Anybody who has ever met me or has a vague idea as to who I am or what I like knows that, since 1996, I have been completely and incomprehensibly obsessed with a small, little-known series known as Resident Evil.
The first time I ever played the original game, I was only 11 years old. My brother had the game on PC, and, not being a gamer, I never wanted to play it. Well, one night, while he was gone, I snuck into his room, threw on the headphones, and played... for about ten minutes, until I was too blind with terror that I could barely see the power button as I frantically mashed my hands around trying to turn off the bloody thing.
Several weeks later, I tried again. This time, I was brave enough to actually play it through until completion. So began my unending devotion to games, and to zombies, and to Resident Evil.
Since then, I have played every single version of the game, including all the sequels, spin-offs, remakes, ports, and even the cellphone games with a certain aura of unabashed nostalgia. Some have been quite good (RE2, RE3, Dead Aim), some have been mediocre (RE: Zero, Survivor, Code Veronica), some have been pretty sucky, but too delicious for me to dislike (Outbreak, the various cellphone games), and some have been downright terrible (the horrible Gameboy color one). However, a few have stood out as being amazing; Resident Evil 4, The REmake, the original, and now... Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles.
Umbrella Chronicles is something of a mix between a synopsis of the series thus far, and a love letter to the fans. For those of you that don't know, it's a combination of the events from Resident Evil Zero, the Resident Evil Remake, RE3, and some new content, all presented in a House of the Dead style rail-shooting extravaganza. The new content consists of an entirely new scenario taking place at the Umbrella Stronghold in Russia, and some new episodes that take place during the other games and are meant to give insight on what everyone else was doing.
The story nicely ties those games together, however, I do have a gripe with how it is done. Once again, Capcom has proven that their idea of the best way to "answer questions" is by presenting us with huge convoluted subplots shoved into the stories that were apparently going on "behind the scenes" during the original games. It's blatantly obvious that this is NOT how they always intended the downfall of Umbrella to happen. Still, it's fairly acceptable, as it lends for some cool gameplay, and it's also sweet to see what Wesker, Ada, and the members of Bravo team were doing, even if some of it is completely silly. One thing I should mention... if you're obsessive about the RE storyline, I'm pretty sure that the summary levels aren't meant to be canon, but all the new content is.
The gameplay is quite simple. Point and shoot. Press this button with that button to throw a grenade, hold down this button and shake the wii-mote to knife things, SHAKE IT SHAKE IT POINT SHOOT SHOOT POINT SHAKE PRESS A AND B SIMULTANEOUSLY SHAKE IT REPEAT.
It's a lot of fun, although it can take getting used to. By the way, I don't recommend the Nintendo Zapper. It sucks. Get this instead.
The graphics are, in my opinion, up to par with Resident Evil 4 in most places. Presented in 16:9 with 480p support, it's amazing to see the familiar (and not-so) locations come to life in full-3D. Most of these places have only been seen in pre-rendered 2D background format before. The mansion levels are especially pretty. However, once the game gets to the RE3 levels (and everything beyond, including the Umbrella Stronghold... more on that later), they start to recycle locations and character models from old PS2 and Gamecube games. Everything in the RE3 section is directly recycled from the Resident Evil Outbreak series. So much, in fact, that every event from RE3 takes place in a location from Outbreak. This wouldn't be too terrible, except that absolutely NONE of the locations from RE3 are used. There's no restaurant, no park, no dead factory, no clock tower, no hospital (which is especially frustrating because the hospital WAS in Outbreak), and on and on. Instead we get the street locations from Outbreak, a subway, and the police station (which was in RE3 for like, a moment at the beginning of the game). Still, what they did do was nice. The Nemesis fight is somewhere in between the awesomeness of RE3 and the horribleness of the movie as far as intensity.
This brings me to the Umbrella Stronghold levels. Say hello to my little friend, his name is Paul W. S. Anderson. Love him or hate him, he's here to stay, and so, apparently are his ideas. (btw for the record, I absolutely love the movies). We have the Red Queen, the Hive, the nifty 3D spinning maps, the laser hall, and the explodey fastness of the movies. Even the music has been remixed to sound similar. Personally, I love that they're bringing some continuity, but I know some fans will hate it. I would like to express my distaste, however, at recycling levels from the horrible P.N.O. 3. At least they're things no one has seen before (Oh Snap.)
Anyway, overall, the game takes a surprisingly long time to beat (for a light gun game), and is a lot of fun in the process. You'll relive major events from the series, or you'll catch up on the story if you're a newcomer. The gameplay is crazy fun, the graphics are mostly great, and there are very few downsides to this game. DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED!
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