The Conduit

The Conduit was one of the most closely watched games of its time, because it was created with the explicitly stated goal of proving that Wii could handle a technically ambitious shooter comparable to the competition. It tells the story of agent Michael Ford, who investigates an alien attack in Washington and gets caught up in a conspiracy whose threads lead all the way to the highest places. The campaign takes the player through memorable locations of the American capital, from underground tunnels through museums to monuments that turn into battlegrounds.

The key tool is the ASE, a spherical device that reveals invisible mines, hidden messages, and control panels, and which sets the game apart from ordinary shooting. The arsenal mixes human and alien weapons with alternative firing modes, and enemies react to hits on different parts of the body. The most frequently praised element of the controls was their configurability: the player could reassign practically every button, the size of the screen's active zone, and the turning sensitivity, which made the game a benchmark for how the pointer should be handled in Wii shooters.

Technically, the game runs on its own engine with dynamic lighting, reflections, and detailed surfaces that were among the console's best in 2009. The online component offered matches for up to twelve players with custom rule selection and was one of the few places where a competitive shooter could be played on Wii with a larger number of people. Reviews were mixed: critics praised the controls and the technical side but criticized the generic story and repetitive environments that failed to make the most of the idea's potential. Even so, the game received a sequel and is still remembered as an important attempt to push the boundaries of what was expected from Wii. The studio followed up with Conduit 2, which expanded the settings and arsenal but repeated most of the original's weaknesses. Still, it's the first game that is remembered, because it showed that Wii didn't need to be as ashamed of its looks as was claimed at the time.