30 Minute Review: Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
30 Second Review (a.k.a. Abridged Version)
A good rental, but probably not worth the purchase. Rayman Raving Rabbids offered a better on-rails shooter experience and let you throw a cow. The bosses take what would be an otherwise above-average gun game and instead make you wish your local arcade was still in business with a House of the Dead 2 machine.

Side note: The third boss (Train Derailment, Scene 3) is Capcom's revenge on everyone who didn't buy Zack & Wiki. "Favor the mindless shooting of zombies over polished and brilliant puzzle gameplay? SUFFER LIKE G DID!"

Full review pending.
 
Tek7 said:
30 Second Review (a.k.a. Abridged Version)
A good rental, but probably not worth the purchase. Rayman Raving Rabbids offered a better on-rails shooter experience and let you throw a cow. The bosses take what would be an otherwise above-average gun game and instead make you wish your local arcade was still in business with a House of the Dead 2 machine.

Side note: The third boss (Train Derailment, Scene 3) is Capcom's revenge on everyone who didn't buy Zack & Wiki. "Favor the mindless shooting of zombies over polished and brilliant puzzle gameplay? SUFFER LIKE G DID!"

Full review pending.
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Aw, a good rental. :(

I'm a big fan to Resident Evil games. To see your review makes me disappointed. It is highly improved than PS2's RE: Dead Aim. (Which I own. :p)

Maybe your not a fan of Survivor/Horror games. ;)
 
I really want to play Resident Evil 4. It was touted as many as the greatest game of all time. I've actually never played the games, though I've seen the first two movies and mostly enjoyed them. Is RE4 for the Wii? Or just the GCN?
 
Corpfox said:
Aw, a good rental. :(

I'm a big fan to Resident Evil games. To see your review makes me disappointed.
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The levels can be (and are often) fun, but the boss battles are weak at best and brain-numbing at worst. If you can look past the boss battles and if you're a big fan of the series, then Umbrella Chronicles might be worth the purchase.

Corpfox said:
Maybe your not a fan of Survivor/Horror games. ;)
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I'm not a fan of the Resident Evil series, but I enjoy nearly any on-rails shooter--especially if they involve shotguns and zombies.

tjguitarz said:
I really want to play Resident Evil 4. It was touted as many as the greatest game of all time.
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I played it and I enjoyed what I played, but I think it falls far short of "greatest game of all time," especially after playing Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass recently.

tjguitarz said:
Is RE4 for the Wii? Or just the GCN?
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Both. Critics say that RE4 for the Wii is greatly improved over the Gamecube version. I rented RE4, and it was good, but I missed the freedom of movement available in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It was obvious that RE4 was a port where MP3: Corruption was designed exclusively for the Wii.
 
Time for the full 30 Minute Review.

Capcom's latest Resident Evil game is not a standard entry in the series, but rather an on-rails shooter reminiscent of House of the Dead 2 and 3. As one might expect, the game's controls put the player behind the camera and turn the Wii Remote into a gun. (Cue inane Jack Thompson rant in 3, 2, ...) The game is rated MA for zombie-on-human violence, so this title, like all RE games, is not suitable for the younger players.

An interesting addition to the on-rails shooter formula is the ability to pan the camera ever-so-slightly up, down, left, or right using the analog stick on the Wii Nunchuk. In theory, this sounds like an enhancement, but, in practice, the extra control is just enough to frustrate the player with its illusion of control without having any real impact on the game. I understand Capcom wanted to add a dash of spice to the formula popularized (and some might say perfected) in the House of the Dead series without going so far as to add the step-pedal action familiar to fans of the Time Crisis series. The compromise feels awkward, tacked on, and frustrating.

Think back to your childhood, when you could almost but not quite reach that jar of cookies on the kitchen counter. Now take the cookies out of the equation and pretend that Wii Remote is a gun. No, you still can't shoot the cookie jar to unleash the tasty chocolate goodness contained therein, but you can see the jar taunting you for another split second as an imaginary hand pulls you away from the kitchen.

Flawed attempts to improve on a tried and trusted formula aside, Umbrella Chronicles is pretty good. It intersects with other chapters of the Resident Evil saga and lets you play as familiar characters. It lets you shoot things with a Wii Remote. One of the weapons is a shotgun. That sums up the game's best qualities--but those are important qualities.

What makes this game much less fun than it could have been are the awful boss battles. Remember that squeaky-voiced gargoyle that screamed toward the screen at 1000 miles per hour at the end of the first level of House of the Dead 2? That battle is like eating chocolate cake as compared to the drudgery that is fighting a boss in RE:UC. It's like the people who designed the levels loved gamers and the people who designed the boss battles hated gamers. Or maybe it was the same person with a Jekyll and Hyde complex. Either way, the boss battles seriously detract from the game.

Another downside to the game: It only comes in three colors: brown, black, and white. When I first started playing RE:UC, I thought I was having flashbacks of playing Quake 1 when it first came out, only with better framerate and polygon count. I think Capcom was going for a "gritty" look, but it came off instead as a "lazy" look. The decision to use only black and white for Schindler's List was powerful and brilliant filmmaking. The decision to strip the palette of any colors more exciting than mud makes RE:UC kind of depressing--and that's sad, considering shooting zombies with shotguns is some of the best fun one can have with video games. I'm not saying playing RE:UC should be like walking out of Kansas on to the yellow brick road, but something other than brown, black, or white would be a nice change of pace.

Ultimately, RE:UC delivers on its promise to let you shoot zombies with shotguns (and other guns, but who cares about that?). It's above average, but it doesn't quite recapture the thrill of the old arcade on-rails shooter games. As I said in the Abridged Version, it's a good rental, but might not be worth the purchase unless you're a hardware Resident Evil fan or you're just desperate for a Wii shooter title.

On a side note: If you're looking for a truly awesome on-rails shooter experience but can't afford a Wii, consider buying The Typing of the Dead for the PC instead. It sounds ridiculous, but trust me, it's a blast.

EDIT: I know I already ragged on the boss battles, but I have to say: The third boss battle (at the end of Train Derailment 3) is quite possibly the worst boss battle in video game history. You've been warned.
 
Tek7 said:
EDIT: I know I already ragged on the boss battles, but I have to say: The third boss battle (at the end of Train Derailment 3) is quite possibly the worst boss battle in video game history. You've been warned.
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Ah, I see now, your talking about the
Queen Leech.

It was from RE: Outbreak, the only on-line Resident Evil game and RE: 0.

In that game, its a decent boss fight (except on Very Hard mode).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FB2kw4QkjG0
 
vibrokatana said:
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?
What should'I do?

ughhh
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Yeah, thats 1 of the annoying things while on-line, repeated spam. :(

Though, in OB #2, they cut out the voices, so its just text spam.
 
re: Typing of the Dead...does anybody know any good alternatives to that game? The game is abandonware, and all I can find is the demo, which is pretty good, but man, I want more!

/wonders if I should try making a ToD flash game

EDIT - check this
EDIT2!! - Whoa whoa! Typing of the Dead II!?!?
 
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Shagz said:
re: Typing of the Dead...does anybody know any good alternatives to that game? The game is abandonware, and all I can find is the demo, which is pretty good, but man, I want more!
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There's Typer Shark by Popcap, but it's just not the same.

Jammer, who lives in Canada, sent me my copy since I couldn't find it in the US. It's difficult to find in the US, but you might try an online retailer.

Then again, maybe not. Typing of the Dead PC goes for over $40 USD on eBay.

:eek:
 
Shagz said:
EDIT2!! - Whoa whoa! Typing of the Dead II!?!?
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Aye, I recently read about the upcoming release...though I can't remember how I first found out about it.

</offtopic>

By the way, I re-rented Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles to shoot combies with my wife. It turns out that she enjoyed the game so much that she wanted to rent it again. I'm always looking for new games to play with her, so I was excited to rent it again and load up the ol' assault shotgun.
 
I bought Umbrella Chronicles but only got past the first few levels maybe during the holiday break I'll get through it. The game doesn't seem amazing or anything but it's pretty good retread of the previous games. I'm a sucker for rail shooters and that may be why I can look past the few flaws it has.

Your review seems pretty spot on about the bosses though, they usually have some interesting patterns you have to learn but they have way to much life. Once you learn the pattern it's just a matter of hitting them over and over again in the same spot for sometimes twenty minutes it seems.
 
After re-reading my initial review of RE:UC, I decided to come back and tell everyone that I purchased the game on Feb. 17 (hereafter known as Shoot a Zombie Day).

Why the change of heart? In short, because my wife really liked the game. The two-player mode is exactly what you would expect of a quality on-rails shooter, which is to say it's loads of fun.

I also found myself gaining appreciation for RE:UC after a few more plays through the single-player levels. And when my wife and I, teaming up, knocked out the Train Derailment Mission 3 boss (that took me about 30 minutes to kill the first time) in under 60 seconds, I discovered my vague "like" of the game had turned to genuine affection.

I still recommend renting RE:UC before you purchase, but now I can recommend that those who love on-rail shooter games seriously consider purchasing this title.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, consider that RE:UC has sold over 1 million copies since its release late last year.
 
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