Don’t Let Optimism Get You Down

Optimism is a wonderful thing, except for when it bears the heart-wrenching fruit of disappointment. Case in point: The Conduit (yes, that again). When it comes to the subject of The Conduit, I realize I am in the unfortunate position of trying to be objective while discussing a game I hate. (Hate – such a strong word, but it proves the point of my opening statement.) So while I am sitting here in the midst of my musings on the subject, I have to be brutally honest with myself and fair to the game while not holding back on the admitted and obvious flaws of the game.

Let's begin with pre-release expectations of the game.

Prior to its release of The Conduit, the following statement was made about the game in an IGN article dated, June 11, 2009: "High Voltage says it is, "... fusing fast and fluid gameplay with an advanced set of visuals intended to squarely establish the Wii as a true next-generation gaming platform." To that end, the title uses dynamic environment mapping, interactive water with real-time reflection and four-stage texture composition, including gloss, diffuse and bump-mapping."
That's pretty high praise indeed. The entry for The Conduit in Wikipedia further explains the force behind the hype: "The game makes use of the Quantum3 engine, a game engine designed by High Voltage Software specifically for the Wii. The engine allows effects such as bump mapping, reflection and refraction, and gloss and detail mapping to be implemented in the game. High Voltage Software created the engine to make The Conduit a comparable experience visually to games on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 despite the Wii's hardware limitations."

I could go on, but I believe this is enough to show the high expectations folks had of The Conduit. Those who live in the Wii World, and I am one of them, were excited beyond compare for the revolutionary gameplay we would experience in the Conduit.

Now for disappointment, and before I address the very real flaws of The Conduit, let it be known that these are very real flaws rather than the rantings of a sucky Conduit player. First of all, there is the glitch which sometimes leaves you in limbo when you try to enter an online game. This drove me nuts. And if it happened to be a marathon match, then the player it happened to was well and truly screwed. This is the glitch where you can see your weapon spinning in circles, and you are powerless to do anything but turn your Wii off to unglitch yourself. Other glitches taken advantage of by online players are invincibility, infinite rocket launches, and shooting through the walls of buildings in a map. The disappointment as compared to the hype was felt by all. Stevie Smith at play.tm says: "Despite considerable pre-release expectation built on the back of favorable tradeshow chatter and preview appraisal, The Conduit quickly reveals itself to be a quite shocking disappointment on a number of levels." Matt Casamassina with IGN makes the following statements: "In various matches with upward of eight or 10 players, I noticed that in some cases everything ran beautifully. However, I also encountered situations overrun with lag in which on-screen characters would skip around erratically, making maintained matches virtually unplayable." To be fair to The Conduit, IGN and Matt Casamassina, I will also include the following quote in the same article by Matt: "Meanwhile, the technology powering the experience is leaps and bounds ahead of most third- party offerings for Nintendo's system. Combined, you've got a game that controls flawlessly and looks great."

So where am I going with this? You may be asking yourself if I am lost. I assure you I am not. Going forward, we have been informed by High Voltage Software that a sequel to The Conduit is in the development stages. Nintendo Power released an eight page layout on The Conduit 2 in their May 2010 issue. The article describes all the goodies Wii owners can expect in the second round of The Conduit; more weapons, larger maps, online co-op mode, interchangeable armor, big bad bosses, even some under water Atlantis adventures. As I read the article, I found myself getting (dare I say the word) excited. My next immediate thought was, "Yeah, but I felt this way about the first one before it came out, and look what it did to me." I've heard rumor, as well, that High Voltage Software will be tightening up their servers to improve online gameplay. The question I have is this: if we were to be so bold as to take all this hype at face value, will we be rewarded with the fruit of fulfillment, or will our eternal optimism just bring us down one more time when we bring the game home and pop it into our Wii?