The Conduit is a Wii-exclusive first-person shooter that aims to take the console to new heights. High Voltage Software designed the title to push the Wii forward in terms of graphics and online multiplayer. While The Conduit succeeds in providing the most stable online support the Wii has yet to offer, it suffers from poor gameplay and a lack of creative design, leaving the game an uninspired mess of a first-person shooter.

When raspy-voiced everyman Michael Ford receives a random tip in an internet chat room about a terrorist named Prometheus, he loads his pistol and starts shooting up a train station, only to find he was duped into stealing a sphere of alien technology. In the process, he becomes the only man who can save Washington D.C. from the shadowy organization known as The Trust. The only exposition delivered throughout the game comes from boring online chats devoid of meaningful information. Out of the three unseen characters present within the Conduit, only one has anything resembling motivation.

Michael Ford is the only man who can keep boring recreations of Washington safe from the Trust.

The Trust uses the titular conduits (inter-dimensional portals) to transport alien creatures known as The Drudge to Washington D.C. in order to take over the country. The Drudge come in all the standard enemy types: quick imps that spawn from egg sacs in great numbers, typical grunts armed with bio-energy rifles, flying nuisances of big and small varieties, and lumbering brutes that serve as bosses before being recycled in greater numbers in later levels. What's worse is that The Conduit features predictable enemy AI; grunts pop in and out of cover in rhythm begging for death, and when you get close, they mindlessly mob you. The only way they can offer a challenge is by amassing in great numbers, which happens in later levels to artificially inflate the difficulty.

To combat The Drudge and The Trust, Ford has access to weapons representing three different technologies: typical human guns, high-tech Trust weaponry, and organic Drudge arms. Despite these divisions, there isn't much diversity in the functionality of the game's weapons. Ford also has access to a variety of grenades, but their features could easily remain a mystery to most players as they are difficult to properly lob. Rounding out Ford's equipment is the All Seeing Eye, commonly referred to as the ASE. It's a high-tech, floating orb of alien technology that basically serves as an all purpose flashlight. It's usually used to activate locks that are conveniently hidden in the same room as the door, but it can also uncover hidden ammo caches, secret messages, or invisible mines (which the ASE can then detonate) that all are seemingly placed throughout the levels only to make missions last longer. The ASE is really nothing more than a cheap gimmick that doesn't accomplish anything the game could do with a bit of creativity and clever design.

With these tools, The Conduit takes players on a tour of historic Washington D.C., spanning boring train terminals, generic sewers, useless laboratories, and a version of The White House where doorknobs are at eye level. Each level is incredibly linear and almost always features a variation on the same schizophrenic objective: destroy X amount of random objects because the voice of a person you've never met in your ear tells you to. There isn't a single interesting set piece or satisfying segment of gameplay in the entire campaign.

As a first-person shooter on the Wii, The Conduit controls a bit differently than most other titles in the genre. The typical function of a right analog stick, control over the gun and camera, is replaced by the Wii remote's motion sensor. Many of the other controls can be mapped to other buttons as you see fit, though the possibilities are limited in some cases. More effective that customizing buttons is increasing or decreasing the game's aiming and turning sensitivity. Once you find an adequate setting, the controls typically work well regardless of how you mapped the buttons.

With its adequate control scheme, The Conduit's abysmal single-player campaign could almost be excused if its multiplayer component delivered, but it doesn't. While it appears to be a smooth experience in the matchmaking lobby, the actual gameplay is outdated and often glitchy. You have a choice of three main modes: free-for-all, team deathmatch, and team objective. Within each mode, there are specific rule sets that players can vote on, along with weapon pick-ups and limits on time and score. The voting feature does have its drawbacks; for example, a twenty-minute multiplayer match in The Conduit is not a fun time.

Every mode is either a variant on deathmatch or capture the flag (or in this case, capture the ASE). Once connected to your opponents, you are thrown into a frantic and frustrating situation, with players often clipping through one another. Combat tactics are reduced to the circle strafing of the Nintendo 64 days, when the winning strategy was to run right up to opponents and unload your magazine in their face. The arenas are boring and sparsely populated with ill-placed weapon drops. On the plus side, there's no lag, and friend codes aren't required to participate in matches. That said, you will likely encounter game-breaking glitches that require a reset more often than is acceptable in a modern action game. These glitches typically come in the form of controls freezing up or the screen turning black as a match starts. In the end, the only remarkable thing about The Conduit's multiplayer is that when it's actually working, it performs better than most Wii games offering the same functionality.

Trust scientists are trained to run right up to intruders and shoot them in the face, no questions asked.

For a game powered by its own exclusive graphics technology designed to produce the Wii's best visuals yet, The Conduit is a bland and occasionally ugly-looking game. The rough textures and static environments underutilize the game's engine, and there is no notable attempt to stand out amongst other Wii games. A poor attention to detail also drags down The Conduit's visuals as in the aforementioned White House level. There, players will come across the Oval Office only to find the President's desk the height of a kid's table. There is a bit of talent behind the voice acting of the game's three characters, in particular Michael Ford who speaks with an interesting yet subtle accent and a pleasing rasp. Nothing stands out as far as music and sound, though, as it's mostly generic. You won't find any of The Conduit's tunes getting stuck in your head.

The Conduit is the best the Wii has to offer in terms of FPS controls and online support, but the game is outclassed in nearly every way by first-person shooters on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. For a title built from the ground up to compete with the presentation and online multiplayer of the more technologically advanced consoles, The Conduit is a bland looking game featuring unacceptable glitches that can ruin the online experience. If you're starved for a new first-person shooter on the Wii, The Conduit is literally your only option, but there are much better shooters out there on other platforms.