While on-rails games are a thing of the past, Umbrella Chronicles does what it needs to do- make shooting zombies fun.
The Bad: In-game graphics are worse than Resident Evil 4's, from 2005; playing a long time gets boring; voice acting is decent, but not great; little control over the camera; no Resident Evil 2 levels; the aiming system is noticeably so-so.
Resident Evil 4 completely revitalized and changed up the old, aging franchise of a massive zombie invasion in Raccoon City. The camera work, control system, graphics, creepy music, and new emphasis on action made for one of the greatest games ever made.
Umbrella Chronicles is a completely different take, telling the history of the Umbrella Corporation, creators of the zombifying T-Virus. This is basically the background to Resident Evil 4, which focused on a new virus that Umbrella was trying to steal to help bring back the dead company.
Unlike RE4, this one is an on-rails shooter, meaning you won't be controlling your characters movement, it's first person, and sadly, there's little camera control. But nevertheless, it's pretty fun to blast some zombies with a buddy, as you can imagine.
The control system is noticeably simplistic. You'll be shooting, knifing, throwing grenades, switching out guns, and reloading- that's about it. It's not a very big step up from Wii Sports in terms of buttons, meaning your dad, for example, who just got convinced games are still fun, can probably get into it pretty easily. Basically, Capcom gave a rated M Wii Sports a shot, with shooting, and it turned out pretty well.
The buttons are all responsive of course, and reloading is great, but the aiming system is a little off. The pointer doesn't seem very precise, making it even harder to pull off nearly-impossible critical hits, to blow off zombie heads the way you want to.
On the upside, the game is capable of utilizing the Wii Zapper, in case you were wondering why you got that and Link's Crossbow Training. The buttons are pretty easy to handle, as you just need a shoot button, a switch guns button, and an alternate item button (for your knife and grenade), and it feels more like a gun. While the Zapper's B Button trigger doesn't pick up that you hit it 100% of the time, it's much easier to aim accurately, and it's a pretty cool feeling.
The graphics and music are both major disappointments though, coming from the franchise that just proved the Gamecube could do five times what people thought it could. The Wii is capable of twice that, so Umbrella Chronicles, by all rights, should have some spectacular graphics.
Unfortunately, no. The cutscenes look pretty nice, but in-game, the graphics are weak- more like a Gamecube title, but worse than RE4.
The sound, in terms of shooting and grenades, is excellent. The voice acting is so-so and the script is cheesy, but that's basically a staple of Resident Evil by now, so that's not too bad. So long as Jill isn't almost a Jill Sandwich...
And the music is just so-so too. It is kind of cool once in awhile, but it doesn't creep up on you like Resident Evil 4's, which added a lot of scare to the game. Instead it's kind of loud and obnoxious when it should be trying to be quiet, then loud at certain parts, like a horror movie/game usually does. It's not that it's particularly bad, but it doesn't fit.
As for gameplay, you'll find the pointer issue isn't terrible, but it's kind of difficult pulling off critical hits. These one-hit K.O.s are judged for your score in each level, so it's important to do well on them, but they're extremely hard to get. You have to hit exactly at the hair line of the zombie in question to make the head blow up, and being more exact would've helped. On the upside, the pointer does show you when you'll make a critical hit.
There's a lot of meat to the game, surprisingly. Fifteen to twenty hours of levels are packed in here, bringing you through Resident Evil 0, 1, 3, and a couple completely new areas. There's no Resident Evil 2 support, which is disappointing as it's considered one of the best games in the series. Still, a new part of Ada's history is revealed, a secret HUNK level is available for hardcore fans to salivate over, and Umbrella's End is finally shown, the missing link in the story.
I personally don't understand the complaints about the Umbrella's End section. I found them a lot of fun, relatively difficult (expectedly, being at the end), and they informed us about the destruction of Umbrella's last facility the way we wanted, not Resident Evil 4's glossing over of the fact. Plus, Wesker's perspective all game is awesome to see, as he's one of the coolest characters, and a villain.
Mulitplayer's a lot of fun, and one of the best parts of the game, but some levels can't be done in multiplayer, which is a bit of a nuisance. Still, you can probably perfect your attempts through each level more efficiently in single player, so you can level up your guns and unlock secret levels.
Playing one or two levels every once in awhile is a blast, but playing much more than that, as you'd expect, gets kind of dull and repetitive. That's a shame if you're a big Resident Evil fan and want to blast through the game, but since this game kind of aims to let new gamers in easy, it might be good that a lot of the fun is best in short bursts. Upgrading all the guns, getting the highest scores on each level, and playing through all three difficulty levels will definitely take some time too, so that'll help keep you coming back for more.
Overall, Umbrella Chronicles comes in as a success. The story pieces fill in hardcore gamers and introduce new Resident Evil fans to the history of the franchise, plus the controls aren't too bad for newcoming gamers. That allows for a broad appeal, so despite the pointer issues, disappointing graphics, and the fact the formula isn't changed up much to keep it fresh for long periods of time, Umbrella Chronicles is definitely worth a look.
If you've played all the games in the series, you'll get some great story bits. If you loved Resident Evil 4 and want to see what came before it, this is probably a better choice than going back and playing the old, aging games. If Wii Sports just got you into gaming and you're old enough for M rated games, this is for you too. Let's shoot some zombies, Raccoon City's packed with'em.