I have so much to talk about The Conduit for the Wii, I just had to put it in a separate blog entry. This game is basically tied with Mad World for the Most Anticipated Wii Game of 2009. The game is made by a company called High Voltage. It is a FPS, or a First Person Shooter. The planned Release date is March 2009. It has an ESRB Rating of T for Teen - Violence, Some Blood. The demo was set to Easy, but it also had a few challenges to it, such as aliens continuing to spawn without end. It was a great demo; I was able to play for about 10-15 minutes. In case you're wondering, yes, that is the official Wii cover for The Conduit.

The demo that I played was a "pre-Alpha" version of the game, meaning it had a lot of programming done, but still a few bugs. Well, when I played that demo - I sure didn't see any significant bugs! Smooth motion, great responsiveness to my remote's position, great sensitivity to my motion with the Nunchuk and Wii Remote.

After playing the demo on Saturday, I talked with High Voltage's Chief Creative Officer, Eric Nofsinger about the game, trying to glean as much information about it as I possibly could. I also went back Sunday to ask even more questions, as well as show my friends how awesome this game was going to be.

The game is chock full of conspiracy theories - they created a 140 page document on conspiracy theories and used it for the game's storyline.

Each main character in the game has a name identical to the last names of an U.S. President; for example, the main character you play is named Agent Ford.

Agent Ford is an ex-Secret Service agent, and he soon notices that people are acting strange. He is recruited by a group called The Trust, and they explain to him that Earth has come under attack by aliens called the Drudge. His mission is to go and find out why this attack occurred in the first place.

Although I did not see it in the demo, in each of the levels, there is some aspect of puzzle solving, starting with simple locking/unlocking puzzles and increasing in difficulty throughout. The puzzles can also involve the environment, such as shooting down a telephone pole to create a bridge to cross a gap.
Later on, you obtain a device called the "All-Seeing Eye," which is used to solve puzzles, such as allowing you to see invisible and hidden objects, including invisible doors or parasites attached to humans.

Although there are still 6 months left to go before the planned release (March 2009), pre-production of The Conduit 2 has already begun.

High Voltage has already decided on a publisher - the documents are being finalized.
The publisher will be officially announced this month. I couldn't get anything more revealed; the NDA prevented that. Sad face.

Here's the Breakdown
Wii Remote motion: Aim Weapon
Wii Remote shake (just move your arm forward): Melee Attack
Nunchuk motion: Throw a Grenade
Analog Stick: Move
A Button: Jump
B Button: Fire
Z Button: Strafe

Controls: When I played the game, I stuck with the default controls; I didn't see any problems with it. But while I was watching other players play it, they opened up the settings menu to customize thir own choices. The sensitivity customization is done in-game; you move your character around and keep adjusting as much as you like until you're pleased with it.

MotionPlus: MotionPlus will be in the final version; it wasn't available when I played it.

Grenades: When you throw a grenade, the ballistics are determined by your throwing speed and force used when moving the Nunchuk.

Environment: The game does allow you to use the environment to do damage, but it was not present in the demo that I played. There are no assistant non-player characters to help you out.
If you are damaged, you are able to regenerate health automatically if you take no damage for at least 5 seconds. The regeneration is limited; you'll only be able to regenerate one health bar out of the 3 you are given - until you find a recovery item, and then the process can begin again.

Game Breakdown
9 main missions
If you choose not to do any "plot hunting", it will take approximately 8 to 10 hours to complete.
17 main weapons
3 Grenade weapons - Frag, Flash, and Radiation

The battlefields that you will play on include the Library of Congress, the Jefferson Memorial, the Pentagon, and even the White House!

All the battlefields you can play on are a part of the story and are also available to play in multiplayer mode.

Side Quests ("Plot Hunting")
The game will contain many unlockable rewards, such as special weapons, easter eggs, and special modes. It also furthers the game's plot.

Difficulty
On easier levels, you see certain patterns that the Drudge will follow. Set it on a harder difficulty, and the AI becomes much more intelligent, and will begin mirroring a human player's tactics.

Graphics
Yeah, these are amazing graphics! You'll really have to focus on one part of the screen for a long time if you want to detect some sort of noticeable 480p graphic. But from a normal distance away, it really does look like a 720p resolution. Eric told me that the smooth animation is always their number one priority - they must always keep it at 30fps without glitches or slowing down.

Multiplayer
The single player portion of the game is basically complete; all their focus is now on multiplayer play.
They aren't sure about using Friend Codes; they want an exception to it, and are currently in talks with Nintendo about it.

They're mostly focusing on Wi-Fi Multiplayer instead of same-console multiplayer.
They do have same-console multiplayer; however, the 2nd player will simply be another pointer on the screen while the 1st player moves around.
4-player same-console is being planned for Conduit 2.

For Wi-Fi play, the plan is to have at least 16 players playing on the same map.

LAN play in is in the works; High Voltage is currently in talks with Nintendo about getting it approved.
But that's just the beginning - they are also testing out multiple system hookup!

WiiSpeak can also be used while playing multiplayer.

Downloadable Content
There are discussions on possible downloadable content; I suggested the idea of saving the downloadable content to the SD Card and playing it directly off of the SD card. He thought it was a great idea, and will begin researching it to see if will happen. If you are a gamer, and this seems familiar, this is the same process that Guitar Hero: World Tour will be using on the Wii for its downloadable content when it is released.

Without further ado, here's the preview, provided to me from High Voltage!