PixlBit

The follow-up to The Conduit seems to be a step up from the original.

In my opinion, The Conduit was a mediocre shooter at best. It lacked a lot of the polish that you see in most shooters today, and it suffered from a number of bugs that could often make multiplayer very frustrating. From what I saw of The Conduit 2, the developers are addressing some of the concerns I had with the original game.

For the E3 demo, I was able to take hold of a MotionPlus equipped Wii Remote and start blasting away at a couple different enemies in a local multiplayer match. The match took place in a fantastical world that was clearly somewhere beyond the portal you saw yourself stepping through at the end of the first game.

This change in scenery offers up a great opportunity for the developers to branch out and make some more interesting environments that truly distinguish the title from the crowd. While the world I was in was not mind-blowing by any degree, it was interesting enough in its design, and it felt like a sci-fi world that was unique from other similar titles I have played.

It seems like a few abilities have also been added including the ability to sprint in a similar fashion to how it's done in Modern Warfare. This sped up the combat and even with only 2-4 players on the map at a time, it made it quicker to find an enemy and engage in combat.

Also similar to Modern Warfare, players can upgrade their character and add new abilities as they play the mode more. It's nice to see this modern hook make its way to the Wii system. Furthermore, players can rearrange which weapons and abilities they start with on-the-fly, and the next time they spawn, they will spawn with their new set-up. I don't believe I've seen this done before, but it is a nice idea that will undoubtedly vary up the multiplayer assuming the weapon tiers are balanced.

Shooting felt better in this demo than it did in the original title. The MotionPlus helped keep things calibrated fairly well, though at times, the controls would go all wonky. I'm not quite sure why, it could've been a side effect of the bright lights around the show, or perhaps it lost its calibration, so I can't quite pass judgment on that bug.

Fire fights seemed to last an acceptable amount of time and the weapons at my disposal made it fun to dispatch my enemies. One gun in particular allowed me to throw a gob of something that resembled honey on my enemy with secondary fire. Following that, I only had to hold the trigger and watch these bee-like creatures swarm my enemy, slowly killing him.

Overall, The Conduit 2 had a much nicer polish on it that I just didn't see in the last title. In fairness, last year The Conduit demoed very well, thanks in part to them showing one of the more interesting parts of the game. This year, it could be a similar situation, but being that it was a multiplayer presentation as opposed to a single player one, it seems likely that this won't be the case with The Conduit 2.

Wii shooter fans definitely have something to look forward to with The Conduit 2. I hope it can maintain this uniqueness presented in the demo throughout the game, because if it does, it has the potential to stand up to something like Halo: Reach.