The Conduit gets MotionPlussed
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Sep 1st 2008 at 9:00AM }
Wii Sports Resort might not be the only title to showcase the Wii MotionPlus when the dinky add-on launches next spring. GameSpot went hands-on with The Conduit at PAX 2008, and revealed that the shooter will feature MotionPlus support. The Conduit is currently set for a March launch, so has this new information also inadvertently dated Wii Sports Resort and the MotionPlus?
Whether it has or not, MotionPlus for The Conduit is Pretty Big News -- so much so, that we're afraid it may overshadow some of the other eye-catching details in GameSpot's report. These include:
- In the final game, High Voltage hopes to have a completely customizable head-up display, in which any HUD element can be dragged and dropped to different parts of the screen.
- There will be nine missions in total, with the singleplayer campaign lasting "about ten hours."
- Cut scenes won't be used; rather, the story will be developed through news or radio broadcasts, much like the Half Life series.
- Some projectiles can be guided using the cursor, which sounds a lot like the Nikita launcher in Metal Gear Solid, automatically making it ZOMGAWESOME.
Gallery: The Conduit
[Via Go Nintendo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
nintendo1889 @ Sep 1st 2008 9:17AM
Nice! That game has a lot (and I mean "a lot") of potential to be a major seller for the Wii! Then there's the customizable HUD, which is something unheard of in an FPS. And this don't look like your generic FPS, either, so, that's good. Oh, and on a random note, VC-reviews posted something veeery interesting http://www.vc-reviews.com/news/2008/09/usa_vc_releases_super_mario_rpg_and_clu_clu_land
Anonymous-Baggage @ Sep 1st 2008 9:20AM
9 missions? That's all? The Conduit is going to need some seriously good gameplay and replay value or this game is going to get mauled by the people who want this game rabidly. The way some are expecting this game is insane, like it's going to change the Wii forever.
cfalc @ Sep 1st 2008 9:56AM
youre right. halo 3 had 9 missions and look how crappy that sold.
ChromeAlchemist @ Sep 1st 2008 3:15PM
you realise that perfect dark had about 9 main missions (broken down of course into subs) and the entire game must probably last you something of about 5-7 hours? honestly 10 hours is a great amount of time for this game, i mean i finished call of duty in 3 hours ffs. i would have been pissed off if it wasn't so amazing.
N4N0T3CH @ Sep 1st 2008 9:27AM
This could be quite an investment:
Game + WiiMotionPlus + WiiSpeak
SegaPleaseMakePanzerDragoonWii! @ Sep 1st 2008 9:41AM
Wow, the campaign is only 10 hours? So you can rent it, beat it, and return it to the video store the very next day? They had better have every possible FPS online mode ever made (and all executed perfectly) in order to make up for that, otherwise this is rental only material. Really, really, really depressing news. Also, this is an FPS. Who gives a damn about Wiimotionplus support on this title?
SoshiKitai @ Sep 1st 2008 10:06AM
Who knows... maybe the Wii Motion+ will actually add something to it. We may neva' know.
SegaPleaseMakePanzerDragoonWii! @ Sep 1st 2008 11:55AM
Hmm, I suppose I was being a bit harsh. I guess I was just hoping for more. You could say that MP3 has me spoiled (I know it's a bit of a different sort of game, but still). If the online has various modes and they work well, I guess I'll still be in for a purchase.
Geoff Gibson @ Sep 1st 2008 2:33PM
What magical mystery FPS games are you playing that are longer than 10 hours? No offense, but 10 hours is generally about how long every FPS is. In fact I just beat Haze at 9 hours...
If every FPS youa re playing clocks in at aroun 20 hours then let me know which ones cause I'd love to get my hands on them!... Corruption aside, of course. :)
ChromeAlchemist @ Sep 1st 2008 3:18PM
lol the comment aimed at anonymous baggage was actually aimed at SegaPleaseMakePanzerDragoonWii! ah well i guess it applies to both of you. like i sed above 10 hours is more than most fps games lifespan, and as for motion plus, i didnt really care that it was implemented, but i guess it could be usefull for the ASE puzzles n others.
Chris Greenhough @ Sep 1st 2008 9:53AM
I don't see anything wrong with a game being "only" 10 hours long. My two favorite games of the year so far, Professor Layton and Braid, were around 10 and 6 hours respectively, yet were high quality experiences throughout. This extends to some of my all-time favorites. Metal Gear Solid: around 12 hours, if memory serves. Shadow of the Colossus: about the same, no? None of the above had an online multiplayer mode to fall back on, either.
Point is: if the quality is high enough, I'm perfectly happy with ten hours.
Nebinator @ Sep 1st 2008 10:00AM
Yes!!!
SoshiKitai @ Sep 1st 2008 10:06AM
Dunno bout you guys, but 9 missions are good enough for me- but that's just 'cuz I don't like spending days upon days playing through FPS campaigns (You'd think by the 8th mission they'd recruit someone else for the job). And 10 hours is pretty good, as long as it's replayable.
And if it's anything like ol' Half-Life, that 10 hours can turn to 20- nay, even 40 hours, by just messing around with the AIs.
But I doubt it'll have that much fun with NPCs, I just get this feeling it'll be a straight FPSer... which is okay. Considering how few non-rail FPS goodness the Wii has, this game'll be a goodin'.
AnthonyD @ Sep 1st 2008 10:21AM
It is a shame that there will not be any cut scenes - I definitely find they add to the atmosphere - however everything else that is announced has me very excited!
If there is Wii-Speak support then surely there will also be online multiplayer too!? With online multiplayer game-play the game's life will be long lasted.
Would it not be possible for games to be released with (optional) MotionPlus support so that they could be played with or without the new hardware add-on? I wouldn't take too much notice of the March 2009 release date being an indication of the release of Motion Plus.
Does anyone else now think that Nintendo will put their weight behind High Voltage and publish "The Conduit"? It seems to have all the hard-core game features that Nintendo have seemed reluctant to exploit with the Wii.
james @ Sep 1st 2008 11:03AM
Still no mention of Co-op. All the videos I've seen haven't really looked all that fun. The HUD feature sounds great and if it works will likely leap to other series. The controls look great too but I've yet to see anything to draw me in. What I really want to Co-op, that would make me take some real interest.
N4N0T3CH @ Sep 1st 2008 12:21PM
I doubt we'll see any co-op. I imagine that since High Voltage focused so much on the engine, online, WiiSpeak, MotionPlus, etc. that we won't see coop in this iteration.
I do agree that coop would really round out the package.
TheOverlord#2 (is playing MM1 and Okami) @ Sep 1st 2008 1:48PM
No Co-Op...though they are looking into LAN-support.
Robert @ Sep 1st 2008 11:03AM
The guided missiles actually reminds me more of the RPG in Half Life 2. Customizable HUD sounds awesome though, and what exactly can they do with the motionplus anyway? It's basically just point and shoot.
AnthonyD @ Sep 1st 2008 11:30AM
- basically yes... but now it will be point and shoot in all three dimensions lol
"Joe Virginia, VP of Wireless Business and Corporate Communications for InvenSense:
What we're doing is, in combination with the sensor bar and the three axis accelerometer that is available within the current Wii Remote, we're now introducing MEMS gyroscope capability. And what that allows you is, rather than just having up/down, left/right, back/forth motion, you now have the ability to do rotational movements within each of those X, Y, and Z axis. So if you imagine you had extended straight out and twisted your hand, now you have the ability to measure rotational force."
Charles @ Sep 1st 2008 11:30AM
I know, it's pretty weird having it in this game, huh? Especially after they said they avoided as many "big" motions as possible...
ChromeAlchemist @ Sep 1st 2008 3:20PM
i kno this will sound like im whoring out PD here, but why does no one remember the slayer? that had guided missles with the analogue controlling it, now that was amazing.
Highlar @ Sep 1st 2008 11:30AM
I thought the same thing about WiiMotionPlus, but read comments on Gamespot and agree with them. Motionplus doesn't seem to add much to an FPS, UNLESS it involves more complicated puzzle aspects, maybe more manually dexterous things to do; or unless it was implemented for better more direct control over melee attacks. Both of those options sound like solid implementations of WiiMotionPlus in an FPS game. The HUD I think is one of the most amazing things. According to the Gamespot page, HVS wants to make the HUD totally customizable, so a player can rearrange the screen to however THEY want it...being able to drag and drop HUD boxes to anywhere they want it to go. THAT sounds awesome. :-)
Feba @ Sep 1st 2008 11:35AM
10 hours for an FPS is actually pretty good. Halo 3 took about 6-8 hours for most people I know; FPS games tend to be shorter than other genres.
But still, ten hours for a game is not bad at all. I beat MGS1, 2, and 3 in about 11-13 hours the first time. Shadow of the Colossus was about 12 hours. And they are games that I can easily say belong amongst the best of all time.
I haven't played it personally, but Lost Winds was only a couple hours for most people I heard from, and it's still been very well received.
iofthestorm @ Sep 1st 2008 1:11PM
Lostwinds is very good, sort of reminds me of Portal (which is better) in terms of length and quality. But the thing is, Portal and LostWinds cost a lot less than a regular game. But this is probably going to be worth getting for the online play, just like people did with Halo 3.
I love the lack of cutscenes, it works really well in HL2 (which coincidentally I am playing through for the first time right now) and customizable HUD is cool too. Dunno what WMP will add unless melee weapons play a huge part, but we'll see.
ali7300 @ Sep 1st 2008 12:25PM
this game is gonna be sweet, wii speak, motion plus, good graphics. i really hope the online for this game is good.
racecar @ Sep 1st 2008 1:02PM
Why does an FPS need 1:1?
N4N0T3CH @ Sep 1st 2008 9:05PM
1 bullet:1 head?
...or something like that
SoshiKitai @ Sep 1st 2008 9:19PM
Amen, N4N0. Amen.
Max Headroom @ Sep 1st 2008 2:01PM
When a company says 10 hours, that usually means about 15 hours for me. That's for the first playthrough. If they have easy, mid, and hard difficulties, I can get 30 or more hours of playtime doing all 3.
Mr Khan @ Sep 1st 2008 4:57PM
Couldn't expect much more than 10 hours
Motion Plus being optional is what you can expect the norm for Wii games to be like in the post-Resort days
Good Wii games, anyway
Anonymousaurus @ Sep 1st 2008 5:04PM
Customizable HUD? thats awesome. i dont know why, but ive always wanted to do that.
btw, 10 hour games are fine. gears of war was 10 hours if any of you played/enjoyed it.
does anybody know what motion plus will do? make shooting more accurate? 1:1 melee? pls explain
Gendreavus @ Sep 1st 2008 5:47PM
I got to play The Conduit at PAX, and it was tons of fun. Lots of cool aliens and guns and stuff to play with. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.
My only problems were that aiming seemed a little jumpy (which I'm sure is something I'll either get used to in the final version, or at least be able to modify), and that meleeing, done via a thrust of the Wiimote, causes your aiming to get screwed up since the IR camera suddenly moves forwards very fast. I ended up pressing up on the d-pad to melee most of the time. The High Voltage rep said that was something they were working on fixing for the final build, which could be where the Wii Motion Plus feature comes into play.
Highlar @ Sep 1st 2008 9:59PM
Yes, PLEASE pass on some first hand experience!! That's the #1 thing I've been looking for out of PAX, and been unable to find so far: average, ordinary, like-me gamer impressions of The Conduit. Also, Gendreavus, I know that it was supposed to be put up in Nintendo's booth, but what kind of space did they give it? Was it well advertised at PAX, or something pushed off to a side of the Nintendo booth? To me, knowing HOW it was shown in the Nintendo space would give me a good impression really of what Nintendo is thinking to try to do to mend the bridge to their "core" gamers.