This long story-driven rail shooter is okay while it lasts.
THE GOOD (+)
Story wise, it's really good. Leon Kennedy, after escaping the horrors of Raccoon City, teams up with Jack Krauser in search of a man named Javier who got his hands on the Veronica Virus and used it on his own daughter with some disastrous results on a nearby village as well as creatures inhabiting the area. And every once in a while Resident Evil fans will have a big bullet filled with nostalgia hit them when the flashback sequences commence. Yes, much like the Umbrella Chronicles you relive the events of Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica like the boss battles with Mr. X and William Birkin to fighting the Ashford siblings in the South Pole. These are a massive slice of nostalgia for anyone who is a diehard Resident Evil fan and it is pretty neat to revisit these areas again. While the story with Leon and Krauser does hold a backseat, the events of Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica are what REALLY sell this game.
The controls are well executed and responsive. Simply point the Wiimote at the screen and a cursor will appear. Tap the 'B' button to shoot, swing the Wiimote around to reload your weapons, hold 'A' (or 'Z' if you're using the nun-chuck) and swing around as if you were reloading only this allows you to do a melee attack with your knife to fend yourself from creatures that cannot be killed with a gun. Nothing seems unfair when you play through the game control wise.
Needless to say, and kind of pointless, the graphics on The Darkside Chronicles are top-notch for its kind, especially when it's being run on the less powerful Wii. Every character is up to standard, the enemies really give you that 'undead' look especially when there's a horde of them in your face, the bosses are larger than life (literally) and the environments outshine almost everything else. It's still amazing to see how a console who does not have the same graphical power that the PS3 and 360 has, still manages to maintain its own vertical base.
However, the one thing that makes this game shine is multi-player mode. Having a partner nearby really helps in getting through the more annoying areas and give each other a bit of a challenge (i.e: who can beat the level without taking damage or dying, who can kill the most enemies and etc).
THE BAD (-)
Other than the story and huge amounts of nostalgia, this game to me does not have a lot of replay value to it. Especially when you beat it for the first place. Sure the perfectionists out there would like to play the levels again with a character that they didn't use and locate everything else in the game as well as other unlockables such as enemy information though it feels a bit pointless quite frankly.
Also, in multi-player mode, you and your partner share ammo from the weapons that you pick up which does not help things when it's time to encounter the boss. While your human partner is reliable, the A.I. is not. It doesn't help you at all especially when the horde of enemies become unbearable and you also have to keep your eyes on it too cause if the A.I. dies you must start the entire area (if you didn't reach a checkpoint) all over again.
Now the ONE thing that sort of ruins the game a bit would be the shaky camera. It can be very frustrating to defeat a boss such as Mr. X whose only weakness is the head when the camera starts shaking around making the fight a lot more annoying that it should be and making the accuracy a lot worse in the process. Not to mention key items being obscured until they're in plain view for a brief second (i.e: health items hidden behind doors and showing up slightly before going out of view of the crosshairs). It does give it an edge in being a bit challenging since no one in their right mind would be calm in situations like this though it really gets in your way quite a lot.
Also, a lot of the scare factor that made the Resident Evil franchise so popular is almost null and void in The Darkside Chronicles. With every turn taken you automatically know that something is going to pop out at you, plus the remaining scare factor in this game is really cheap at times which takes away a lot of the helplessness one had in a Resident Evil game. It's as if Capcom wanted to drive a story across instead of creating a nail-biting experience in the form of a rail shooter.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Diehard Resident Evil fans would get a kick out of reliving Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica in the form of a rail shooter, plus the controls are well executed and the backstory regarding Leon and Krauser is pretty good. However Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is anything but good with its inferior A.I, cheap scare tactics and annoying camera. Worth a rental at least.