There were some trouble in the way, but if there’s a series that marked a generation, it was Resident Evil, who shows itself on Wii in a new style. Thanks to Capcom, fear and thrill were introduced to the videogames dictionary.

Umbrella Chronicles shows the facts that made their major player, Umbrella Corp., no longer part of Resident Evil. Ascent, apogee and fall, told several action scenes, story, and classified documents. Fear and thrill just got into Wii’s dictionary.

The story of the corporation behind the zombies and so many others monsters trough the series, is complex and passes trough a lot of hands, to which will have access. You’ll revive moments from the first Resident Evil, it’s prequel, Resident Evil Zero, and the biggest security breach they faced, Resident Evil 3, besides telling some new stories that you’ll never saw.

The hardcore fans already know that this package is for them them and they know what they should expect, but even the new players can feel imerged into action without caring a lot for the story.

Diferently from all the games in the franchise, the Wii version shows an action game on rails , just like the classics Virtua Cop or House of the Dead, where the player advances naturally and the player is only responsible for shoting the best he can. The basic is extended as Capcom added several extras to keep the gameplay interesting.

The Wii Remote is used to aim directly into the screen without being exactly a Light Gun, you can aim with enough precision. Unfortunately you can’t turn off the cursor like in Ghost Squad to get an Arcade feel.

Tough Capcom did enfatize camera control with the Nunchuk when the game was being showcased, this became a lot less essential than it looked. If you turn, the zombies just disappear or lose interest on you, there’s no possibility of being attacked from behind and having to change the camera to keep focus on the action. This change was probably for the best, since the game would become too hard. The whole game can be enjoyed using only the Wii Remote.

Just like in Resident Evil 4, you’ll have to press some combinations of buttons to save yourself of some danger that come from nowhere, keeping the player alert. Some of these moves are also made when you want to defende against zombies that grab you or boss attacks.

Bosses and normal enemies, all have weak spots that trigger a Critical Hit when shot, causing a lot more damage than you’ll are used to. Usually it’s the difference between being caught or shoting down that freaky zombie in front of you.

The bosses lack balance and sometimes are too difficult, asking that you hit them repeatedly at specific points, sometimes making it hard to kill them with your normal weapon.

The game has a nice selection of weapons, with an upgrade system that will keep you coming back to get more points to spend. Chosing those guns in the middle of the shoting is a little hard, a vertical list in which you press up or down in the D-Pad. A system that used only four weapons at the four directions could have been a much better way of handling it.

Except for the bosses, the game is not too difficult, the stages are pretty big and everyone of them have a checkpoint around the middle. Even when you turn the Wii console off abruptly it saves where you were and offers a resume as soon as you’re back into it.

Each stage has a lot of extra places to explore, some that you actually chose trough a "Move" option and others where you just blow up a new entrance. Something that harms the game’s rhythm is that a big part of it is single player only, and the game is a lot better when played with a friend on co-op. Even worse, if you’re playing the game trough the first time, you play the first three chapters with a friend, will be forced to stop, play single player chapters and then unlock the last cooperative one.
 
The graphics look better than they actually are, the camera is almost always far from them, so even tough mostly the game looks as good as Resident Evil 4, which is already impressive, it looks even better when the low resolution textures are not exploding in our faces. Sometimes this still happens, when you go up ladders, get too close to doors before opening them or even a zombie try to chew you neck off, they’ll be close enough so that you can see their low resolution throat.

Several important scenarios that were pre-rendered in the old Resident Evil, are now in real time, breathing some new life (or would it be death?) to them, bringing a lot of objects to destroy. You can imagine how frustrating that would be when we were looking for those darn "Diamond Key" for the "Diamond shaped lock" and now we just burst it open with a submachine gun.

We have some classic songs back, they are just creepy to say the less, some annoying voices and adequate sound effects to the guns or monsters calling for your blood. The Wii Remote speaker is used, but nothing as expressive as in Ghost Squad.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is extremely fun and while it had some trouble with minor details, it succesfully recreated some classic moments in the series. Capcom managed to create tradition in a new genre for their franchise.