Shortly before High Voltage Software released The Conduit last year on the Wii, it announced a few more projects, one of which was a 3D tournament fighter for the Wii titled “Gladiator A.D.”

Since that time there haven’t been too many announcements about the title which was said to run on the company’s patented Quantum 3 physics and reportedly utilize Motion Plus, but today a new post showed up on Sega’s official blog introducing us to a vaguely familiar-looking title, “Tournament of Legends.”

From Sega’s blog post:

“Tournament of Legends features epic battles in fantastic fighting arenas where they will wield mythical blade weapons, launch 40 magic attacks, and dodge giant mythological creatures that protect the battle lairs. In intense one and two-player fights, players master  a range of character and weapon based magic attacks; including unleashing, amongst others, a man-eating lion, Jupiter’s Storm, Thor’s Fury and a nest of venomous snakes.

Tournament of Legends strives to offer even the most sophisticated Wii gamer a rich weapon fighting experience. Players will be able to switch weapons and enchantments with other characters or compete in various Wii Remote™/Nunchuk™ controller challenges which include dodging giant mythological creatures or restoring health and armor during fights.  The game also features an Interactive Training mode and supports the Classic Controller™.”

So it looks like Gladiator A.D. was merely a tentative title until the marketing department at Sega could come up with something a little better, but it’s a bit odd that the company didn’t formally announce a change of title with its blog post.  Also strangely absent is any mention of the previously reported Motion Plus support.

The blog post does seem to clear up one thing though: a continued relationship between Sega and High Voltage Software.  After The Conduit’s mediocre/decent sales (which last we officially heard was around 270,000 units), there was certainly a question as to whether Sega would publish the rest of High Voltage Software’s Wii titles such as The Grinder.  The upcoming release of Tournament of Legends seems to suggest that yes, Sega will.

Tournament of Legends is scheduled to release on May 18, 2010, exclusively for the Wii.

We’ve known a few things about High Voltage Software’s second major Wii FPS, The Grinder, for a little while now: it will feature a grindhouse art style and gameplay reminiscent of Left 4 Dead, use The Conduit’s Quantum 3 physics engine, and support both online and offline multiplayer.

Several gaming publications also have reported that the title will feature four-player co-op both offline and online.  This information appears to stem from an IGN interview conducted last year wherein High Voltage stated that “We think Left 4 Dead set the standard for this type of game and we fully intend to support four players.”

Now, however, gaming magazine Nintendo Power has revealed in its February 2010 issue that The Grinder is “being designed for two-player co-op play locally and via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, and will also include a traditional competitive component.”

So the good news is that competitive deathmatches a la The Conduit’s multiplayer will be alive and well in this title, perhaps both online and offline.  The bad news is that it appears the local and online co-op multiplayer may have been cut in half from four to two players.

Other than that, Nintendo Power has reaffirmed that the title will support the Motion Plus accessory, which gaming website Kotaku talked about last year in its feature on the game.

We’ve contacted High Voltage for comment on whether or not the multiplayer has been halved or not, and whether it applies to offline, online or both.  We’ll keep you posted on any information we receive.

Yesterday Nintendo released Wii System Update version 4.2, and aside from annoying the modding community by automatically removing the Homebrew Channel, 4.2 seems to have patched a certain problem with the Wii’s flagship first-person shooter, The Conduit.  Several Conduit players have quickly reported that the game’s now infamous spawn glitch has ceased to occur since 4.2’s introduction.

This news arrives months after a report by NintendoEverything that the game’s developer, High Voltage Studios, was working closely with Nintendo for a potential solution to a glitch in the game’s multiplayer mode.

The spawn glitch was a bug that would occur randomly when joining a match, and it would manifest itself by way of a 1/2 or 1/4 reticule in the middle of the screen.  The player would then be stuck in their spawn location, unable to move or fire until the match had ended.  Sometimes the spawn glitch could repeat itself two or three times, leading to much frustration since a system restart would generally be needed to bypass the flaw.

Below is an example of the spawn glitch at work:

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Media outlets have a new reason to fear the ire of angry Nintendo fanboys, and this time it’s not related to Mario, Zelda, or any other Nintendo properties.  Rather, the problem stems from certain inaccuracies, or shall we say, disagreements that gaming publication GamePro posted in its recent review of the Wii’s blockbuster FPS title, The Conduit.  And it essentially has little to do with the score.

Many of the most reputable review sites and publications scored the game around the 80 percent range – we scored it at 8.5, IGN gave it an 8.6, Nintendo Power and GamesRadar gave it an 8 – and GamePro actually followed fairly closely giving it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

So what was the problem?  Aside from admittedly reviewing the game without even touching the online multiplayer mode – a feature which garnered the most praise from the gaming press – GamePro criticized The Conduit for “terrible motion controls” and “unimpressive graphics,” two features that other gaming publication lauded.  For instance, G4, which scored the game lower overall than GamePro at 3 out of 5 stars, still praised it for “engaging, responsive controls” and “slick visual effects.”
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Back two console generations ago, Nintendo sat squarely on top of the console first-person shooter market.  Staples like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and the Turok series appeased itchy trigger fingers while ports of PC shooters such as Doom, Quake and Forsaken filled in the gaps.  If you wanted a good RPG, you went to the PlayStation.  But if you wanted a good first-person shooter, you went to the Nintendo 64.

With the launch of the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, things changed a bit.  Nintendo’s new disc-based console seemed to be nearly bereft of the FPS genre while Microsoft’s first entry in the console market, the Xbox, debuted the new industry standard: Halo.

Nintendo never really seemed to recover its once renowned FPS status, even with the release of the Wii in 2006, which promised unprecedented aiming controls on a console as evidenced by Retro Studio’s Metroid Prime 3.  The sad truth was that despite the fact that a nunchuck could be attached to the Wii remote for total aiming and movement control, most publishers seemed to focus on the Wii remote alone, releasing one rail shooter after another.

So along came High Voltage Software last year – a developer known (or perhaps unknown) for kid-friendly titles such as Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and The Grim Adventure of Billy and Mandy – announcing that it was developing a hardcore FPS exclusively for the Wii.  Interest in screenshots and videos of The Conduit quickly picked up momentum among the Wii audience, creating one of the most anticipated third-party titles on the system.

So with the game finally in our hands, the question arises: does the Conduit live up to the hype?  The answer is, yes.  But that “yes” comes with a qualifier, which is, “Yes, for a Wii title.”

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With its June 23 release date just around the corner, The Conduit was hardly a new or shocking property at this year’s E3.  But I just couldn’t help stopping by to get some hands-on experience with the final build of High Voltage Studio’s killer app.

Though it has been stated many times before, The Conduit’s graphics cannot be done justice by screenshots alone.  Playing the game in person can be quite deceiving, and I had to constantly remind myself (as well as our senior editor, Christiaan) that I wasn’t playing a PS3 or Xbox 360 title.  The game’s Quantum 3 engine utilizes a variety of graphical features such as pixel shaders, bump mapping, and a ton of other terms I don’t fully comprehend.  The result is what I can honestly label one of the most beautiful games on the Wii. read more…