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Resident Boredom: Gaming Chronicles; Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, 56k
Topic Started: Dec 31 2007, 06:26 PM (262 Views)
Dude2000
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Minor Spoilers Within.

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Enter Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, (referred to as UC from now on) the on-rails shooter from Capcom. It’s Wii exclusive. An able compromise for not getting RE5, amiriteguyz? Well, we’ll see. There should be two things I should note before getting into this review.

A: I didn’t play Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, or 3.
B: I’m not a fan of rail shooters.

UC relives the events that fell to Umbrella’s downfall, thus the title Umbrella Chronicles. You’ll take the role of the heroes from 0, 1, 3, and kind of 2, but I’ll get to that later. The game is quite simple, you walk through a variety of locations and blow things up. Zombie humans, zombie monkeys, zombie dogs, zombie leeches, zombie sharks, zombie… well, you get the picture. There’s not a lot of strategy to the gameplay, which I found upsetting. You kill things. You can rarely choose your path you wish to walk, there’s little interaction with the environment except random goodies you rush to grab before the screen turns away from it. And the zombies generally don’t respond to specific attack points causing it to feel like you’re fighting paper cut-outs. Even with added “counter-attack” features which harkens back to Resident Evil 4, it just feels stale and average.

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Woo…more zombies… Yay…


The graphics and sound are overwhelmingly mediocre as well. Sure, the frame-rate is fluid. The game doesn’t look awful, nor eye-catching. The game also throws you in the game and story rather rapidly without any introduction to the system. I don’t mind it, but some people might, so I thought I should mention it.

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Behold! The vanilla rail-shooter desperately trying to liven itself up.


The story of the game is pretty satisfying. It brings to light areas that even I know weren’t in previous games. There are all kinds of playable characters from all the Resident Evils with the mainstay and story-binder being the notorious Albert Wesker. I was bothered though by the fact Resident Evil 2 was completely excluded from UC, save a bonus mission you can earn and play as Ada in. Perhaps RE2 just didn’t have much to tell regarding Umbrella, but I thought that was odd and deserved mentioning. Other than that, the story does a good job of tying the previous games together. Don’t, however, make the mistake that all of the previous games stories will be explained too. That just doesn’t happen. But, that isn’t a problem for those who have played the old REs to death.

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The epitome of RE bad___ery


The extras will be what no doubt make the game in the eyes of many. Tons of little pieces of information about random things in the Resident Evil world can be found throughout the game. Local multiplayer also adds some fun. The game shines with a friend next to you blasting zombies along side of you, well, as much as a game like this could shine. You can also earn other bonuses also by going back and playing the old missions with harder difficulties and better rankings, with or without a friend. All this data is pure Resident Evil fan service. It will no doubt keep the hardcore RE enthusiast happy. It almost makes me want to care.

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Who is this horrid man? Gotta play to find out.


In the end, UC is the definition of average to me. It does nothing great, nor nothing horrible. It merely is. Is that a bad thing? No, not really. It is if you wind up spending fifty hard-earned dollars on it, unless you’re a hardcore RE fan. I wouldn’t mind giving it a rent, it can be some fun with a friend shooting at your side. However, it will be long forgotten in a few years except for the most dedicated RE fan.

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*sigh* Do I have to?


FINAL GRADE: C



To be, or not to be: that is the question. To die, to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause. That makes calamity of so long life, for who would bear the whips and scorns of time when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
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HUNTER JAWA
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your reviews are awesome man ^_^


i was gonna rent this but nvm, the whole paper cutouts thing turns me away. if i shotgun someone i want to see them go flying!
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RunawayRed
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Graphics Specialist
Very good game review!
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CrimsonEXE
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The Stinky Cheese
i liked this game

im not a super fan of RE or railshooters

but i found this to be alot of fun with a nice handful of replayability
with weapon upgrades and such

multiplayer is very fun
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