The Umbrella Chronicles is meant to be a description of the events that lead to the downfall of the evil corporation players fought against until the release of Resident Evil 4. To be totally frank, it’s more a description of those events by someone with a rather spotty memory; the characters and events involved in Resident Evil 2 are nowhere to be seen, while several other events in the series have been slightly or significantly altered and some significant characters (Barry, for example) are not mentioned at all. Regardless, The Umbrella Chronicles gets the main stuff right, and elaborates on a new chapter in the Umbrella story, with Jill and Chris now having a direct hand in the downfall of the company.
Umbrella Corporation always put its labs in the most inconvenient places
One must applaud Capcom for their efforts with The Umbrella Chronicles’ presentation. This is the first time that the early Resident Evil scenarios have been presented without the use of pre-rendered backgrounds, and the level of detail captured in the real time versions just goes to show that Capcom are one of the teams to beat on the Wii. Sure, some of the character models are recycled from the GameCube games, but the fact that they still look great is testament to Capcom’s graphical prowess. It’s not all roses though – some frame rate drops and some low quality pre-rendered cutscenes show that Capcom is not without fault. Also, despite a classy soundtrack, the voice acting is just as awkward as ever.
Many expected that the Wii would attract a number of light gun games, and The Umbrella Chronicles is the first such title to appear in Australia, released alongside the Wii Zapper shell. Of course, there’s absolutely no need to use said peripheral – it is kind of just a glorified piece of molded plastic and holds no distinct advantage for the player. Heck, the player barely needs the nunchuck outside of the occasional little extra panning of the camera needed to find the odd extra item.
Shoot the rail instead of...
Part of the beauty of The Umbrella Chronicles comes in its simplicity. Unlike the Gun Survivor titles, The Umbrella Chronicles is completely on rails, so there’s none of that tricky control system that completely destroyed those titles. For the most part, players simply point the cursor over the enemies on the screen and repeatedly pull the trigger until the enemy goes down. Of course, if one wishes to survive a bit longer, they’ll have to go for slightly more decisive hits; each enemy has a weak point which will take it down in one shot. Most common enemies such as zombies, dogs and hunters will require a head shot to go down, while insects and spiders will need a shot to the thorax. Hit zone detection seems a little spotty on some of the zombies; the headshot hitbox on the zombies seems to be on the top left side of their heads, but a shot to the leg first will make a headshot easier.
The game also features a number of quick time events in regular gameplay and cutscenes. Zombies typically can grab a hold of the player character, which will prompt one to vigorously shake the remote to trigger a defensive manouever, while in a boss fight the player might have to hit a button at a specific time to dodge a strong attack. One quick time event is even a homage to the only good scene in the Resident Evil film series. Weapons are plentiful on the path to the destruction of Umbrella. Players start out with a pistol and another weapon of their choosing, which is initially a shotgun. Throughout the initial playthrough, extra guns are unlocked, expanding the pre-mission range. Holding A and wiggling the remote around will trigger the knife, which helps against enemies which like to stick to the screen, while the grenade is handy for clearing the screen.
Umbrella’s downfall is broken up into four separate case files, each with three main story missions and a selection of bonus missions. A rank is assigned to the player after the end of each mission based on factors such as completion time, critical hits and items destroyed. The better the ranking, the more stars the player earns. Stars can be used to upgrade the capabilities of the player’s weaponry to hold more ammunition and do more damage.
Remember, in these politically correct times they're called the 'living-impaired'
The first, and ultimately weakest, case is based around the events of Resident Evil 0 – the train, combat training facility and the lab. The first case just doesn’t seem as exciting or as polished as the other three cases, offering much less variety in weaponry, bestiary and action when compared to following cases. The second case is based around the Mansion Incident, and is actually rather exciting despite the fact we’ve played the story over and over, mainly due to the fact that some of the events are shuffled around.
The third case details the destruction of Raccoon City, a tale which has changed dramatically since the events of Resident Evil 3. Jill and Carlos meet very early, there is no mention of Nikolai, and Nemesis does not threaten the duo until the very end of the story – and as previously mentioned, the events of Resident Evil 2 are never expressly shown, with only bonus missions elaborating on what happened. The final case skips ahead to 2003, ignoring the events of Code Veronica. Jill and Chris have joined an anti-biohazard unit tracking a new type of Umbrella BOW to the former Soviet Union. It’s there that we find out the true nature of Umbrella’s employees, and just how far they will go to get what they want. The fourth scenario is also the best designed of the lot, offering up a fresh scenario, new enemies and some tough challenges.
How about a hug?
Bonus missions serve to expand on the main story, giving less important characters a moment to shine. Ever wonder what Wesker was up to during Resident Evil 0, or how he escaped from the mansion? The Umbrella Chronicles serves up a number of extra missions featuring not only Wesker, but Rebecca, Ada and everyone’s favourite UCBS soldier Hunk. These missions mainly serve as a compliment to the story, fleshing out other events and giving players a little extra value. Even so, players should only really expect about 8-10 hours of entertainment at the most.
Length has always been the big issue with rail shooters but consider this; Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles is the type of game you can pull out with a few mates around and have a blast pumping a few zombies with lead. The pick-up-and-play nature of the game is perfect for the Wii’s intended target audience. Core gamers and Resident Evil fans might have expected a bit more from the experience, and admittedly it’s not perfect, but if one can take The Umbrella Chronicles for what it is, then they’re bound to have a good time.
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