Share on Facebook

After a year of hype, The Conduit has finally blasted its way onto the Wii, and while it fails to match the quality of other first person shooters, we still had fun killing aliens. On the single player front, Sega and High Voltage cast you as Mr. Ford, a hero who must save Washington, DC (and subsequently the world) from an insect-like alien race as well as the terrorist, Prometheus. With access to a myriad of weapons (both human and alien) as well as the ASE or All Seeing Eye (a high tech orb that lets Ford see things hidden to the naked eye), we tore through various environments slaughtering creepy crawlies and heavily armed soldiers. Controls, using both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, are both intuitive and easy to learn, and we love the ability to customize the HUD.

Thankfully, you don't need friend codes to enjoy some heated multiplayer action. Die, green player!

On the downside, this is a by-the-numbers first person shooter with little innovation. High Voltage doesn't flesh out the story, enemies have a nasty habit of standing around waiting to die, there's an awkward pause between a bullet hitting a target and the character reacting to it, the graphics (while attractive for a Wii game) don't look nearly as good as the screenshots imply and it's possible to kill a bad guy despite clearly missing him.

Multiplayer, thankfully, somewhat makes up for these issues. We encountered no problems connecting to Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection, and while we needed friend codes to match up with our buddies (you'll see your friend code the moment you sign in), the ability to skip that nonsense and jump into a random match is a welcome addition. Even better, matches (even with up to 12 players) are lag free, and while the game features standard modes with different names (Marathan is deathmatch, for example), we applaud the designers for a job well done.

So, while The Conduit didn't thrill us, we still think it's a solid first effort and one of the Wii's best shooters so far. Just don't expect it to revolutionize anything and you'll enjoy the bug hunt.

Chris Buffa is GameDaily's senior editor. He enjoys easy achievement points, first person shooters and starting trouble.