Resident Evil : The Umbrella Chronicles
System: Wii
Release date: November 13, 2007
Today we’re taking a detour from Survival Horror and jump into on-rail light gun action. Remember those light gun games at the arcade? Same thing, except this time we’re shooting zombies instead of time terrorists or aliens. Umbrella chronicles takes us through the story of RE0, 1, 3 and a new chapter called the Fall of Umbrella from both the point of view of the protagonists and also the main villain, Wesker.
Umbrella Chronicles has been called Resident Evil, the ride and it sums up pretty well the experience. It’s simply going through the old games shooting whatever comes up on the screen. It’s simple, but effective and a nice way to go over the overall story arch for someone who hasn’t played the older games and doesn’t necessarily want to.
As far as light gun shooters go I admit I really don’t know how it ranks compared to similar games out there. For my part I found it enjoyable but it dragged a bit toward the end and I found the numerous required headshots a bit hard to pull off sometimes so it may be my skill level but the gameplay felt a little off sometimes. Still, it’s a fun game for any fan of Resident Evil.
The fall of Umbrella
If you’ve watched the RE movies you saw that Umbrella was this all-powerful company with Wesker pulling its string. Wich his entirely wrong if you played the games. Not only is Umbrella a lot less powerful but Wesker is not directing Umbrella, he’s working directly against them for his own profit. The destruction of Racoon city? It’s the government who does it and Umbrella gets blamed for it. It doesn’t magically goes away like it did in the movies.
So after numerous defeats at the end of the heroes and having multiple secret labs taken out, it was time to take out Umbrella for good and this is the real contribution to the overall plot that Umbrella chronicles makes, showing us how Wesker and the various events of the previous games contributed to make this happen.
The game also makes another point, that the whole story of Resident Evil is not only about Umbrella but also about the man behind the shades, Wesker. If anything it’s made clear to us that it’s far from over and that as long as Wesker is around, the horrors won’t stop coming.
And now for something similar
Next on the agenda is Darkside Chronicles, another light gun game, which goes over RE2 and Code Veronica as well as set up some of the events of RE4.
