The Conduit tells the story of Michael Ford, a secret agent of some type working in Washington, D.C. when the city comes down with a slight case of alien invasion. It isn’t long before Ford is swept up in the events, taking you along for the ride. Conspiracies are unmasked, allegiances are betrayed, and the capitol is turned into a shooting ground.

The presentation of the story doesn’t do it any favors. Most of the plot is revealed through scrolling text (accompanied by cheesy voiceover) between missions and radio communications in-game. This simplified way of presenting the story makes it hard to connect with the characters and what happens to them. Most likely, you won’t really care why you have to shoot everything that moves, you just will. The game also features the All Seeing Eye (A.S.E.), a device that basically reveals invisible things such as hidden messages on the walls and explosive mines. The potential of the device is pretty much wasted, and you will rarely find that you need to bother with using it.

While the story behind the single-player is fairly generic and lackluster (feeling somewhat like a Perfect Dark clone), The Conduit is still fun to play thanks to the excellent control scheme. If you have ever played Metroid Prime 3, you’ll have an idea of how the controls in The Conduit are set up. The pointer function of the Wii remote is used to aim your weapons, and Agent Ford’s movement is mapped to the nunchuk. Firing is as easy as pulling the B-trigger, making shooting intuitive and fun. Be warned however, that you will most likely have to tweak the controls to find something that feels perfect. Luckily, just about anything you can think of (and some things you probably didn’t) can be adjusted to your heart’s content. Things like pointer sensitivity, dead zone, turn speed, and whether you turn when the pointer is off-screen can all be tweaked until they are “just right”.

Once you have the controls exactly how you want them, it will take about 6-8 hours to play through the single-player campaign. Once you’ve finished it, there is little incentive to play through it again, despite the existence of hidden messages and data disks to find. The story isn’t compelling enough to entice a second go-around. The plot is wafer thin, even for a shooter. Just about the time that things start to get interesting story-wise and you think the game is about to crank it into high gear, the main campaign abruptly ends shortly after it began, leaving things wide open for a sequel.

If the single-player campaign were all that The Conduit had to offer, it would be pretty disappointing. The game also includes the option of online multiplayer that does a lot towards making the overall package a worthwhile one. The Conduit makes the most out of Nintendo’s online setup, despite the system’s inherent flaws and difficulties. In fact, The Conduit has many features that are found on FPS games on other systems. You will still need to enter friend codes if you want to play with people you know, but the matchmaking system in place makes it really easy to jump into a game with random players, up to twelve total.

Each of the three main game types (deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag) has several different variations available to play. Every player is given the opportunity to vote on game type, map, and weapon set in the game lobby before each match. Once the votes are tallied, the mayhem begins. Personally, I had the most fun with the Explosive weapons set on a level called Streets. The map is a small one, making the action very chaotic and fast seeing as how everyone is armed with rocket launchers. The available options seem pretty standard when compared to shooters available on other systems, but it’s nice to see these things on the Wii.

On a technical level, what High Voltage has been able to achieve with The Conduit is rather impressive. The game features many advanced graphical effects and techniques not commonly found in a Wii game, including bump mapping and animated textures. Unfortunately, all these effects are wasted on generic corridors and bland characters. Most of the time, the art design for the game is severely lacking in originality. There are a few moments that rise above the mediocrity of the rest of the game. Unsurprisingly, each and every one of these moments happens when The Conduit briefly lets the player outside of the generic offices and hallways and into the great outdoors.

The Conduit may be on par with Metroid Prime 3 (or even slightly better) in the controls department, but High Voltage could learn a thing or fifty from Retro Studios about level design. All of the Metroid Prime games have a great sense of “place”, really pulling you into the world. Every nook and cranny looks unique, something that isn’t the case for The Conduit. High Voltage’s world often feels copy/pasted. There were several times during the campaign that I went through a set of corridors, went around a corner, and got a huge sense of deja vu when the new area looked exactly the same as the one I had just left.

Despite its flaws, The Conduit still manages to be quite a bit of fun to play. It’s too bad that the customizable controls, graphical technology, and robust online multiplayer modes get bogged down by the poor story and bland art direction. Future Wii shooters should take note of the technical things The Conduit does right and incorporate them into a game with more creativity in the visual department.

Final Grade – B-

The short answer to the question above is: No. You would have thought that Nintendo would have learned a few lessons from last year, but their conference this year was very similar. Someone should remind the Big N that doing a Show & Tell requires you to actually show things and not just talk for a majority of the time. You may be pretty proud of what you are achieving, but that doesn’t mean we want to hear about it ad nauseam. If you are really being as innovative as you claim, perhaps it would be a good idea to show us rather than to stand there talking about it.

Nintendo kicked things off with a montage promo video followed by a lot of talk about how gaming is for “everyone”. They then showed off New Super Mario Bros Wii, a scrolling 2D platformer featuring the rotund plumber and his pals. The game is designed to be played with up to four people at once. A multiplayer Mario was a good start, but Nintendo just couldn’t seem to stop talking long enough to show many games, and most of the ones they did show were rather lackluster.

Next up was the reveal of WiiFit Plus, an expansion of Nintendo’s popular fitness software that is coming in the fall this year. After a lot of talk about the importance of interface to gaming, WiiMotionPlus is mentioned, and WiiSports Resort is shown. Some new minigames were revealed including skydiving, archery, and basketball. After a trailer for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers it was time to move on to the Nintendo DS.

Several DS games were mentioned with a small amount of footage to go with them. Notable titles coming for the handheld include Kingdom Hearts, Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, and Golden Sun DS. Non-notable titles that still got quite a bit of attention were James Patterson Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion, C.O.P.: The Recruit, and Style Savvy.

When Nintendo’s global president, Satoru Iwata, took the stage, I thought something good was in store. Surely he would have something interesting to reveal. Instead he took several minutes to talk about innovation only to show a new Wii peripheral called the Wii Vitality sensor. Basically, you stick your finger in it and it takes your pulse. Someone must have thought it would be a good idea to turn some basic hospital equipment into a video game accessory.

Nintendo went back to talking about games for a while to reveal Super Mario Galaxy 2. The trailer for the game looked a lot like the original Galaxy, with the addition of Yoshi into the mix. I loved Super Mario Galaxy, so a sequel is welcome news, but unfortunately Nintendo said nothing about a release date. After that, Nintendo “wowed” the crowd by talking about three third party games coming this year: The Conduit, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and Dead Space Extraction. I think all three games look interesting, but we have already seen a lot about each before this conference started, especially for The Conduit which comes out in a couple weeks. Where were all the new games that we should be clamoring to play?

The show closed out with a welcome surprise for me. They revealed that Team Ninja (of Ninja Gaiden fame) is collaborating with Nintendo on a new Metroid title that is supposed to be “edgier”. It is called Metroid: Other M, and the trailer for the game looked pretty good, despite the generic title. As a Metroid fan, I’m all for a new Metroid title, and right now it is slated for release in the spring of 2010. As welcome as this news was, it was too little and too late to save Nintendo’s briefing.

Nintendo seemed too focused on talking about how innovative they are and how gaming is for everyone. Instead of showing a lot of titles, all we got were a few short trailers peppered in between lots of lecturing. Red Steel 2 was notably absent from the show, a big mistake in my opinion as it looked great during Ubisoft’s conference Monday night. The demo of that game did a lot to convince me that WiiMotionPlus is actually worthwhile, and it looks to be everything the first Red Steel should have been. Also missing from Nintendo’s show was any mention of a brand new Pikmin sequel, something that has been confirmed that Nintendo is working on (and rumored to be at the show this year). A new WiiMotionPlus Zelda title was a no-show, even though I wasn’t particularly expecting it to show up.

Had Nintendo included more games in their briefing, it would have been a much better outing. As it was, they totally dropped the ball again, in similar fashion to last year. The few interesting announcements were revealed to little fanfare, and they weren’t enough to keep the conference afloat amid all the boring lectures. At this point, Nintendo is so far out in left field that they seemingly don’t know how to create a show that actual gamers are interested in. Todays showing felt more like something geared towards investors, and I think even they would have had a hard time staying awake.

Nintendo’s conference was by far the worst of E3 this year. Even taking the talkative James Cameron into account, Ubisoft’s conference Monday night was far more successful at showing off games than Nintendo was able to do this morning.

Be sure to say hey when you come in so we know who we have with us. 

Bullworth Academy is home to snobby rich kids, oppressive teachers, and more bullies than you can shake a stick at. Enter Jimmy Hopkins, a rebellious teen who has been kicked out of several different schools in the past. He is dropped off at Bullworth by his mother and his brand new stepfather on the way to their honeymoon cruise (that just happens to last an entire year). Jimmy is soon working towards taking over the school in between going to (or skipping) class and getting on the principal’s bad side.

There are two classes every day at Bullworth, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Classes cycle through every few days, so you won’t be slogging through the same English class every single day. Of course, you can decide to skip classes entirely, but it will have several consequences. First, the school prefects will try to bust Jimmy if they find him being truant. Get caught, and you’ll be sent straight to the class you were supposed to be attending. This isn’t as big of a deal once the gates of the school open up, allowing you access to town. The cops there will also bust you, but there are a lot more places to hide outside Bullworth Academy’s walls.

The second consequence to skipping out is missing out on key skills that are learned during class. Gym class will teach you additional fighting moves, and Shop class unlocks better bicycles for you to ride around town. Each type of class is passed by completing different types of mini-games. English consists of a word scramble game, Chemistry has you pressing buttons to mix chemicals together, and Gym class will either be a wrestling match or dodgeball. Most of the things earned by completing classes have tangible benefits during the rest of the game.

When Jimmy isn’t attending class, he’ll probably be completing some sort of task for somebody else. It seems like he is a magnet for people that want something. New tasks are always popping up, some of which progress the story, and some of which are optional missions that net you some cash. There is a nice mix of things that Jimmy ends up doing, like sneaking into the girl’s dorm, escorting nerds across campus, collecting miscellaneous items, and pulling various pranks, among other things. Every mission is fairly short, so the game rarely gets frustrating due to failed tasks.

Bullworth feels like a living place due in large part to the interesting and humorous characters that populate the school. In fact, each character is so memorable that you will quickly begin to recognize the different students roaming around the campus. Bullworth is far from a realistic place with everyone falling somewhere between caricature and satire. For example, you will meet a fat nerd named Algernon who’s pants are always unzipped, the ultra grungy lunch lady who chain smokes and spits in the food, and the perpetually drunk English teacher.

The school is divided into several cliques that each have their own hangouts. Depending on your actions, the respect that each group has for you will go up and down, causing them them to become more hostile towards you if their respect goes down. During your time at Bullworth, you will encounter the Bullies, Preppies, Jocks, Nerds, Greasers, and Townies. Teachers fall into their own group, but each one has tendencies for one group or another, such as the coach falling in with the jocks.

Another unofficial group at Bullworth are the girls. Pulling pranks on guys is frowned upon, but harassing girls will instantly get the prefects after you. So if you’re planning on throwing a stink bomb into the middle of a crowd, it might be a good idea to make sure there aren’t any girls in the group. Jimmy is quite the ladies man on campus, and there is a tangible benefit to kissing as many girls that you can. After completing some Art classes, kissing girls will give you a health bonus, something that is a major help if you get into any big fights against multiple opponents. The more art classes that you complete, the bigger your health bonus. Of course you must get the girls to like you before they will even think about kissing you. If you’re not careful, you might just get a kick in the crotch for your trouble.

You might expect to find fisticuffs in a game called Bully, and you’d be right. Jimmy has several different fighting moves to help him deal with the more antagonistic citizens of Bullworth. More moves are unlocked through gym class, but if you want to unlock the really good moves, you’ll have to talk to the homeless vet that lives near the school. In exchange for transistor radio parts, the hobo will teach you secret moves he claims to have learned in the military. In addition to his fists and feet, Jimmy will acquire many different weapons throughout the game including a trusty slingshot. Many are classics used for pranks such as eggs, stink bombs, marbles, itching powder, and firecrackers. You will also come across some more powerful projectile weapons later in the game that pack more of a punch than your slingshot, however they lack the infinite ammo that makes your slingshot a “go to” weapon. Jimmy can also temporarily pick up disposable weapons such as baseball bats, trash can lids, and wooden planks.

So what if you just want to tool around town instead of going to classes or doing things for people? There are plenty of options in town to keep you busy. Simply riding around on your skateboard or bicycle is fun in its own right. You can also visit the several different stores in town to procure new clothes, a new haircut, or even a new tattoo. The Preppies have a boxing club in town where you can spar against several opponents. You can also find your way into the local carnival to play several different games including a shooting range and a dunk tank. The carnival also has a go-kart track with several different races to beat.

If you want to do all these things, you’ll need copious amounts of spending money. Certain missions will net you some cash, but there are also a few different jobs in town that are also a good way to make money. You can start a paper route or mow the grass in the park. Eventually, several bike races show up around town that are a good way to earn money while having a bit of fun at the same time. Bullworth also has a ton of collectibles to track down including rubber bands, “Grottos & Gremlins” trading cards, and smashable garden gnomes.

Now with all these different things to do, you might think that the quality of each activity might not be up to snuff, but you’d be wrong. Each task, job, and mini-game is well-polished and fun to play. I tip my hat to Rockstar for making a ton of disparate parts come together into a cohesive whole where everything feels like it belongs with everything else.

As a kid, almost everything has the potential to feel like an adventure, and Bully does a great job of capturing this vibe. A large contributor to this feeling is the excellent use of music in the game. In particular, the music that plays when you are riding your bicycle around captures the spirit of running off on random escapades. Additionally, different “chase” music will play depending on what clique is trying to run you down. Bully’s score also helps to set the somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone of the game. The world containing Bullworth Academy isn’t to be taken very seriously, and the music definitely fits within the humorous atmosphere.

Bully overcomes some of the inherent problems with sandbox-style games by providing a more focused experience in a world that isn’t quite as sprawling as some open-world games. The world is big enough to feel pretty open, but it is also small enough that you won’t be getting lost and it doesn’t take forever to get to your next objective. The game gives you enough freedom to play it like you want to, and there is enough variety in the missions that you’ll never get stuck doing something you don’t like for very long. Pretty soon you’ll be back on your skateboard, causing mayhem, and having a ton of fun.

Overall Grade: B+

Alright, I have to apologize up front. The evil podcast faeries came along and stole 2 hours of this episode from my computer. I went into the living room, and came back to an 11 minute episode. I don’t know what happened. One minute it was there, the next it was not.

So, what you are about to hear is the live version of the show. For the most part, it is decent quality. There are some sections where it has bad echos though. My apologies. Again, I have no idea what happened to the good version. If the echoing gets too bad, it fixes itself after a little bit. Hope you enjoy!

Following on the heels of yesterday’s Microsoft  conference, it’s time for Nintendo to step up to the plate. In my opinion, Nintendo needs a good show. I considered last year to be a flop with only Wii Fit and Mario Kart as their major announcement. But more importantly, I feel that Microsoft threw down the gauntlet yesterday when they announced their Avatars (Creepily similar to Miis). Either way, I will be covering the event live. I’ll type everything as it happens here, in case you can’t or don’t want to watch. Then I’ll try to post some actual articles about what happens. Though with the Sony event coming up following the Nintendo conference, it may be a bit later.

12:00pm – Here we go. Getting started…

12:08 – The show is live now.

 12:10 – Shaun White Snowboarding announced using Wii balance board. Saw that coming. Looks pretty intuitive and easy. An improvement on using the board purely for aerobics.It’s exclusive to Wii. Duh?

12:15 – Nintendo president is on stage now.

12:18 – The makers of Mario and Zelda are hard at work on new games (I take that to mean they won’t be announcing anything then). However, the new titles like Wii Sports and Wii Fit are also important, and have been well supported by consumers. Sales stats, sales stats, sales stats. Microsoft kept it to like 5 minutes. Why can’t everyone else? Hearing it in Japanese heavy English makes it even hard to take.

12:22 – Zzzzzzzz

12:23 – Creator of Animal Crossing on a video now to announce "Animal Crossing: City Folk". World goes on without you. Adds a city-scape. You can choose to "Put on a mask to look like your Mii" rather than that creepy looking little boy. New accessory called "Wii Speak". Allows everyone in your room to talk to a room full of other players. That sounds like a "bad idea". They didn’t want to make a head set. Ultimately, it looks like the DS version. Guess that’s cool if you dig that game.

12:28 – Reggie announces the game will release "by the end of the year" with the Wii speak microphone. Oh for crying out loud. More freaking sales numbers. I get it. Wii and DS sells. Announce some stuff.

12:33 – Thought he said he was going to keep this short.

12:36 – Thank God. He shut up finally. Now showing Star Wars Clone Wars with light saber duels. Easily the coolest thing shown so far. Holiday 2008.

12:37 – Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party – Looks like another big mini-game game. Which is cool. Rayman is very fun.

12:38 – Call of Duty World at War. Looks meh, like most realistic games on the Wii.

12:40 – More stats. Girls like DS. Guitar Hero On Tour Decades is on the way. As is Spore Creatures. Also known as the gimped version.

12:43 – Pokemon Rangers: Shadows of something or another. DS Game. Plus Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. Set in Liberty City. That’s pretty big, for a hand held.

12:44 – Using the DS for Airport stuff, resteraunt locators, etc. Ok? Oh, and a cookbook.

12:47 – Reggie comes on stage to talk about the Wii Motion Plus. Something that was announced yesterday or the day before. It’s a clip-on for the Wii-mote that makes it more accurate. Thank God.

12:48 – Wii Sports Resort "is literally a day at the beach".The first game on the title…discus with your dog. The motion plus seems to improve your control a lot. The game looks a bit cheesy. Also, the game will come with a motion plus and a Wii mot jacket.

12:50 – A Jet Ski game in Wii Sports. That looks pretty cool. Should be a full Wave Race game.

12:52 – 1 to 1 (What you do, your Mii does) sword dueling. Cool.

12:54 – Wii Sports launches next spring. Did it seriously take that long to realise such a cool idea needed a sequel?

 12:56 – Some free range drumming being shown using the wiimote/nunchuck as drum sticks. And the Balance Board as a bass pedal. Now, Miyamoto is play the Saxaphone with the wiimote. It’s for Wii Music. Sounded pretty good. How will it sound for regular people. And ultimately, what’s the point? Apparently, there is no skill involved. The Wii plays the notes based on the song you are playing.

1:01 – Violin, Sax, Drums, Guitar, Piano, A variety of percussion instruments.The drums feature a lesson to teach you to play the drums "in just a few weeks". Orchestra game is included in Wii Music.

1:05 – Got a group of people making a band to play the Mario song live. Very weird. Kind of cool, but games that play themselves don’t usually end up being much fun.

1:08 – Are they seriously wrapping things up now? I hope to God they have a cool announcement to wrap things up with.

1:10 – ….nope. God, what a horrible conference. That’s worse than the Sony E3 2006 conference.

A majority of the week’s events will happen on Monday and Tuesday, as the biggest surprises of the convention generally happen amongst the formal stage presentations (And even then, the majority of the news will likely come from the console makers’ shows).

As such, in order to allow for a majority of the news from the show to take place before we record (You know, so we can actually discuss it), we are going to have to hold off on the E3 Discussion episode. We apoligize to anyone that would’ve been available on the original day, but will now miss the show. However, it’s just about the only way of doing it properly.

The E3 Discussion episode of GeekiNput will take place on Wednesday, July 16th at 8pm EST/5pm PST. The remaining GeekiNput shows will not be effected by this change of schedule, and will continue to record on Mondays.

We hope everyone understands and can still make it.

Rock Band 2 has just been made official. Releasing in September on the Xbox 360, with the other consoles recieving the game "later this year". In addition, IGN has an excellent interview up with harmonix over at their site. Check it out. Some of my favorite bits from the article:

The most important question. Will Rock Band 1 DLC be playable in Rock Band 2?

Dan Teasdale: Yes. We’ve been developing Rock Band as a music platform from the start. All of the songs that you’ve purchased so far (and will be able to purchase in the future) are instantly playable and fully supported in Rock Band 2. We’ve even added some cool new features that let you play your DLC in different ways, which I think people will be very excited to get their hands on.

…

"Rock Band 2’s instruments will not disappoint. Like I mentioned before, our philosophy here is to innovate, then perfect. Along those lines, we’ve been able to take all of the feedback we’ve received to make quieter, more realistic, and more reliable instruments."

…

"Rock Band 2 has the strongest playlist we’ve ever assembled, and I think fans will be blown away not just at the spread, but also at the caliber of acts we’ve attracted."

…

"We’ve taken almost everything people have asked for in Rock Band and added it to Rock Band 2, as well as including some "first time ever" features."

More details will be released at E3 this year. Join us July 15th for GeekiNput’s live discussion of all the E3 events, including Rock Band 2!