The Conduit Game Manual

Everything seems to have nice art except the environments, unfortunately.

I like the art and design. I am still upset about lack of local multi, but if the single player is really fantastic, then I can forgive that.

It sounds amazing!

It appears High Voltage is thinking with portals!

Manual? I was hoping that a discussion of how to control the game (maybe the most important factor in a Wii game?) would be there.

Hmm, cool8| Nice story so far.

Is it just me or do the enemies look like they’ve been ripped directly from Metroid Prime..

I was thinking the exact same thing, Boot Guy Joe. This game is -heavily- inspired by the Metroid Prime series. Which I guess would be a good thing, to some extent.

I think it all looks quite well done but inspired. Not that that’s a bad thing, it seems to be the norm for fps’.

oh man, whoever did the concept art for this REALLY needs to go back and do some more head studies, they make the same noob mistake on each character. How terribly unprofessional.

Apart from the obvious Metroid Prime look to this game is anybody else getting a very strong Perfect Dark feel from it?
If they can capture the feel of the multiplayer my friends and I will all be queueing up for this on release day. We spent ages playing it and have yet to find a comparable experience online now we all live miles away from each other.

The art direction seems incredibly uninspired to be totally honest. And technically poor to boot.

I’m not sure what to be excited about. Ultimately it looks like a game to be quickly forgotten.

ALH, could you explain what you mean, please? The heads look good to me!

I like the art style very much. Yes, it’s similar to Metroid Prime, but that’s only a positive thing. Besides, a lot of fps’s these days rip from Metroid Prime. This games just seems to be doing the same thing, except they’re doing it -correctly-

hey D~N, i just packed away my tablet so i cant do a redline, but if you look at the alignment of the eyes, nose and mouth on every human there ( even he gas mask guy!) theyre all slanted slightly in an unnatural way. its most noticable on the silhouette head. The lower jaw is facing front, but the top of the head and brow are looking off to the left.

Theres something wrong with the humans stances too, theyre a little too wide which just looks rediculous, i mean seriously, they must have some child birthing hips right there. The stances of the insect aliens arent that much better ( theres a lot of freakish thigh action going on which REALLY doesnt look right) but i suppose they can get away with it since theyre aliens.

Every time i see the art for this game it makes me feel a little more confident about myself getting into the industry as a concept artist, i would NEVER let myself get away with those glaring errors on the human characters for something ‘final’.

the game looks good and all. I’m definitely excited for it but good lord what a bloody horrid manual. I pray I’m reading this wrong and that isn’t the entire manual. Robosheep is the only one who picked up on the complete lack of instruction in an instruction booklet? This is probably some sort of promo booklet. I hope. Manuals have gone down hill enough as it is.

You know, at the same time, some bits of art in a book most people won’t even look at once don’t exactly hurt the game itself. I can’t say it’ll affect my opinion of the game… The actual in-game models seem to look fine.

ya but i doubt they’re gonna release the entire manual like 9 months before the game’s released though. they probly want to keep the controls secret

They can’t be serious! Please tell me in 9 months they will give birth to more guns! They only have like, 9!! OMG!!!

@The Wolfkin

This isn’t the full manual, this is just like a little preview fore the game.

starring keanu reeves

“Hi, I’m former president Gerald Ford. Do you like football? Do you like sitting? Well, perhaps we can sit on my couch and watch football while eating pork rinds.”

@ Alh: I see what you mean now. As an art student myself, I’m suprised that I didn’t catch those errors. You made a good call. However, even though I see what you mean, I doubt it’s as big of a deal as you claim. Yes, it’s incorrect, but this booklet is, as stated before, by no means final. A simple matter of style (at least I HOPE it’s style) on the artist’s part isn’t really that bad on a manual that clearly doesn’t have the instructions in it. I doubt more than a few of these pieces are final works.
As you said, it’s definately wrong. But it’s not like a 3-D model will or even -could- reflect the same proportions in 3D space. So there’s no need to worry, because the characters still look cool despite these errors.

I dont think they look all that cool, they have a bunch of lazy textures and the blue/teal thing on the main character is nasty. Looks a little better on the model though. Personal taste i guess – i have a very critical eye x_x.

That cover art would have been awesome…in 1990.

I think they are purposely going for a Perfect Dark feel, but if they don’t put 4 player split-screen multi-player in they game they’ll miss the point entirely.

Right now, this is the only Wii game I have left to really look forward too, so really hope this does well.

Everyone, vote-bomb these guys and demands split-screen!

Doesn’t bode well for the combat. . .

Another art student here, haha.

Buuut, I reeeally don’t want to rant. I hate being a hater… but… This one is grating me.

Even if it’s a case of style I don’t see much to hope for it. It just feels like a big compromise between all the big names already mentioned (which they say it is in their interview, so we can say this fairly safely). This is never a good idea as far as art direction is concerned, I’m sure. This is not good ’style’. You can’t mistake metroid for halo-they both have very compelling character design and ‘unique’ art direction.
Yet this feels like it’s taking the worst from both, and it’s bland (design wise, technically good art or not)

While I feel I can say this objectively, I realise I’m not really backing it up enough. Ack, I’m hardly articulate when it comes to art-talk (something I’m learning, though!)

Nothing is sacred as far as art is concerned, and anyone can take any style they chose, so be it. But they really don’t seem to be doing anything interesting with it, and from what I have read and what I have seen, they have little intention to. I have no words for the main character, ack. He is the symbol of boring first-person-shooters in my eyes.

The main selling point seems to be how they’re pushing the hardware, which is difficult to get excited about. If you want shiny the wii isn’t really the place, and I couldn’t care less…

(slightly relevant talk by Phil Fish, if interested!: http://www.interfacesmontreal.org/en/videos/aim-low-what-the-industry-can-learn-from-the-indiesmore basically: more ’shiny’ = more money/time put has to be into art assets = less risks taken = boring games)

And just too prove how important art direction is, despite all the hardware pushing in their claims, the environments in all the screenshots I just took a look at were equally uninspiring, and mainly consisted of boring corridors and repeated textures into the distance.

Ah. Well. It’s all work in progress, I realize.

They do say something about the enemies exhibiting some sort of human-like intelligence, which I would find interesting, but they often say this… So until they prove me wrong I can’t get excited about that either.

Again, the above was all pretty unnecessary, sorry xP
…Still grating me though! The genre in general also frustrates me so perhaps this is not my place

http://www.interfacesmontreal.org/en/videos/aim-low-what-the-industry-can-learn-from-the-indies

The link broke :3

Pita discovers the purpose of the link to Tiny URL!

http://tinyurl.com/6ntm3t

For those complaining about the weapons, notice that they’re missing the shotgun and pistol from the actual trailer, so there’s obviously going to be more.

Also, I don’t understand what the big complaint is about the anatomy of the faces and hips. Again, most characters are wearing something covering their faces, so I never would’ve noticed anything (and still have trouble doing so now), especially since their heads are somewhat cocked to the side. The hips are also covered by low-crotch pants and ponchos, so I don’t know how you can tell from that either.

I don’t know, I’m just saying. I’ll wait and see how the game looks in motion before any final judgements are made.

IAN, the complaints are more about presentation than anything. The concept artist being unable to render a decent face and having gaps in anatomy knowledge wont effect the fans- and by the looks of it hasnt effected the 3D in the slightest. However, for those who do spot them, the mistakes ( and PITA had an excellent point about the design- pretty much spot on )say to some of us that this game may be halfassed, i mean if theyre using flawed art for the promo work then how do we know the game itself isnt going to be a buggy POS? Theres obviously little quality control, even if thats only true when it comes to the promotional material.

I find it amusing that people seem to be really enthusiastic about this game that doesnt really seem to have much special going for it besides the fact that its on wii and its not made by nintendo. I doubt anyone would have paid this as much attention if it was on a PC/console with some better competition in the genre. I mean, props to the little guy, ‘budget’ titles arent always awful, but dayum.

@ ALH

Well this game is only at alpha stages. The graphics aren’t touched up yet and they’re only working on the basic structure at the moment.

The reason everyone’s excited is because FPS’s on Wii are very scarce. Metroid, Red Steel, and Medal of Honor – that’s pretty much all the FPS’s on the Wii, and one of them sucks. There’s a lot to get excited for because, when you think Wii and when you look at the controler, the first thing that should come to you mind should be “wow, a system built for FPS’s!” However, this hasn’t been the case, and so when this one is revealed there is much excitement and jubilation.

I guess one could say that after playing Metroid, there is good reason to be excited because of how perfect the controls worked and how much everything made sense. We (the people excited for The Conduit) just want more of that fun! …crappy promo art or not.

as long as it’s not the official final version of the full manual I’ll just enjoy it for what it is and wait for more. I got no problems.

I’d just like to make a formal apology for my comments. I took the deconstruction of things too far, and injected too much of my own personal bias. The funny thing is, when i first saw the conduit work i had nothing but respect for it despite other people (on the forum where i first saw it)ripping it to shreds.

It seems that here i have became the monster i was defending against, to levels which border on blind idiocy- which as i have had ever so kindly pointed out to me, was not the smartest thing i have ever done, especially considering my personal situation.

While i know its unlikely, if the artist who did this is reading, i mean absolutely no disrespect -my work is certainly not to this standard.

I foolishly approached this with an ‘internet tough guy’ attitude, and am now cringing reading my own comments. This is certainly one mistake i will never make again

Am I the only one who’s getting a Halo feel for this game. I mean, the whole aliens vs earth thing.

@Krazy Koopa

Aliens Vs Earth was done before Halo.

Maybe it is just me hoping, but like someone mentioned above, I DO get a slight Perfect Dark vibe from this game.

I know it sounds like we’re all kicking this things ass, but… They misspelt Assault Rifle (Assult Rifle.)

I work in advertising for a newspaper, see little things like this creep out all the time!

I agree that the alien characters do look as if they are inspired by Metroid, but seeing they way they look and move on screen might lend them a completely different feel.

Is it just me or does the picture on the top of page 13 seem to be the military base from Ang Lee’s Hulk movie? Just watched it again yesterday so it’s quite fresh in my mind.

:!: my friend think the pulse box heals your health, and the regenorator unit gives you shields like in halo. eh? eh? is he right?