good are:

- No great challenge: It lacks that “OMG I need to get S rank or I’ll never be happy” factor, then losing a day of your life getting it. The battles at the start of the game are only a real challenge, when you don’t have a full team of 4 characters and are a little inexperienced at playing the battles.
- The length of the game: It’s not really that long. With extensive playing you can complete it in two days or so. Personally, I don’t like getting games over with that quickly, so I stretched it out over a week.

That’s it for bad points and that’s it for this review! In conclusion, a very enjoyable RPG (that’s coming from someone who doesn’t play them). The Sonic series was put in the hands of a newcomer and they have not dissappointed. A well done to Bioware is in order. Any Sonic fan with a DS should get this game!

P.S. There is already a sequel being planned!

Are you ready to live OutRun in full 720p quality? If not then step off the bus now kids, because that’s what SEGA have done and they have done it well. Is this game worth you parting with 800 of your precious Microsoft Points (or £8/$10 on PSN)? That’s what we are about to find out.

SEGA has had many successful franchises over the past few decades and OutRun is right up there with the best of them. A game that started out in the true 16-bit world and today is one of the most addictive arcade games around.

Nothing beats the feeling of throwing your Ferrari round OutRun’s huge corners on the arcade game but this is not lost in this re-make. Drifting is implemented incredibly well in this game and more often than not it is encouraged.

What I personally found beautiful about these OutRun games is that the physics on the car is consistent with the original 16-bit classics. The way in which the car slides around the road (if you over turn) can be quite punishing at times but it wouldn’t be OutRun if it didn’t slam you for your mistakes. Hit the walls too much and you will not be making the check point in time.

You will probably complete the single player arcade mode relatively quickly. This is not too much of a disappointment because single player is not what this game is really about. The clue is in the title, this game is enjoyed more when played online. You race online in battles of up to 6 players. The end goal (A, B, C, D, E) is chosen before the race begins and from the word go it is just a flat out adrenaline rush! 6 players drifting into a corner and over 100 miles per hour is just amazing game play. The online races are generally pretty closely contested as the cars are all the same specification. One race I played finished with all 6 players crossing the line within 1 second of each other. Brilliant (only I came 4th!).

The game features a single player addition called ‘Heart Attack Mode’. You race through the maps performing numerous tasks to please your demanding girlfriend sitting next to you in the car. Each check point you go through you earn a rank and subsequently some points. At the end goal you collect your points total and get to shove it in your mates faces, at what point they turn around with a better one and you go back to the ‘Sunny Beach’ again!

All the music is back as per usual, so no complaints there. If something is not broken, don’t fix it. That’s what I always say. And SEGA take this approach to the OutRun sound track once again.

Graphically, this game is spot on. Sumo Digital (team behind OutRun games and Superstar Tennis) have taken the existing OutRun titles and produced an up-res version when you think about it. But wow, I will take up-res on everything and a side of fries please! All the level backgrounds, skies, waterfalls are all spruced up to a pin-sharp HD format. It looks stunning!

OutRun Online Arcade… is it worth the money? I would have to say 100% yes to that question. This game brings all the great game play of an OutRun game into the ‘HD next-gen’ jungle and has succeed on its own two feet incredibly well. The game is not big enough for a full release, but is perfect for the XBLA (PSN). Beautiful looking, great fun to play, and very addictive.

The original publication of this review had no numeric score given to the game. This is because of the websites own protocols on review writting. However, I am a fan of score giving and for this game I am going to award: 8/10.