http://wii.ign.com/articles/780/780373p1.html
If Capcom made House of the Dead, this would be it.
by Matt Casamassina
April 13, 2007 - Capcom producer Masachika Kawata wants to make
something clear as he takes the stage at the company's Gamers Day 2007
press conference in San Francisco. He's speaking about the studio's
new Wii project, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. "It's a brand
new all original title that has been developed from the ground-up," he
says. "It's a title that isn't a port of any way, shape or kind." That
much is true. The project features a storyline that finally exposes
what happened to the devious Umbrella Corporation. But Chronicles
won't be entirely new to those who've played through the survival
horror franchise's many offerings because it takes you back into the
mansion, on board the train, and into the police station before you
finally get to Umbrella's stronghold. And did we mention that this is
an on-rails shooter?
"[The game] has been developed focusing on the point, shoot and aim
feature of the Resident Evil franchise and we're trying to deepen that
part of the experience," explains Kawata. He's not kidding. To play
Umbrella Chronicles, all you really need is the Wii remote because the
action is pre-set and auto-choreographed for you. At the most basic
level, you point the Wii remote at the television screen and blast
zombies as the first-person view camera takes you through the eerie
locales. So if you thought you were getting a true sequel to Resident
Evil 4 when you signed up for this effort, think again.
The genre is hardly unexplored. SEGA has House of the Dead and Capcom
itself has Resident Evil: Dead Aim, but these are light gun games and
Umbrella Chronicles is not. It survives by the Wii remote and you will
survive only if you learn how to wield it to point and kill with speed
and accuracy. The gameplay mechanics may be reduced or simplified
compared to the Resident Evil norm -- we won't argue that they're not
-- and yet having played the title's first mission, there's no denying
that the end experience is still a fun one. It looks good, too.
Kawata is promising that the title will run between 15 and 20 hours
long and while many of the environments will look familiar -- you'll
play through portions of Resident Evil 0, 1, 2 and 3 -- this will be
the first time most of them have been realized in true 3D. Remember,
for as pretty as the remake of the first survival horror entry was on
GameCube, those backgrounds were pre-rendered, not true polygonal 3D.
Unfortunately, we only got to see one of the locales and it was the
famous mansion from the first game.
The camera takes you through the mansion in cinematic fashion, slowly
peeking around corners to reveal shambling zombies, making dramatic
180-degree turns to showcase speedy Crimsons and wobbling up and down
to illustrate that your character is actually running. While the first-
person view is dominant, you will not traverse the entire game without
having ever seen the heroes and heroines you're playing as -- a roster
that includes everybody from Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine to
Billy Coen, Rebecca Chambers and Carlos Oliveira. The characters will
not really have different abilities, although some will use unique
weapons. You'll see them in brief cut-scenes as they interact with
each other -- you might be controlling Chris, but Jill could be
fighting alongside you during a sequence. You'll also see them during
contextual maneuvers -- when hordes of zombies approach, you can tap
the A button to counter their attacks, at which point the camera will
pan back to show your character send a powerful kick their way,
knocking the enemies down.
Umbrella Chronicles isn't merely mindless shooting -- there is that,
yes, but there is also much more to consider. The Wii remote affords
you pixel-perfect shooting accuracy. You can cap zombie heads without
a second's hesitation or you can alternatively shoot them in the arms
and legs, at which point they'll drop to the ground. Your reticule
decreases in size the longer your hold it over a zombie's face and the
smaller it is, the greater chance you have of pulling off a single-
shot head explosion, from what we could gather. A button picks up
items and chooses paths (occasionally, you can select to go in one
direction or another), and B button is your trigger. Press it and
you'll shoot -- that simple. But you can use nunchuk's analog stick to
look around the game world -- left, right, up and down -- as you glide
on-rails through the areas. You'll want to do this because it's how
you find the hidden items such as guns, ammo and health that are
strewn about the levels.
The 10-minute demo of Umbrella Chronicles featured only three weapons:
the handgun, shotgun and machine gun. The latter two guns require you
to manage your bullets because if you don't you may eventually run out
of ammo. However, you have an infinite supply of bullets for your
handgun. Your shooting reticule is represented on-screen by an orange
circle. The orange color depletes from the circle as you burn through
a round and when it's gone altogether you'll need to quickly reload.
Fittingly, you'll keep tapping the B trigger to shoot off round after
round from your handgun and shotgun, but you can simply hold it down
to stream bullets from your machine gun. Additional weapons planned
for the final version include everything from rocket launchers to
knives and grenades, according to Capcom. You switch between your
weapons at any point by pressing down on the Wii remote's D-Pad.
Items are hidden within the stages, which feature highly interactive
objects. You can shoot apart doors and windows, knock out lights (the
rooms will darken -- we haven't figured out the benefit of doing
this), gun down paintings (they'll eventually fall off the walls) and
even blow apart chandeliers, which may fall from the ceiling and land
on enemies if timed correctly. The animations and particles -- doors
splinter, windows break apart, bullets line walls -- add a lot to the
atmosphere.
The mansion demo we played was simple to pick up but also very
challenging -- it proved to be more difficult than we anticipated. For
the record, we made it through the mansion without being killed, but
just everybody else present died several times. Yes, we're patting
ourselves on the back as we write this. Men from boys, right? Anyway,
it's clear that Capcom isn't going to make the shooter easy, which is
a big plus because the added difficulty has a way of keeping you on
your toes. When your health is low and a zombie charges forward,
biting into your neck (blood sprays the screen), you really feel the
terror and want nothing more than to gun the creature down. The demo
ended with a boss fight against the giant, slithering snake from
remake, which died after we continued to blast its mouth.
Asked about the completely new locations in the game, Kawata said, "I
think that will have to remain a secret for now."
There is a chance that Umbrella Chronicles can be played by more than
a single person. Asked about a multiplayer mode, the producer
responded: "We're still looking into it so I really can't say anything
definite right now."
Umbrella Chronicles looks pretty impressive on Wii. The game is
running in 480p and 16:9 widescreen at a fluidity of 30 frames per
second. Some of the world and character textures blur up close, which
is disappointing, but nevertheless Capcom has really used light and
darkness to great effect. Shadowy environments become illuminated in
quick flashes of lightning and the silhouettes of characters and
objects project and distort onto walls and walkways. Animations are
smooth and particle effects over-the-top -- blood splatters in every
direction as you decapitate zombies with well-placed bullets. We'd
wager this is one of the prettier Wii titles and we'd expect nothing
less from Capcom.
The title has been in development for nearly a year with a team 40
people strong, according to Kawata-san, and is scheduled for a summer
release on Wii. We'll have much more on the game just as soon as we
get the opportunity to play deeper into it, but even from this early
junction it seems clear that the developer has another winner on its
hands, even if it doesn't follow the more traditional Resident Evil
formula.
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