Were you a little disappointed in
The Conduit? A lot of people were, myself included, although I gave High Voltage Software an A- for effort because they did so much with their first original IP. Well HVS's Chief Creative Officer, Eric Nofsinger, wants the fans to know that he understands. While his hair style is decidedly less extravagant than it was during the first Conduit's development, he's dedicated to making the sequel far and away a much prettier game. In
this post on the SEGA Europe blog he discusses the game's shortcomings, such as bland art style and uninspiring level design, and he talks about how they're fixing those issues in
Conduit 2.
It looks like my original prediction was right--in the first game HVS focused on getting an ambitious engine in place and more creative aspects of the game were sacrificed. It's kind of ironic that so many people complained about the art, because for the first game HVS kept it pretty mundane so players wouldn't be too put off. A mainstream art style can make a game more approachable for the average gamer--in my opinion, art style doesn't get more bland and generic than Halo--but that said I'm glad HVS is focusing on making the Conduit 2 world more distinctive. Check out Eric's post, it has some good info.
