Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles Review

I’m not a Resident Evil fan. There, I said it, and I don’t regret it. But when it comes to on-rails shooters, it doesn’t matter what the source material is. I just like shooting stuff as it pops up being my only concern. Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is such a throwback to light gun arcade shooters, but it’s not a port in the vein of Ghost Squad. Rather, it’s an original retelling of the Resident Evil story with more quick-trigger action and less tedium and inventory shuffling.

Umbrella Chronicles spans the events of Resident Evil 0, 1, 3, and then some, but you’re not going to get a meticulous recital of everything that took place in those games. You’ll only hit three main areas in each “chapter” before moving on to the next. Fans of the Resident Evil saga may be disappointed by this. At the same time, you’ll be the ones who pick up on a lot of the narrative. Insight into the Umbrella Corporation is liberally applied, like bonus Albert Wesker missions that shed light on what happened on his end of the deal.

Because the story is actually important here, you aren’t going to get treated to nonstop, relentless action. There are a couple scenes where nothing is happening for several minutes while the characters talk and mosey about the room. And you can’t skip it. In the Resident Evil tradition, the dialogue is anything but gripping, too. It’s more amusing than it is edgy when Rebecca and Billy are calmly chatting about their personal lives while evil zombie monkeys drop from the sky. And Jill Valentine will randomly blurt out conversational comments to herself. I’m pretty sure she’s delusional.

But that’s all inconsequential. Shooting zombies is what really matters. And doing so is very rewarding. If you manage to hit a zombie’s critical point, his/her head will explode, and blood will gush out of the neck stub as the body collapses. But hitting that sweet spot is difficult and sporadic, and it takes several shots otherwise to take down a zombie. In that sense, it’s a bit irritating how many shots a zombie can withstand. I enjoyed Ghost Squad, because it was so “pew, pew, dead, pew, pew, dead.” Umbrella Chronicles isn’t as instant.

Zombies are the most fun to kill, because they’re slow, dumb, and gratifying to cripple and behead. But zombies aren’t always at the forefront. Resident Evil 0 in particular deals mostly in gruesome, mutated animals, and it’s not as fun to shoot them. I can understand the need for variety, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded a game with nothing but zombies. The Battletoad-like creatures and other aliens just become a real bore.

Much of this is done with the intent to scare, but an on-rails game isn’t as creepy as a game where you have complete control over your character. The slow trudging through dark, empty corridors just doesn’t draw me in. I want action all the time! Of course, Resident Evil likes to heap on the cheap thrills. Monsters and zombies will come crashing through windows or whip around corners without any warning. It can be a bit jumpy. The game is quite atmospheric, also, taking you through the familiar mansion, sewers, and demolished subway stations. A nice touch is that you can shoot out lights to make the rooms darker. It’s always tempting to do so, but it ends up making the game harder and spookier. Wait, is that good?

Umbrella Chronicles is a challenging game. Boss battles are very demanding, and health isn’t always there when you need it. Even run-of-the-mill zombies put up a good fight when you’re confronted by large groups. Some zombies spit acid (which can be stopped with bullets; go figure) or randomly rush at you. If a zombie does manage to grab you, you’re given a split second to shake the remote to fend them off. And here’s where Capcom should have laid off the Wii functionality. Shaking the remote is such a trite gimmick, and it doesn’t feel right in its use as a contextual button press or a way to reload your gun. Ghost Squad excelled by letting you simply dip the cursor off the screen, but Umbrella Chronicles just had to go for the full effect.

Nonetheless, aiming with the Wii remote is a natural process and works really well. You don’t lose any usability when playing the two-player mode, either. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend taking Umbrella Chronicles on without the help of a second player. Being able to go co-op is what really makes the game. You don’t have to start a separate co-op file, either. A friend can hop in between levels, help you out, waste all your shotgun ammo, then leave.

Ammo carries over from level to level, so it’s important to use special weapons sparingly. Only the default handgun has infinite ammo. Fortunately, there are plenty of ammo pick-ups in each level, but you have to be quick to grab them before the camera moves. A nuisance to this is that, when you run out of ammo, you can still select that gun. It makes cycling through weapons on the fly a real hassle. It’s actually more fun to tackle levels with infinite ammo on, so you can freely use the shotgun, machine gun, and magnum without fear of running out of bullets. But getting infinite ammo means getting an S rank on all the missions… on hard. Yeah. Right. Good luck with that. And once you do get this, you will have also leveled up all the weapons to a point where they are ridiculously overpowered. With no way to downgrade them afterwards, Umbrella Chronicles’s replay value gets locked in the closet.

Final Comments

This Resident Evil spin-off is fun, but all it’s really done for me was get me that much more excited for the imminent release of House of the Dead 2 & 3. What I really like about on-rails shooters is the instant gratification. While I can certainly revel in Umbrella Chronicles’s bloody headshots, the game overall is too long-winded. And I’m not putting down the fact that it offers four times the amount of content over Ghost Squad, either. There’s just too much puttering around for the sake of story and atmosphere.