Topic: REVIEWS: The Conduit

[kraken613]

You can hear even fruends even if you don't have WiiSpeak and Kraken so far has gotten by without it.

Thank god one more day of that! I want to talk shot to you guys!

[Mop it up]

At least with bots I can enjoy some aspect of multiplayer without my best friend buying a Wii, a copy of The Conduit as well, and both of us scheduling simultaneous play sessions between the mounds of other stuff we're both playing on our own time.  Besides, AI bots done well ala Perfect Dark (i.e. with AI personalities) can make for quite enjoyable experiences.  They'll never match the quality of a true human being, but they have their uses.

If anything I think bots are more important than ever, especially for anyone who doesn't buy a game on its release date. If I were to go out and buy The Conduit next week, would I stand a chance against the online competition who've been playing non-stop all week? Not even close. Bots allow people to set up practice situations so they can improve their skills at their own pace instead of having to deal with snobby veterans who wouldn't give them a chance. Bots also allow 2 players to play team matches and other possibilities.

The design process for shooters seems to have evolved into focusing on unnecessary and/or arbitrary features such as graphics over gameplay features. That's one reason why the only shooters I like are on the Nintendo 64.

[Stratos]

I'll tone down my skill. I did it for Kraken so he could get used to using my favotire gun I pwnd him with tonight.
It is my crutch gun.

[Mop it up]

I'll tone down my skill. I did it for Kraken so he could get used to using my favotire gun I pwnd him with tonight.

Can I set you to six different difficulty settings? Can I choose to make you slow or fast? Set you to use only explosives? Give you a super powerful shield? Make you vengeful? Make you careless? Can I have eight of you?

You'll never be as awesome as a bot. 

[King of Twitch]

I wish my gf had those bot options.

[Stratos]

I'll tone down my skill. I did it for Kraken so he could get used to using my favotire gun I pwnd him with tonight.

Can I set you to six different difficulty settings? Can I choose to make you slow or fast? Set you to use only explosives? Give you a super powerful shield? Make you vengeful? Make you careless? Can I have eight of you?
You'll never be as awesome as a bot. 

Well, I think one of me is more than enough for any person, but if you insist I will try. I'll need to call Calvin and Hobbes about getting his duplicater, though.

Honestly, though, I'm pretty flexible if you need someone to play different ways. I know how to tone myself down when I need to and I think I'm pretty good at it. I was a master of it back in the day on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I'm not there yet in this game, but I'm good enough to be able to turn myself down when needed.

PS-You're giving GP more ammo with statements like "Can I have eight of you". Just saying.

[KDR_11k]

Don't worry about getting pwned online, for one there is still an influx of new people later on that you can play against, for another many people simply don't learn fast. I've wiped the floor with guys in Water Warfare who ranked much higher than I did.

Speaking of which, I see your cons list doesn't include "no local multiplayer" which I suspect is fairly important to many people.

[LJKKJLCM9]

If you try to connect to a match it generally trys to connect you with people the same rank as you.  Therefore if you're just starting, you should be playing against people who are also low ranked.  Considering ranks increase quite quickly at first, the best matching early on would also be new players.

THE JACKEL

[kraken613]

I'll tone down my skill. I did it for Kraken so he could get used to using my favotire gun I pwnd him with tonight.
It is my crutch gun.

O, I will figure out how to kill you with that gun. Hey, look in that Warehouse Bounty Hunter we came even and you used that gun....

[NWR_Lindy]

Speaking of which, I see your cons list doesn't include "no local multiplayer" which I suspect is fairly important to many people.

For me personally, it's not a con.  I don't play local multiplayer, so it not being there doesn't really affect me.  And besides, I tried to review this game for what's there, not what's not there.  To me it's like how Killzone 2 doesn't have co-op...yes, it's disappointing, but it doesn't drag down what's already there.  Having it would only make what's there even better.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Now if I had Conduit controls with BWii AI, I'd have the squad-based shooter I've always wanted.

[KDR_11k]

BWii needs more than just decent shooting controls, it also needs "go there" orders and better ways to handle split forces. Currently they all want to follow you in a giant clusterfuck instead of letting you, say, keep the arty behind without it wanting a hug from you every time it kills its designated target.

[Stratos]

I thought you could order units to hold their position so they don't follow you?

All they need is love, KDR. Don't deprive them of their need.
That was a hilarious description.

[KDR_11k]

You can tell them to stay where they are but you can't point somewhere and tell them to go there and after an attack order the units default to follow mode even if they were set to hold position before.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

BWii needs more than just decent shooting controls, it also needs "go there" orders and better ways to handle split forces. Currently they all want to follow you in a giant clusterfuck instead of letting you, say, keep the arty behind without it wanting a hug from you every time it kills its designated target.

This is interesting cuz I'm assuming you haven't played the first game.  You probably don't know what it was like to not have pointer control while running.  Walking, aiming, and lock-on are right out of Metroid Prime... and I'm sure you'd be happy to lock-on ONLY to the closest object in front of you every single time.  Lock-on w/ Pointing is fine in BWii cuz I'm constantly changing targets to lock onto and telling my units to chase things.  In BWi I had to RUN TO TARGETS or manually aim while stationary to get a desired lock.  I use lock-on maybe half the time in BWii when manually shooting things (the secret to maximizing efficiency and stomping Flames of Chaos on VS. Melee mode).

My two burning frustrations with BWii were the omissions of:
1.  Big open-area missions/maps as opposed to linearly-progressed trails, and
2.  Manually ordering units to stand at specific ground locations you aimed at (that's right, aim at the ground, "go there", done!)

That made me SAD.  In Battalion Wars, No.1 were my favorite type missions (figure out your own approach/path), and No.2 was important for doing No.1!!!  And now theyre gone D=

KDR, in the Options Menu you can disable your units from following you after they kill something, if that helps.  That's how it worked in the first game.  (I stopped disabling Auto-Follow due to BWii's linear level design; moving quickly as a massive pack is critical to saving time for score reasons).

[ShyGuy]

Pro is getting chocolate in my peanut butter.

Good Review by Lindy.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Here's your Reese's.

[Stratos]

Pro is getting chocolate in my peanut butter.

Good Review by Lindy.

But I love peanut butter M&M's!

Though we probably should move the BWii discussion out of the Conduit Review Talkback thread, as enlightening it is to me.

[KDR_11k]

This is interesting cuz I'm assuming you haven't played the first game.

Yeah, I picked it up for three Euros recently and haven't gotten to it yet.

[Patchkid15]

Good Review... I picked up the game about 5 days ago, i am thoroughly enjoying it.

After beating it i have a feeling this is going to be one of those games i will try to 100% complete

[BlackNMild2k1]

I haven't even touched the single player campaign. I plan on being so good at multiplayer, the single player will not be a match for me.

[kraken613]

^
LOL! I am the one of the best players on the board and the AI can kick my ass on the 2nd difficulty at times! The AI is tough once you get to the last few missions.

[Stratos]

I blame it more on the sheer amount of them they throw at them.

It reminds me of some Goldeneye levels on the harder difficulties that had infinite spawning enemies. I always hated that about the game. It was a spy game and I thought you should be able to eliminate every enemy in the level and wander around freely to finish the objectives.

[broodwars]

I blame it more on the sheer amount of them they throw at them.

It reminds me of some Goldeneye levels on the harder difficulties that had infinite spawning enemies. I always hated that about the game. It was a spy game and I thought you should be able to eliminate every enemy in the level and wander around freely to finish the objectives.

You could in some cases.  I had a blast in that one Goldeneye level where you had to escape from the jail cell and take out the facility just luring enemies into my cell one-by-one so I could take them out and take all their guns.  Then I'd just tour around the facility blowing things up with no one left to stop me, even on the highest difficulty level.

EDIT: Incidentally, I was window-browsing my local Gamestop today and they still had one copy left of the Conduit Special Edition.  Damn, I almost bought it just to have a copy without the ****ty cover art...but I must resist...Batman's only 2 months away, and my backlog's insane as it is...

[Stratos]

I blame it more on the sheer amount of them they throw at them.

It reminds me of some Goldeneye levels on the harder difficulties that had infinite spawning enemies. I always hated that about the game. It was a spy game and I thought you should be able to eliminate every enemy in the level and wander around freely to finish the objectives.

You could in some cases.  I had a blast in that one Goldeneye level where you had to escape from the jail cell and take out the facility just luring enemies into my cell one-by-one so I could take them out and take all their guns.  Then I'd just tour around the facility blowing things up with no one left to stop me, even on the highest difficulty level.

EDIT: Incidentally, I was window-browsing my local Gamestop today and they still had one copy left of the Conduit Special Edition.  Damn, I almost bought it just to have a copy without the ****ty cover art...but I must resist...Batman's only 2 months away, and my backlog's insane as it is...

So there is an end to the enemies. I don't recall if I even found an end to the deluge on that level. It felt like there were always more.