Sega said Wednesday that it plans to release Conduit 2, a follow-up to last year's Wii first-person shooter, this fall.
The sequel will offer an expanded 12-player online competitive mode and a new four-player, split-screen cooperative mode called "Team Invasion," which can be played online or off.
The Conduit was developed by High Voltage Software, a company whose works largely consist of licensed games. It received attention for its smooth and highly customizable Wiimote aiming controls, but I thought it fell flat in every other area. It never really put forth any new ideas, instead just resting on the tropes that FPS games have established over the years. Outside the controls, it was an entirely forgettable and repetitive run-and-gun shooter.
High Voltage is having another go at it with Conduit 2, and from the looks of things, the developer is aware of the issues that plagued the first game.
"(The Conduit) was very much the same thing over and over and over again," producer Josh Olson said in a recent interview with Nintendo Power magazine. "In Conduit 2, we're trying to do a lot more in terms of level design and gameplay design to mix it up more."
The developers also said in the same interview that they "didn't take enough artistic liberties" with the original game, which is all too true. The majority of The Conduit took place entirely in Washington D.C., only straying from that locale to transition to an equally generic sci-fi techno lab.
It's good to hear that High Voltage is at least aware of the original's flaws, but I question its ability to get it right this time. It's one thing to acknowledge your game had issues; it's another thing to actually be able to fix them. And High Voltage's resume doesn't exactly instill much confidence. Its highest-rated game on Metacritic is the Xbox version of Hunter: The Reckoning, which scored a relatively high 79. The company hasn't had a game that's squeaked over 70 in the last four years.
To be fair, The Conduit's controls were fun to use to the point where they pushed me through the game in spite of all the other issues. If High Voltage can make a good core game to match the controls this time, then that's great. But I'm not holding my breath.
Image courtesy Sega
