Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
aka:
Biohazard: Umbrella Chronicles,
REUC
Moby ID: 31396
Wii version
Probably the slickest reference book you'll ever see.
The Good
LET'S TALK GAME PLAY
- Good Pacing.
- Very pretty 'file-folder' interface for menu's; weapons and scenario's on Polaroid's, very smart.
- Reward's system was easy to gauge - easy to plan when and how to get the next upgrade/scenario/file.
- Being able to move the camera with the nun-chuck stick helped to grab items/ammo.
- Good Camera.
- Any game that rewards you for shooting anything and everything (to uncover secret files, etc.) is a lot of fun.
- Ammo carrying over to next mission (or any mission) is nice.
- Good range of difficulty w/forgiving check-points.
- Game does well at building stress and frantic feelings.
- Great "Fan" moments included.
- Boss Fights are exciting and well scripted, allowing for 'twitch reflexes' to save the player damage.
LET'S TALK GRAPHICS
- If you read the trivia for this game you'll understand more about the graphics Capcom had to work with. For what they started with they did a good job. This is a game where the set pieces are cannon fodder, they work well.
- The character models in game are detailed and dynamic, have good motion capture, and are upscaled versions from their respective games.
- The weapons leave bullet holes, grenades blow craters in the ground - very thankful for that.
- The enemies are well textured and move convincingly.
- Blood splatter and head-explosions look good.
LET'S TALK SOUND
- The sound is good throughout - the proper voice-actors were used and monsters were maybe even recycled from the Gamecube games. Weapon noises are appropriate and convincing. My favorite sound is this scintillating sound your handgun makes when you get the odd critical hit out of it!
LET'S TALK STORY
- For a game that was meant to condense and recap the stories of the Resident Evil games, this game has a surprising amount of original content at the end, and that is a good thing... Unfortunately I don't think it works with the RE:5 storyline.
- The story-work does very well to re-show climactic moments from the high-lighted games, from different angles, without breaking from canon (much). The videos are well produced, short, and worth collecting and watching later.
**The Bad**
LET'S TALK GAME PLAY
- This game is hard to play with the Wii-Zapper, or any other gun-con plastic holder thing for the single simple reason that you are using a trigger to pull the trigger instead of your finger. The game requires some pretty good accuracy, and the gun-con's just mess me up. Also worth mentioning that weapon switching is done via the D-pad on the Wii-mote, meaning that you have to cradle the gun (and fly the cursor off the screen) to switch.
- The Resident Evil : Nemesis section is definitely the weakest story arc - despite having Nemesis in it.
- While the games score is mainly remixed from the games in which the scenes take place, there is an absence of the great sound design from the Outbreak series.
- Personally the need to involve the Russians in the Arklay Mansion incident is something I just don't see. I think that the Gamecube Resident Evil remake was about all the changing that this canon story could take. The changes made there (with the V-ACT and Lisa) were positive and dramatically compelling for those of us who'd played the original. Trying to write Mr. Sergei into this whole mess when there are comics, games, and novels already published around established canon is annoying!
**The Bottom Line**
There have been a few attempts in the past to do a Resident Evil 1st person shooter. The 'Survivor' series starting on the PS1, with its best incarnation in 'Dead Aim', still never pulled itself out of mediocrity. Personally I consider the best pre-Umbrella Chronicles RE shooter to be the mini-game in the PS2 version of Code Veronica X. The ability to shoot through infinite numbers of zombies (in a straight line) with the Magnum was down-right fun. The reason the other [gun con] games were merely mediocre is simple - we were given fill-in protagonists and story-lines that we knew would not tie into canon. Umbrella Chronicles give us a compendium of RE back story in bite-size documents and clips, all on one system, and happens to also be a very entertaining game. Didn't play Resident Evil : 0? Here's a re-cap. This was a smart, smart marketing move for the group that jumped on board with RE:4, let them get into the mythos. I'd call this a must-have for the Wii, it is one of the very few games I own for it, and was one of the reasons I picked up the console (being a single 25 year old with no kids).
by Kyle Levesque (904) on May 27, 2011