Sunday, March 2, 2008

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles -- Bang, Waggle, Bang!

I believe I'm roughly half way through Umbrella Chronicles. I've completed the Resident Evil Zero and Resident Evil remake sections. That should leave the Resident Evil 2-3 and Umbrella's End sections. The game is the standard light gun rail shooter. You have no control over your movement through the levels. Everything is on rails. You have control over a cursor with the Wii Remote. The B button fires. To reload you just waggle the remote. The cursor has notches around it in a circle that represents how many bullets you have left in the weapon before you have to reload. You cycle through the weapons you're carrying with the D-pad. You throw grenades by holding down the A button until the cursor changes then pressing the B button. You're able to pick up items like weapons and healing herbs and information files by moving over them with the cursor and pressing the A button. That's pretty much it. You shoot, reload, and shoot some more until everything is dead and the level has run its course. The game adds a little depth and replay value by having you collect files and upgrading weapons. The files are hidden in the levels and they're just like the files out of any Resident Evil title. They reveal little tidbits about the story and characters. They could be hidden anywhere in the level, although never out in the open. They're always behind or under something that needs to be destroyed or otherwise removed before the files can be collected. So you'll have to shoot that lamp or that picture frame while just trying to survive the enemy assault. Each level is scored. The better you do in each category the higher your letter ranking. The higher the grade the more stars you earn. The stars allow you to upgrade your weapons. Giving you more ammo and larger clip capacity and the like. Making your life a tad easier overall. The action is mostly fun. There are some cheap attacks you can't possibly know to avoid. But then I guess that plays into the whole replay factor they've put into the game. Next time should wrap it up and cover just how cheesy that story is. And is it ever.

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