The biggest surprise of Capcom's recent media event was that Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was actually playable. Another pleasant surprise was that it was fun. I practically had a perma-grin frozen on my face.
Next to no information has been available on this Wii-exclusive spinoff game since Capcom announced it at E3 last year -- all we knew was that it would recap the plots of the first games in the celebrated zombie-shooting adventure game series, but in the style of a light gun game. You could be forgiven for thinking that it's a House of the Dead game, but hey -- if Sega's not going to step up to the plate and deliver, Capcom might as well.
First and foremost I should say that this is a beautiful-looking game. Capcom is probably very happy right now that they spent so much time and effort making GameCube exclusives. Sure, it didn't exactly work out at the time, but the Wii is currently the hottest thing on the market and, outside of Nintendo, Capcom probably has the most skill and experience with the hardware. And it shows. It's running at 480p widescreen, by the way.
The game plays much like you'd expect -- your character is automatically moved through a linear path through the mansion, which at least for now borrows much of its look from the remake of Resident Evil released on GameCube. By using the analog stick, you can look around, which you pretty much have to do in order to hit every zombie and evil dog and other horrible monsters. Staying alive is your first goal, but as you get better you'll want to play levels over and over to increase your body count. Even in the initial stage that we played, there were plenty of zombies that weren't on screen long enough for me to kill them with my limited skills.
Aiming with the Wiimote feels great. The cursor is very accurate, which means the little shakes and jitters of your hand do make it jump and shake. But that's the whole point -- this is a game about precision aiming, and you've just got to get better at it. Contrast this with Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, which was also playable at the event, and featured a much more steady, easy-to-use cursor, because forcing you to steady your hand isn't really what RE4 is all about.
Since you're going to spend a lot of your time staring at the cursor, there's a lot of information built into it. When you leave it hovering over an enemy's head, if your aim is perfect and steady the reticule will get smaller. That's your cue to press B and blow the enemy's head clean off in one shot. Getting headshots is imperative for staying alive, but it's also really hard. I look forward to getting my technique just right.
You can see your remaining ammo in an orange circle around your red targeting reticule. When the circle runs out -- or preferably, before it does -- you'll want to shake the Wiimote to reload. It's a great mechanic that feels really good, much like aiming off the screen to reload in traditional light gun games -- because just like in real life, reloading forces you to take your gun away from the target and lose your aim.
You start with a pistol that has unlimited ammo. By shooting objects in the environment, you can find healing herbs (used automatically) and new weapons like a shotgun and machine gun. (Capcom also promises rocket launchers, the knife, and grenades.) You pick these up by pressing A. These have limited ammo, and you can only carry one at a time. Switching weapons is done by pressing Down on the Wiimote's D-pad.
Quick-time events are scattered throughout to break up the action. For example: if you manage to let a zombie get too close to you, you can press A at the right time (it's indicated on-screen) to counterattack and kick him away. During these little scenes, you can actually see your character. Chris Redfield is your first playable character as you go through the Resident Evil 1 mansion. Capcom promises that Billy
Coen, Rebecca Chambers, Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira will also make appearances in locations drawn from Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, and 3
(and possibly more, including the never-before-seen Umbrella stronghold).
I'm surprised at just how deep Umbrella Chronicles' gameplay is. I can think of a dozen different ways that I could go back and play that Gamer's Day version again and improve my game, from finding more hidden items to getting more headshots to not failing the quick-time events. As a House of the Dead fan from back in the day I'll be first in line to grab this one when it ships this fall.
