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The Conduit (number 1) was a pretty decent game, kept me playing all the way through but didn't offer much replayability. Online was fun, but due to my own slow internet at the time I didn't play much. The Conduit 2 coming out soon for Wii looks to be much more awesome, it's something I am easily interested in, especially with the multiplayer. The game also looks like it matured a little bit in terms of presentation, no longer are you Mr. Cool Sunglasses fighting with the voice of Hercules telling you what to do, but a more beefed up killing machine going against some bigger badder monsters, with even cooler weapons. The maps are more open, instead of tight hallways leading you in one direction. Basically it looks like a mix of Perfect Dark (the N64 one), Killzone, and Halo - Yeah, all from different families but that's what it looks like, and that's not a bad thing.

But this isn't about Conduit 2, this news report is about High Voltage Software flat-out saying that the Conduit series is going to be on the 3DS if they have any powers to make it be. By the way, they are making it be, they already have a pretty smooth transition of moving Conduit 2 stuff (as in-house testing) into the 3DS, like maps, weapons, enemies, and yes, the engine. I guess it's going better than anyone of us would expect too, they are already in talks with SEGA about publishing a game if it were to exist. How do I feel about this? it sounds pretty rad to me personally.

Read more... for the developer discussion pulled directly from Eurogamer.

Conduit 3DS in development

Wii science fiction first-person shooter series Conduit is in development for the Nintendo 3DS, Eurogamer can reveal.

High Voltage chief creative officer Eric Nofsinger told Eurogamer: "Now that we're winding things down a lot of our resources are on pulling this technology over to 3DS.

"We are very much pulling over this engine and this technology on this new hardware." The results are "very good".

"We're still early. The resolution is definitely lower, but the screen real estate is smaller so it balances out. We've not had a lot of severe optimisation yet, but we're going to be able to have something very close to this [Conduit 2] on the 3DS probably by GDC.

"We've got environments from this already up and running around. You can shoot, you can select different weapons and you can see enemies. It runs pretty darn well with full 3D and everything."

Although development is at an early stage, and High Voltage is is yet to ship Wii game Conduit 2, it has already had talks with SEGA - which published The Conduit and is set to publish Conduit 2 - about distribution of the product.

"I would guess that SEGA will be interested," Nofsinger said. "I had a nice conversation just yesterday with their head of artist and repertoire. At DICE, the conference in Vegas that's coming up, we'll probably have some more chats."

Nofsinger added that High Voltage is particularly impressed by Nintendo's decision to streamline the Friend Code functionality for the 3DS - and hopes it will enable a true multiplayer shooter experience on the handheld.

"We're very excited about that system and what we're going to be be able to do on it," he explained. "The work we've done with the Wii, we're going to have a serious leg up. It's quite different than developing for the DS and the DSi. Developers like us that have more of a console experience on GameCube and on Wii are going to be able to take advantage of the 3D better and they're going to be able to do a little bit more with the hardware than people who are coming at it from the straight DS angle and used to doing more 2D, or very limited 3D, kinds of things."

Commenting on how Conduit would fit into the line-up of 3DS games Nofsinger said, "There's nothing like it at all. We can be a shining star on this."

The Nintendo 3DS is due out in Europe on 25th March.

-News by Wesley Yin-Poole