There has been an increase in the amount of web rumblings surrounding a first person shooter coming to the Wii early next year, The Conduit from High Voltage Software.

Built on the developers’ custom Quantum 3 Game Engine, The Conduit is, essentially, an FPS on the Wii that’s pretending it’s actually on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. In terms of visual complexity, it still falls short of a game on those platforms, but it comes pretty darn close, with features including dynamic environment mapping, interactive water with real-time reflection, and four-stage texture composition including gloss, diffuse, and bump mapping - that’s just a fancy way of saying it has a multitude of graphical features that further convey the illusion that this game is looking impressive.

After multiple showings at a few game conventions over the last year or so, it’s wracked up a sizable amount of interest and awards, with some press calling it the Wii’s best hope of a ‘hardcore’ game in the foreseeable future. Check out the footage to see what the fuss is about.