Old school gameplay with an old series bringing a totally new experience.
RE: UC is essentially a best of collection as each chapter goes through one of the Resident Evil games 0,1,3 as well as some exclusive chapters. This isn't some kind of cheap knock out though for cash as there is real effort put in, with every detail recognizable if you had played the originals, as well as extras. Though this is really a game for the fans, anyone can play it.
To sum up a company known as Umbrella had been doing experiments making biological weapons and through the process created a virus that turned humans into zombies causing an outbreak in Racoon city in the US. You play the role of various police officers or others that were swept up in the events including Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Rebecca Chambers Hunk and even Wesker.
The game plays out in a standard on the rails lightgun game with a few twists. For a start the edge of the screen is not entirely what your character is confined to, as you can look around slightly in all directions using the nunchuck giving slightly more visibility and that second chance to get ammo or healing items you may have missed. Secondly being a Resident Evil title guns are not your only option and sometimes not the best choice as the knife will often be more effective against the smaller vermin such as spiders / crows and dogs that attack you and conserving ammo is quite important.
There are various weapons available throughout the game all in classes of magnum, rocket launcher machine gun shotgun etc, all with different stats including attack power, fire rate, reload speed that can be upgraded with stars earned completing levels. Each weapon has it's own ammo as well that will be saved to it between levels and sometimes replaying levels to collect ammo is a good idea as you can only choose one to take with you.
The controls work really well with the game allowing you to shoot, reload, use a knife, throw a grenade all very quickly should you need to, though don't use the wii zapper, I know it should be brilliant but due to rapid button quick time events it's not as comfortable to use as you would think.
The level variation is brilliant with trains, subways, ruined cities and mansions all of which look surprisingly good on the wii, the enemy models are just as detailed with the zombies flesh rotting off in places giving the game a fantastic gruesome atmosphere.
The sound is excellent though disappointingly most of the cheesy lines and bad voice acting from RE1 have been replaced with a much higher quality performance :P Every groan and shriek is pretty much what you would expect from what you are facing matching the visuals for that creepy mood.
RE: UC is full of extras to unlock, including collecting intel giving back story segments to the RE series found hidden in destructible items throughout the whole game including lights, picture frames, tables etc. There are also several hidden mini missions where you can play as different characters to unlock, ranks on each mission to replay and a two player mode to unlock among other things so it should keep you going for quite a while, and this game is no walk in the park, it is made by Capcom after all.
So bottom line is if you like light gun games, love the Resident Evil series and want to see a little more about it then you really can't go wrong with Umbrella Chronicles, at the worst give it a weekend rent as it's possible to finish it in that time.