There is no logical reason as to why I spent so much energy beating Super Mario Galaxy to 121 stars with Luigi as fast as I could. After it, I didn’t have anything else that I really wanted to play. I guess that’s the mentality I have developed towards video games these days: Play through any and all single player content as fast as possible, then relax and ease into a nice multiplayer experience if there is one available. Perhaps this is why I have such a jaded early impression of Umbrella Chronicles. I have only played two levels thus far, and at first, I was not very impressed. When you begin, you choose to play as either Rebecca or the other guy (Joel I think). Of course, I chose to play as Rebecca in case they happened to slip a sex scene in there somewhere, but unfortunately and unsurprisingly this did not occur. Yet I did have some hope as some games nowadays do slip them in like The Witcher which apparently has a cut scene with the main character boning his co-star in the first 30 minutes of play. But alas, I digress.

After getting over my first disappointment of the game, I was able to put it behind me and focus on more realistic features to report on. As I said, I enjoy going through a game at my own pace. Sometimes I am in the mood to slowly progress through a level and check out all the details, and other times I just like to rush through it for whatever reason, be it because I am in a hurry, impatience or perhaps I just crave a quick sense of accomplishment. Umbrella Chronicles does not cater to this in any respect. It plays similarly to House of the Dead or Time Crisis where the camera slowly shifts and pans through the level as you get to point and click on enemies and items as the pass by. It offers you the ability to ‘swerve’ the camera up, down, left, and right, but restricts the ‘swerving’ to a few inches in that direction, sort of as if you were darting your eyes in that direction, then letting go will snap the camera back to the railway track it seems to be on. This camera system can be extremely frustrating at times when you are ‘darting’ your eyes in one direction but the camera wants you to look the opposite way. You end up playing a game of tug of war with the camera, the camera being a tall brick building on a conveyer belt and you trying to roller-skate on ice in the opposite direction of the conveyer belt. In other words, you cannot win.

One big frustration occurring with this camera system is that there are important items laying around the levels like the scarce amounts of ammo for your shotgun or SMG. These items are not always easy to see, especially when playing on a smaller television. They are really easy to miss when the camera is moving away from them and you just notice them at the last second. My solution to this is to continuously spam pressing ‘A’ all over the screen at all times of the game so I don’t get screwed having no ammo when trying to fend off three super zombies that only shotgun shells can take out. This ends up tiring me out and not wanting to bother pressing ‘continue’ when I die. When you die you go all the way back to the last checkpoint which can mean waiting five minutes for the camera to go through its paces to get back to where you were. In most shooters, when you die and are sent back a few miles, you usually can get back to your original position of death much faster than the first time you played because you know what to expect. But in Umbrella Chronicles, the camera will float you through the level just as slowly as the last time.

The only other gear this game grinds for me so far has been the fact that you keep hearing dialogue occur between Rebecca and her male counterpart; however, you never once see him during game play except for when a cut scene occurs. Perhaps they are Siamese twins joined at the gun?

Now I will move on to the good impressions. Umbrella Chronicles is the first zombie killing game I have played since Silent Hill on the original XBOX. Even though I was frustrated beyond belief by the camera system, I eventually got over it and enjoyed the game for what it is. Each stage has you progressing at a snail’s pace though a series of hallways or open rooms. Conveniently placed zombies appear and you blow them away with whatever weapon you can discharge in their faces. You can even throw grenades point blank and they will usually kill whatever you’re fighting without hurting you. At the end of the levels you fight a boss. Thankfully, the boss fights are checkpoints so when you die you start over right at the boss. I enjoy games that have mini-bosses after each level, it makes for a good climax and gives incentive to play through the next level.

The integration of the Wiimote motion functionality into the game works well. The opening scene indicates that it is intended to be played using the Wii Zapper. But since I don’t have one, I find just pointing, flicking, and clicking to be satisfactory and probably my preference if I had a choice because laying on my back pointing at the screen with one hand and resting the nunchuk at my side is quite easy and not as fatiguing as I would imagine gripping the Wii Zapper with both hands for an extended period of time would be. It would be cool for parties though if you wanted to get the feeling of being in an arcade. I’m not sure I like the shaking of the remote to reload though, I’ve never heard of a machine gun that you can just shake to reload it. I sort of like the arcade default of shooting off screen to reload, but I don’t know if that would be viable with the Wiimote. I do however, like how you have to shake the Wiimote to dodge some of the zombie attacks. That being said, the use of motion controls are used better in Umbrella Chronicles than most Wii games to date.

Overall, I’m happy I gave this game a chance. I will probably play it casually over the next little while. It is easy to just turn on and go for a 15 minute session as that’s how long each level has taken so far. The fact that this game does not allow you to rush through it is a good enough reason for me to take my time and play this game in short spurts, I’m just glad it doesn’t take quarters.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 2:40 am and is filed under Previews and Impressions, Wii Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.