Released on November 13 in the US, the latest incantation of the horror-fest genre made it’s way into the homes of many eager Wii gamers looking for something else besides the happy family friendly offerings of the Wii. Resident Evil : Umbrella Chronicles struck a chord with many Resident Evil fans when it was announced several months ago that it was going to be a light-gun rail shooter. Many folks did not take the news too well, others like me were curious to hear more about it, while others just totally hated the game and concept before it was even released. Nonetheless, love it or hate it, the game is has arrived and interestingly enough, turned out to be everything I expected it to be.

Umbrella Chronicles was a title that confused a lot of folks at first, since the title does not seem to designate a brand new Resident Evil game. And in a sense, it really isn’t, but then again, it sort of is. Umbrella Chronicles is a somewhat short summarization (if thats even a real word) of 4 different Resident Evil games from the past that deals with the downfall of the Umbrella Corporation - hence we get the title “Umbrella Chronicles”. The game begins with the familiar train level scene from the Game Cube’s RE:Zero, continues on in the famous mansion the remake of Resident Evil 1, then glides along the areas in RE:2 and RE:3 Nemesis, then finishes off in a brand new level in Umbrella’s facility. But sadly, no scenes from RE4 like everyone was hoping. Characters you get play as include : Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, Billy Coen, Carlos Oliveira, Ada Wong, HUNK, and Albert Wesker. Nope no Leon Kennedy folks.

How can anyone get tired of that lovely face?

So by now if you been following this game at all, then you would know that Umbrella Chronicles is not your typical survival-horror adventure (or in RE4’s case, survival action) game but takes a new twist in that it is a light gun on-rails shooter game. The thought that Capcom decided to go this route is outrageous to some fans, but ironically its not the first. What many don’t know is that Capcom has been experimenting with light-gun games in the RE genres for a while now such as Resident Evil: Survivor, and the Resident Evil: Dead Aim series. But Umbrella Chronicles to my knowledge, is the first to make a more noticeable impact.

The configuration of the Wii itself already makes it perfect for light gun games. Aside from the typical wiggle waggle you can do with the wii-mote, you can also point and aim. Thus resulting in a perfect control setup for a light gun shooter, which is possibly why Capcom chose to “experiment” their first Wii game as a light gun shooter game. When I first heard Capcom was going to do this, the first thought that popped into my head was WTF? But then I realized that this would in most case resemble the arcade light gun hit “House of The Dead”, which then I thought it may actually be a good thing after all. So what did I think of it? Well lets begin, shall we…

Graphics

If anyone has been following The Wii Effect since its beginning would know that I am graphics whore. Graphics is what I always noticed first in video games whether it be level design, textures, modelling, or artistic flow. And for Umbrella Chronicles, its definitely nothing to brag about. The graphics seems to be basically pulled out of the previous Resident Evil games that each levels take place in. And if you played any of the previous games, everything will look very familiar as if it’s all being re-used (but then again, this is on the Wii so whats new?). Even the cinematic CGI cut-scenes are straight out of the Game Cube’s counterpart. So in essence, the graphics for Umbrella Chronicles is still a generation behind in the Game Cube days. But thats not to say that its totally bad, since RE games generally are known for having great graphics but in this case, even RE4 has the upper edge on it. Granted the zombie closeups will still creep you out a bit if you never really played survival horror games before. I would of just expected a lot more from Capcom, especially when the Wii is most definitely capable of gorgeous visuals seen in Metroid Prime 3, and Super Mario Galaxy. But no luck this time. I give it a 6/10 in graphics.

Controls

Controls couldn’t be any simpler in this light gun shooter game. You simply aim and shoot. But actually, you really don’t have to aim since the target reticule is already visible on the screen. So now all you really have to do is just point and shoot. It was one of the criticisms of Umbrella Chronicles - as if it wasn’t already bad enough that this was going to be an on-rails lightgun shooter, but now you don’t even have to aim, heh. I stated earlier that the wii-mote was perfectly made for this type of game. But since the wii-mote is much too complicated for such a simple act of pointing and shooting (and you just can’t make a Wii game without some type of wiggle waggle gimmick), you also have the ability to instantly reload your weapon just by shaking the wii-mote up and down. Hold down the A button while waggling and now you’re slicing away with your knife. Hold down A then press B and you toss a grenade. You can also easily cycle through weapons by pressing the control pad. Easy, plain and simple that anyone can easily pick up and play. Occasionally you will be required to perform a certain cinematic action (like pressing a button or shaking the wii-mote) similar to what’s done in RE4. I did find it a bit more difficult to perform it in Umbrella Chronicles though since they don’t give you too much time to do it.

I’ll take a pass on this when playing Umbrella Chronicles.

An interesting feature that sets Umbrella Chronicles apart from other light gun shooters game is that you also have the ability to limited degree, pan the view around while the game is moving on it’s rail. Attaching a nun-chuck and moving the control stick will allow you to do so. All though it’s not entirely neccessary needed to play the game, this feature can particularly come in handy when trying to pick up items while the rails moves around.

Umbrella Chronicles also feature support for the upcoming “Wii Zapper“.  While it may enhance the gaming experience in the sense that you’re now holding a “gun”, the Wii Zapper itself is shaped like a sub-machine gun in which you will be hold it with two hands. Since the nun-chuck attaches to it, looking around the game world may be easy, but simple necessary actions such as reloading is probably going to be a pain in the ass when using the Wii Zapper.

For controls, I’d give a 9/10.

Gameplay

Like in any lightgun shooter game, the gameplay for Umbrella Chronicles couldn’t be any simpler. You don’t have to do much except for shoot in the right place at the right time. Depending on which level you’re on the game will follow the storyline of that particular Resident Evil game. The game starts out by allowing you to select which RE character of that game you want to play as, and if you have another wii-mote synced in, the second player can join. Then you’re allowed to select and customize your weapons before jumping into the action.

The gameplay is pretty solid and it need not be anymore complicated. However, when not implemented correctly it could lead to some problems. For the most part, I really did enjoy this game. But there are some aspects of it that really quirked me.

First of all, this game is pretty damm hard. Perhaps I just suck at the simple act of pointing and aiming, but I found this game to be pretty difficult when playing alone. When playing with another player, you still seem to fight the same amount of enemies, but since theres more fire power going on everything is much much easier when playing co-op. Much of the game can be played co-op, but there are a few levels that only allow for a single player to go through. This of course leads to the fact that there is only one check point per level - and if you die, you’ll have to restart on that checkpoint which are spread far apart on each level. The fact that this game is on-rails prevents you from speeding through the levels and you have to wait for the game to move through it for you, so whenever you die you can expect it to take another 10 minutes to get to the end of the level or the next checkpoint no matter what you do. Frickin frustrating.

All the enemies and zombies in Umbrella Chronicles have a weak spot which is usually the obvious - the head. When you have your reticule lined up right on the weak spot, it will begin to flash signalling you to start blasting away. Hitting the weak spot will reward you with a faster kill and cool enemy reactions such as their head blowing off and guts flying everywhere. However, and I do mean however, if you don’t hit the weak spot you really have no clue if the enemy is even taking and damage since there doesn’t seem to be any reaction to getting hit - WTF? The zombies just seem to keep moving towards you before suddenly falling down. Now that always used to bother me, as if Capcom decided to be lazy in this particular aspect. So because of this, one would think that simply aiming for the weak spots would be easy - and for the most part it is. But there are times when a weak spot is literally no more than a few pixels on screen. Good luck getting a clear shot there.

The act of shaking the wii-mote up and down to reload your ammo is simple enough, but the time it takes for it to do so seems a bit longer than what you would expect it to be. Certain weapons take even longer to reload and you really can’t do much except try and slice away with the knife while waiting. This also irks me at times.

So with all the petty faults that is had, one cool thing about Umbrella Chronicles is that nearly every object in the game is destroyable. Often you’ll find yourself target shooting at lights and other hanging objects to uncover different items that will sometimes leads to other unlocks in the game. Chandeliers and other objects can be used to your advantage by shooting it down to crush the enemies or blow them up. Picking up items and new weapons can be tedious work since the view often purposely do not give you enough time to do so (unless you have some insane reflexes), but thats when the ability to look around via the nun-chucks comes in handy.

Overall

Umbrella Chronicles is one of those games thats not really going to blow your minds away, but it won’t be one that you will necessary hate either. Everyone seems to agree that it’s a hands down solid game. It’s hard to really “hate” this game for any reason since it does exactly what you expect a light gun shooter game is suppose to do : let you shoot at things on the screen. But then again, it’s hard to really love this game because of it’s simplistic genre. It does follows the survival horror genre that made games like House of the Dead worked so well. Since the premise of the game is about the Resident Evil series, it follows and summarizes it quite well.

Overall I think this is a decent game for anyone looking to jump right in and play right away. A definite great co-op game to have and will really appeal to both hardcore gamers and casuals gamers alike. Expect a good 4-5 hours a solid game play - enough to keep most of us busy for a little while until Super Smash Bros Brawl launches next year..

So for the final overall score, I’d give Resident Evil : Umbrella Chronicles a 7/10.