The Conduit

[Marthuser]

Wow.

 

I thought this looked PS2-gen, but now....certainly the best thing produced by the Wii. Very close to third-gen, if it's not already there.

[James McGeachie]

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1429

 

Going by this interview they believe they're squeezing out the utmost max of what the Wii is capable of with their engine.

[dazzybee]

*sigh* High Voltage invited us to come and play this at E3, but we're not gonna be there this year.

 

I would have gone out. Wouldnt of minded paying for it if I had passes!! Should have said!

[Goron_3]

wow nice video! Screenshots really don't do this game justice!

Also..was that video running at 60fps!?!?

[Coolness Bears]

Colour me impressed!

 

I have not been following this game vey closely thus far and have been catching up on all the information on it this evening amd it looks as if high voltage are putting a lot of time and effort into this game, which is great and more developers need to follow suit.

 

The latest video impressed me a lot! Though I couldn't help think about Metroid Prime. I hope this turns out well for them as It's a far shine above most of the Wii games on here and it's obvious that they are trying there hardest.

 

The graphics look great and watching the video is better than looking at screens (which never seem to do many Wii games justice!)

[blender]

i am more impressed by the controls... at least it "seems" to smoothly take courners etc. Not many enemies on screen mind. It helped having aliens with convenient polygon counts too.

 

*sigh* High Voltage invited us to come and play this at E3, but we're not gonna be there this year.

 

I wised you advertised on this board for an n-europe roving reporter... you could given them the neurope authoritiii and access whatever press-pass credentials you had.

 

(Hint: n-europe's reputation would have been safe in the hands of a certain forum Celebrity)

[Zechs Merquise]

Just seen the new video on the main site - WOW! This looks awesome, it's gone from nowhere to being one of my most anticipated games.

[IMJ]

Video is pretty impressive. Much better than the screens released so far. I like how they go all out on this game. Controls wise, it's amazing how much effort they put into it. Even adding customizable stuff!

 

What has me worried though, is a so-so art direction. Technically it's great, artistically, im not that wowed. I hope the storyline is good and compelling, cuz so far it sounds rather cliché.

 

But as long as it plays good and controls well, I'm all up for this game. I want to support them!

[D-Day]

Control wise, it looked really good, smooth handling in terms of maneuvering and with the weaponry. They did ensure quite a bit was happening in the video which is promising, and there wasn't a sign of the frame rate dropping (not that we'd expect that from a video they're showing off!).

The graphics do look good too. I shall definitely carry on following the development of this title.

[Jamba]

Just watched the vid. Very impressed. Really liking the camera, lovely sense of combat in the character's movements (the irridescent suit looks sexy as hell), some nice special effects in the gunfire department.

 

Stick some atmospherics in there and that engine is one hot potato. I hope that Ubi use them as middleware because thats what Red Steel should have been like.

[pedrocasilva]

there wasn't a sign of the frame rate dropping (not that we'd expect that from a video they're showing off!).

Oh rly?

 

*looks into every Too Human Silicon Knights clip while laughing maniacally*

I hope that Ubi gives me my money back because thats what Red Steel should have been like.

Fixed in more ways than one. One way to giving me my money back would be actually investing it into the platform, instead of investing it elsewhere and mocking me. This said... I want that money back into my pocket, in order to give it for who deserves it. (hint: not them in a million years time)

 

Darned bastards.

[Jamba]

Fixed in more ways than one. One way to giving me my money back would be actually investing it into the platform, instead of investing it elsewhere and mocking me. This said... I want that money back into my pocket, in order to give it for who deserves it. (hint: not them in a million years time)

 

Darned bastards.

 

Yeah, I think everyone feels that pain man. Actually, even with half decent controls supported by a good engine, I wonder if they would have done any better.

 

Anyone willing to bet that as soon as this engine proves itself that EA will try and buy these guys lock and stock, taking the engine with them?

[Hellfire]

I wouldn't mind it, EA is pretty damn good nowadays, but tbh I think this will force more devs to actually do something.

[...]

Might as well post the screens, in some ways they're even more impressive than the short clip:

 

 

Definitely NOT Gamecube graphics!

 

That looks like a 360 screen, but I don't see that in the videos...

[pedrocasilva]

Anyone willing to bet that as soon as this engine proves itself that EA will try and buy these guys lock and stock, taking the engine with them?

I dunno, but I certainly think EA would be a good publisher for them at this point.

 

This said I think if they wanted to do this, the guys at criterion (renderware) would be a great team for the task.

[mcj metroid]

Definitely NOT Gamecube graphics!

 

That looks like a 360 screen, but I don't see that in the videos...

 

i hope people know what they are doing building this game up. The graphics are far far better than everything on wii.It's easy to forget how good gamecube graphics really were at their best.

 

But so far that seems to be everything people care about.graohics

 

I have my worries about this one..most likely it will turn out good but not AAA

[Jamba]

I dunno, but I certainly think EA would be a good publisher for them at this point.

 

This said I think if they wanted to do this, the guys at criterion (renderware) would be a great team for the task.

 

Publisher, yeah I think they would be good. I just get the feeling that they would squander the engine when it could be licensed to other devs who don't want to have to develop their own.

[pedrocasilva]

Publisher, yeah I think they would be good. I just get the feeling that they would squander the engine when it could be licensed to other devs who don't want to have to develop their own.

Hmmm, I dunno, if I recall correctly they pulled Renderware middleware sales when they purchased Criterion, only leaving support for those that had purchased the license previously.

 

Besides, I think a lot of developers would not use it if it was by EA, I mean... EA is the biggest games publisher arround, THQ and Activision would certainly refuse to use it, as would a lot of studios that see EA as competition. But they don't see most "mainly" middleware companies as such (this said, some are already discontent with EPIC, when they did Gears of War and they feel they can't have the same results easily, meaning Epic has a bigger know-how and all that, thus, they feel they're playing in a competitors hand or something)

[Jamba]

Yeah it depends on a lot of things. But you're right, EA would be a god publisher. I wouldn't trust Ubi and that doesn't leave many other publishers in the FP race. Maybe GameCock will do their crazy wild card shit again and publish.

 

I think that this will be the talk of the 3rd party Wii camp. I wouldn't be surprised if IGN hype it so much that it holds up against some of the Nintendo stuff.

 

(Sidenote about Epic: Helps devs make games if the editor and general engine actually works. Working on PS3 would have been good....)

[...]

i hope people know what they are doing building this game up. The graphics are far far better than everything on wii.It's easy to forget how good gamecube graphics really were at their best.

 

But so far that seems to be everything people care about.graohics

 

I have my worries about this one..most likely it will turn out good but not AAA

 

I have my worries too. I'm praising the graphics because, let's be fair, they are fucking pretty. However, I won't be buying this game just because it looks pretty. If it turns out to be bad in the gameplay department, if it bombs in reviews and general player feedback, you can bet your ass I'll dodge it.

[Hellfire]

Considering they're also emphasizing a lot on the controls in their latest interview (which was awesome), I doubt this will be the case. I mean, they're like the MoH ones, but you can test them on the fly, that can only be awesome.

[Retro_Link]

i hope people know what they are doing building this game up. The graphics are far far better than everything on wii.It's easy to forget how good gamecube graphics really were at their best.

Yeah I agree.

I'm not coming down on this game one bit, I think it looks great, but come on this isn't Resi 4 yet!

 

If you look at that screen, everything apart from the two character models [which have some shiny, bloomy effect applied to them] looks good, but lets not get carried away!

 

A farely good comparison:

 

 

Whilst Resi 4 doesn't look as good in screens, just remember how pretty it was! It has SO much more detail and life!

 

And whilst The Conduit is bound to keep improving up until launch, it's not there yet!

 

Still looks awesome though!

[DazzeL]

The Conduit will never look like Resi 4 though. They've gone a completely different route. The focus is on smooth visuals with this-gen effects where possible. Resi 4 had no advanced effects and was actually a fairly rough game with a lot of low res textures and jaggys. As a trade off though it was beautifully detailed but "smooth" looking it was not.

[Retro_Link]

Interview:

 

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/887/887708p1.html

 

IGN: First of all, will The Conduit be at E3?

 

Eric Nofsinger: Yes we will be at E3! We are only doing private showings and leaving playable demos with a few select folks who we are anxious to get feedback and input from... like IGN, of course.

 

IGN: You still haven't announced a publisher. Have you gotten serious about aligning yourselves with one yet?

 

Eric: No, not until they give us what we want and tons of money. Oh, and a monkey. [Laughs]

 

We are taking it real slow. We aren't in any rush. This is something I probably could have been a bit more clear about before; we have our own funding to completion. We know we want a publisher, but we want it to be the right fit for the publisher, High Voltage, the game, and the fans that have so vocally supported us.

 

IGN: So tell us, what does the E3 build encapsulate?

 

Eric: The E3 demo is the first half of one of the later missions in the game. It will be showing off the majority of our alien enemies (the Drudge), several of our weapons, and very pretty environment. Story-wise, it gives a small taste of what the player will be doing and finding out after the Drudge invasion of Washington D.C. has begun. Though, I should probably note the demo will be hard set on Easy difficulty so that casual players can have a chance of seeing everything without having to build up the skill set they would normally need to play the mission.

 

IGN: How would you say the game has progressed since we last wrote about it?

 

Eric: The single-player portion of the game is near the point of being just bug fixes and fine tuning. And polish, polish, polish. A lot of our team and development effort is moving to multiplayer now.

 

IGN: You've said the controls will be fully customizable. How so? Have you looked at Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for inspiration?

 

Eric: Yes, Medal of Honor Heroes 2 was a source of inspiration, but we believe we've taken things even a step further. In MoHH2, you were able to adjust things like dead zone size, player turning speed and cursor sensitivity via a paused menu. In The Conduit, you can adjust these and other options in real time. That means you don't have to go back and forth to get the feel of your changes; you see them instantly and can tell if your adjustments are working for you. We are also taking some inspiration from Smash Bros. Brawl and will be allowing players to customize their control layouts. Don't like using the B button to shoot? Map it to the button you prefer. Like to use a certain Wii-Remote motion for something? You will be able to map to those too.

 

IGN: Sounds great. We've posted some new screens that show off some additional graphic effects for the game. How much of your tech are you hoping to implement into the final product?

 

Eric: All of it. [laughs] Seriously, we wouldn't be showing this stuff off if we weren't planning on using it and using it a lot. Some really fantastic graphical improvements came on line recently. Our artists and engineers are so amazing! I just wanted to give them all a big hug.

 

IGN: Tell us about the online experience you're hoping to deliver.

 

Eric: Our current multiplayer benchmarks are 16 players and we will definitely have the standard modes like Deathmatch and Capture the Flag. We are still exploring the possibilities and depending on how things go, we will have more. But we want to make certain that our online experience is solid and if that means sacrificing some other modes or features to do that, we will. We are choosing quality over quantity.

 

IGN; We're all for that. A lot of Nintendo fans have been ecstatic about The Conduit, but there are some critics who say that the game offers little to distinguish itself from other FPS efforts. What is your position?

 

Eric: We've been so happy with the response we've received! It really fuels us to do our best. You know? Sure. I think it's fair that some folks are pointing out similarities to other FPS titles but I hope that they can see that was one of our primary goals -- to make a really solid fast-paced action shooter and that is the core of our game. Then we built the right differentiators on top of that foundation... we didn't want to be different just for the sake of being different. And I honestly believe we have some very unique and interesting gameplay via the All Seeing Eye device, a storyline that isn't set during World War II [laughs], a totally customizable control scheme and layout, and we've got some awesome high-quality graphics to boot. And this whole package is on the Wii, a platform that is crying out for a shooter like this like a desert cries out for rain. Even if I weren't making this game, it is the game I would want to buy for the Wii.

[killer kirby]

Can't next week come any sooner?