Resident Evil The Umbrella Chronicles Review

It took me over a year to finally get this game, and it was the sole reason for buying a Wii. But after played it for just 5 minutes, I realized full well it was worth it. Being as Resident Evil is my all time favorite video game franchise ever, I knew I was going to love this game, as it retells major past events from the Resident Evil series in a first person perspective. I've heard people's complaints, and even a friend of mine say they didn't like it because it was too difficult and they weren't expecting it to be a rail shooter. Now, okay, sure there haven't been any rail shooters in the recent year, as they seemed to be more of an arcade fad, and never found a place on consoles, so they died along with the arcade, but it's not like Capcom didn't present the game as a rail shooter. They didn't trick us in saying it would have the same controls and aspect of RE4. Of course they didn't. They presented it as is, a fantastically addicting rail shooter, that any hardcore RE fan will no doubt eat it up like human flesh. No pun intended. Currently, I have not completed the game, as I am waiting for my second Wii remote to arrive on my doorstep to finally experience co-op. But as of right now, I might be about half way done with it. As this is also my first seventh generation title (I know I'm a little slow), the graphics really didn't blow me away. Sure, the Wii arguably has the worst graphics of the three big ones (so I've heard), but it does look just like slightly polished Game cube graphics. I didn't choose Ugly visuals as a con, because these graphics really aren't all that bad, just not mind blowing like RE5. One story related complaint I had with this that they completely removed Barry. HUH??!! Barry survived the mansion incident along with Jill, Chris, Rebecca and Wesker, and rescued Jill and Carlos from dying in the blast that consumed Raccoon City. These facts are also acknowledged as truth in the RE5 game booklet, so where is Barry? The only thing I can think of is that they removed him because they had no room for him to be playable, so they couldn't fit him anywhere in the game. The Umbrella Chronicles is a fantastic shooter, that is guarenteed to satisfy RE fan boys, as well as the many people hoping for rail shooters to make a comeback.

4 out of 5.