Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles Review

By Jason Nimer

I rarely have anything negative to say about Capcom. They have been behind a good percentage of my favorite games of all time, and nearly everything with Capcom on the box is at least worth renting, if not buying. My one complaint with the company is that in the years since Resident Evil hit the PS1, they’ve released a ton of remakes, spin-offs and ”Hey… remember how great this game was?” self-congratulatory nods at the original classic. I’m not complaining about the game’s direct sequels (2 and 4 being two of the best games of the past decade), but the Outbreaks, REmakes, Collector’s Editions and Deadly Silences are getting extremely tiresome. C’mon, Capcom… at least if you’re going to remake the same games over and over, give us a new Dino Crisis or Maximo, for crying out loud!

Capcom’s latest foray back, yet again, to the first Resident Evil games is Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii. What could have been a slapdash, crappy lightgun cash-in with Wii controls actually turned out to be a pretty good game. Even better, it is the only time, in any Resident Evil remake or flashback where I thought, “Oh… I remember that… cool,” rather than, “Dear lord… if I have to walk through this mansion again, I am just gonna lose it.” The first three Resident Evil games (and the prequel, Zero) and all the attempts revisit them may be more played out that Billy Coen’s tribal tattoos, but Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is the most fun you’ll have with a home lightgun game that doesn’t have “Time Crisis” in the title.

Before we get into specifics, it needs to be mentioned that Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles release date was set to coincide with the introduction of the Wii Zapper, a gun-shaped peripheral with spots for the Wii remote and nunchuk. My review of the Wii Zapper and the game that comes packaged with it, Link’s Crossbow Training, will be available on this site in just a few days, so check back for those. Anyway, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is meant to be played with the Wii Zapper, though I can promise you that not having the Zapper won’t diminish the game’s fun one bit. Again, Umbrella Chronicles is meant to be played with the Wii Zapper, but it is by no means necessary.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is basically a first-person, on-rails shooting game remake of the first few Resident Evil games. You’ll start the game at the beginning of the Resident Evil timeline, on the runaway train from GCN’s Resident Evil Zero. You’ll follow that game’s protagonists for a while, but before it is all said and done, you’ll have made your way through the stories from Zero, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. This means you’ll be revisiting all the favorite moments from those games – the mansion, the police station and finally, the showdown with Nemesis himself (the cool version, not the Muppet from the Resident Evil movies). As an on-rails shooter, the Resident Evil saga works a lot better than I thought it would. The story is a tad watered down and the suspense of the originals is almost gone, but Umbrella Chronicles is still a Resident Evil game through and through.

The gameplay is just like every other game of this type – Time Crisis, House Of The Dead, Area 51… pick one; they’re all essentially the same. The game follows a set path and you must destroy the enemies in your way before they destroy you. It is pretty simple, but like the left-to-right scrolling genius of the very first platform games, simple is sometimes best. Thankfully, Umbrella Chronicles adds a few new twists to the gameplay to keep things interesting – boss battles, counter attacks and timed button presses. The boss battles are fun and the most welcome bits of REminiscence (get it?). Giant scorpions, bats, lickers, fishmen, tyrants… they’re all here and they’re all entertaining. The counter attacks and timed button presses mostly serve as dodge maneuvers, but they break up the “point and shoot” that would otherwise wear thin pretty quickly.

Umbrella Chronicles is fun, but it is far from perfect. The controls can be a bit touchy and enemy weak points are often tougher to bullseye than Womp Rats on Tatooine. Also, the aforementioned timed button presses only seem to register about 75 percent of the time, making for wasted damage and some frustrating moments. Though it might not be an issue to some, I’ve always hated being given ratings in action, racing and shooting games. As good as a five star rating is in a Guitar Hero, I NEVER like finishing a level or a race only to be told I didn’t do so skillfully enough (Devil May Cry, another Capcom game, is rendered completely unplayable by this in my eyes… Mario Kart DS is another great game made crappy by ratings). If I hadn’t been reviewing the game, I may never have played it due to this terrible and pointless feature.

Like this review, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is very short. Like VERY short. I finished the whole thing, beginning to end, in an afternoon and there is little replay value, aside from just playing the levels you enjoy over and over. You probably won’t do too much of that, though, because for Resident Evil vets, you’ll have already been through these scenarios AT LEAST twice. So, short game, short review. Even though Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles provides some fast-paced shooting action, there are way, way too many games coming out that are infinitely better and more interesting… and those are full of new content, new stories that people haven’t already played multiple times before. Umbrella Chronicles is a niche title and a great way to show off the new Wii Zapper, but most people would be best suited with renting it or waiting until it is in the bargain bin.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 74%.