The Conduit

Company: Nintendo

Publisher: Sega

Developer: High Voltage Software

Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: Wii
ERSB Rating: T for Teen

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Players:

The definition of players can mean different things. But for my purposes, let's say that "player" means:

Within a game, it is noted that "The rules of games take on certain power and a certain potential. Bound by the rules of play, we perform actions that we would never other wise consider-shooting, killing, and betrayals are some. But we also perform actions we would like to think ourselves capable of and have never had the chance to face- courage in the face of danger, sacrifice, and difficult decision making"(pg49).

"The Conduit" partially fulfills the above definition of "players". In this game, the player is not given the opportunity to make decisions; it's completely linear from start to finish. However, it does give you the fantasy world of aliens taking over Washington D.C, and the role of the 1 man army bent on taking the aliens out and uncovering the conspiracy that surrounds it.

Invitation To Play:
The invitation to play for this game is based solely on appeal: the FPS appeal, that is. In FPS, you can only see the world through the main character, Mr. Ford. You can see how the aliens destroyed Washington D.C and they are coming to get you. Another draw to the game is due to the wii mote. The wii mote in this game serves to turn your hand motions into gun movements to shoot down your enemies. By having the wii mote follow hand replications, one can fantasize that they are Mr. Ford

Number of Players:
The number of players for the game can varies. The offline single player pits the individual against the system, while the online component has 12 other human players for the individual to fight against. Therefore, the number of players is dependant on whether you're playing online or single player. Also, the physical form of the opponents can change because they can choose drudge, trust, or military forms.

Roles Of Players:
Offline, there is only one role for the player, and that is to take up the mantle of Mr.Ford. Mr. Ford starts off as a secret service agent to the President of the United States. Then he works for the secret organization known only to the President known as the "Trust". After a short time the player goes rogue when he uncovers the truth to the alien invasion, and what the Trust is really up to.

Player Interaction Patterns:
Within "The Conduit", there are many different types of player interaction patterns. There is: "single player Versus Game", "Player Versus Player", "Multilateral Competition and "Team Competition". All these aspects ,however, are part of the online portion of the Game, except for single player verus game. The offline portion deals with single player Versus Game. The online portion deals with Multilateral Competition (Free for All, Bounty Hunter), which are the game modes.

Rules:
Normal real world physics apply in this game, you cannot walk through walls or destroy buildings in one punch. In addition, the rules in "The Conduit" are simple to follow. First, if the player loses his health, he'll die, forcing the player to re-start back at the last check point.

Procedures:
To start the game, the player hits the "A" button to go into the screen menu. Once at the menu screen, he can choose to play single player, go into the extras menu, or jump online. So, when you start the single play game, all the rules and boundaries start to effect the procedures in single player game by completing the objectives

Resources:
There are many different resources found within "The Conduit". For example, to reload the guns the players needs to find the correct ammo that works with the gun i.e: trust ammo to trust weapons, drudge ammo to drudge weapons. Another resource are grenades. There are three different types of grenades and they each do different things. The first one, flash grenades blind the opponent for a small amount of time. The second one is a radiation grenades which creates a small radiation bubble that sticks to any surface (including players) and sucks the life out of any player. The third grenade is the frag grenade. This is a normal grenade that explodes after one bounce. Another resource to the game is a health bar. In the beginning, the player must mange his health with med kits that are placed throughout the level. Later in the game, simply waiting in an area will recharge health.

Conflict:
Conflict emerges from the players trying to accomplish goals of the game within its rules and boundaries. In addition, conflict is also designed into the game by creating rules, procedures and situations that do not allow players to accomplish their goals directly. The game constantly is undermining the player, challenging him to resolve the situations. In the game, conflict is created by having many factions trying to stop the player from achieving goals. Further, there are puzzles that must be solved, puzzles that derive from the conflict.

Inventory:
The inventory in the game is typical of most FPS. Only a certain amount of ammo can be held for the respective weapons and the player is limited to one pistol type (of any variety: drudge, Trust, Military) and one regular weapon (of any variety). Another aspect of the inventory system is that it also limits players on how many grenades can be carried(8). Health and grenades are parts of the inventory that are not easy to come by. Either a lot of enemies must be killed while health and/or ammo packs are not easily discovered,

Obstacles:
The most obvious obstacle in "The Conduit" is the common puzzle. Every now and then, the main character will have to use the "All Seeing Eye" to uncover hidden puzzles, or land mines to move foreword in the level. The Game Designers also used parts of fallen rubble, or prison bars to keep the game linear and destroying the concept of exploration through an alien invaded D.C

Oppenents:
The main opponents in the single player game are called "Drudge", and they take on various forms. Drudge range from foot soldiers, to flying foot soldiers and huge aliens that are as tall as buildings. However, there are other opponents that occupy the game, too. Trust soldiers use human weapons that have been infused with Drudge weaponry making them extremely dangerous to encounter. The final Enemy types are military soldiers. These soldiers are nothing but cannon fodder, yet they can be dangerous if they have grenades. However, once the individual jumps "online" the opponent changes from computer to human giving the game a new aspect: a thinking human opponent vs a computer. Also the player can use any of the mentioned enemy types to battle on the online matches