A while back I made a list detailing the shrinking number of Resident Evil games I haven't yet played. And while it wasn't specifically created as a bucket list of sorts, it did remind me of my blind spot in the franchise regarding the Chronicles games. Coincidentally spotting it on sale for about £5.50 recently then finally pushed me over the edge in trying out. Unfortunately, the reasons as to why I was so hesitant in the first place have come to fruition.

A Relic of the Past, But Not The Kind I Enjoy...

I can't say I've ever particularly enjoyed light-gun games. I played House of the Dead 2 some at the arcades, and I did also surprisingly enjoy my time with Dead Space: Extraction, yet it's never a genre that'll have me rushing to buy any that comes available. I wanna say the only reason I played through Extraction in the first place was because it came free with all Day-1 copies of Dead Space 2 on PS3... And while again it turned out to be a pleasantly enjoyable experience, part of that was undoubtedly for its pre-Dead Space 1 story and its cast of characters, specifically Gabe.

All the same, light-gun games in general definitely feel like the sort of genre that's of a by-gone era, and these days I envision the tightly-scripted roller coaster rides of a Call of Duty campaign are perhaps the natural evolution of these styles of games. When playing one of these time capsules from a modern mindset, they can often feel a little too... inhibiting. The way the camera keeps jerking around completely out of your control is often simply annoying, and the gameplay is traditionally rather shallow and one-note. There will need to be a helluva lot going on screen to help make up for the lack of actual control, be it sheer spectacle or a decent dose of personality, and Umbrella Chronicles doesn't come very close to delivering either.

Though not only are light-gun games not exactly my thing, there's also the fact that I have no Wii, nor a PlayStation move controller for that matter... Which has also admittedly steered me clear from many (of what few there are these days) in the genre. I have also been playing Umbrella Chronicles completely single-player at that, and with all this in mind... I can't say I'm enjoying myself so much with this game.

Though while I admit I'm far from playing this game under the ideal conditions, I'm hesitant to believe that even with a Move controller in hand I don't think that would help the actual shooting feel more satisfying. It would certainly assist my aim, but the actual shooting itself would still feel as lifeless and dull as it does regardless I'd wager. I think that would have to sum up my experience overall in playing Umbrella Chronicles -- that is one of boredom. Shooting zombies simply doesn't feel as fun as it should be, and beyond critical hit head-explosions there's a surprisingly distinct lack of feedback. The gun sound effects are all rather weak at that, and given that the entire gameplay revolves around you shooting stuff, you can imagine then why it's not left me overly enthusiastic about it all.

Having to use a DS3 most definitely isn't helping things, though, as the aim somehow manages to feel both sluggish and yet weirdly squirrelly. I won't deny that part of my lack of enjoyment with this game rests on me for not playing it correctly, but... like Hell am I getting a Move controller.

Resident Evil: CliffsNotes Edition.

The stories contained within are another thing, too. Given the structure of it all I guess it makes sense to essentially boil them down to these abridged versions, but they omitted Barry Burton from the original Resident Evil retelling for starters!... In fact there's a great many liberties they make with all the main three they have in here, being Zero, the remake of the original, and Nemesis. That said, certain unique scenarios created for this do sound rather interesting, such as one following the exploits of Rebecca Chambers shortly upon arriving at the Mansion after the events of Zero and meeting up with Richard Aiken. It's too bad Zero wasn't released in an era of DLC, as I would have loved to play through such a scenario with the old-school survival horror gameplay of the series.

There's all these scenarios following Wesker's actions throughout the series too, and not to mention one that depicts the forming of the BSAA and the ultimate downfall of Umbrella. All of which inspire a feeling of disappointment for how they're restricted to this format... The whole end of Umbrella thing in particular seems important enough that you'd think it would have been handled in a different game altogether.

There's an awful lot of Files you can collect, though like the stories themselves most only seem to be repeating information that's already out in the ether, only in much more detail. I guess for the sake of anyone who doesn't want to play the older games but is still interested in the lore surrounding them it may hold some appeal, but for myself at least many of the carrots had already been caught long before I loaded the game up.

Also, the voice acting and writing is all pretty bad. Which, Resident Evil I know, but I'd say it's all potentially even worse than their original work. Or in most cases is at least more... bland. The writing has never been stellar in Resident Evil games of course, but there's often a B-Movie level of charm to it all, which Umbrella Chronicles lacks in favour of something much more altogether dull and forgettable. Rebecca's new voice actress also makes the character sound a helluva lot more Anime than she did in the regular RE0, too. Many of those weird ''Uh!'' noises and all that... You're typically bombarded with a lot more dialogue overall courtesy of the game's structure featuring two character side by side at all times, so it makes it a little harder to ignore than it would have been in their original incantations.

Though there is this weird quirk regarding Billy Coen which I thought was kind of funny. See, when I first started up the RE0 to my surprise it was Roger Craig Smith inhabiting the character! Who has been Chris Redfield's voice actor since RE5. However when you get into gameplay... the character is very clearly being voiced by someone else. Then we reach another cutscene and RCS makes his welcome return! So, at that point I figured that RCS voices Billy in the cutscenes and this other guy voices him in gameplay... Still weird, but least there's some consistency to it I guess. That is until this scene where Billy explains about his time as a marine, where he quite literally switches between the two voice actors on the fly. It's just so bloody bizarre that that alone has sort of at least partly justified my purchase...

But not completely, as I'm still not really enjoying myself with it very much. As mentioned earlier, it's all just rather boring and feels a little muted at times as well. Lot of slow panning and shit in its attempts to create a little bit of the ole tension I suppose, but none of it is effective and only threatens to obliterate the pacing. I can't say it looks very good either, and the few occasions you see the game in third-person show off some pretty awkward animation work at that. Chris' back kick after knocking off an enemy in particular just looks terrible. Oh, and the framerate will begin to chug in some instances as well... It's not common, but the fact that it'll occur is still embarrassing to witness.

Is funny to see how it's essentially an asset-smoothie made up of so many games from the series, which even includes the Outbreak games as the zombies in the Raccoon City portions hail from over yonder. Difficulty also seems a little unbalanced, with Yawn thus far being the most difficult boss fight, while the T-002 Tyrant that succeeds it in the next chapter was a complete pile of piss.

Oh! Conclusion!

I'll likely wanna see all of its content through for the sake of... seeing it all. That way I can then comfortably add it to my list I also recently done ranking the series from Best to Worst. For the sake of 'scholarly' purposes I guess I'm getting enough out of it, but... eh, suffice it to say it's not going to be ranking very high. I am at least curious to check out its rendition of RE2's 4th Survivor story, due to the praise from one @arbitrarywater. Given how there was so little to that to begin with, giving it a wee bit of added substance may actually benefit it. Though I doubt it'll be able to top the superbly haunting Outbreak intro, however.

Still, this has all left me wondering what it was about Extraction that I found to be surprisingly engaging in comparison to this. I'm both curious but also slightly worried at the prospect of giving Extraction another ride to find out in any case. However by the time I shelf this selection of Chronicles I likely won't even care one way or the other anyway. I'd likely sooner play its seemingly universally agreed upon inferior sequel...

Also, since I'm all about linking to my lists in here it seems, to Hell with it have another!

Outro Music Yeah Big Whoop Wanna Fightaboutiwqbwqddqcndxwuwnpd

My biggest problem with UC is that it limits half of it's content to single player until after you've beaten everything. And by that point I never wanted to play it again.

I still think it's superior to DC due to it having more content and not being mind numbingly easy though. And as someone who doesnt have encylopedic knowledge of the Resident Evil Saga it was kind of cool to have it all abridged like that.

The thing that puts Extraction over the Chronicles game for me is it's campy cast of characters. I was weirdly engaged in the story and playing through it with a friend in one sitting made it a lot more climatic than just checking off levels and replaying them for a better rank.

The pacing in both these games dont benefit from multiple playthroughs. The thing about House of the Dead is those games can be beaten in less than hour and dont have many moments of respite. So it's easy to memorise and do better each time. That said it's still a rail shooter so there's only so much value you can get out of it. And I suppose in that regard UC does it's job pretty well. But as you said it would be much better served being in another genre entirely.

I remember liking Umbrella Chronicles, but that was also with a Wiimote and lots of free time. That is also by the remarkably low standards of Resident Evil spinoff games, and I never touched Darkside Chroncles to see how that one fares.

But yeah, there are some interesting story threads that are (of course) never touched upon ever again in some of those side stories (I'm not sure I ever praised the 4th survivor mission that much, but it's at least interesting). But expecting the Resident Evil story to be coherent isn't exactly high on my list of priorities.

I enjoyed watching the RE2 stuff in the Darkside Chronicles on Youtube, even if they did make every one of the main characters more "action movie badass" than their RE2 counterparts. I always thought that Leon got his "You're small time!" attitude after Raccoon City.

As a long time RE fan, I got Umbrella Chronicles on the day of release.

I don't even have the game anymore. I sold it. Because fuck that game.

Extraction's story and cast of characters most definitely must be what gives it an edge over UC, though I also remember thinking the shooting was better? Having to still play it like a Dead Space game by cutting off limbs no doubt helped set it apart (pun... sort of) in the grand scheme I'd say.

Come now, I explicitly remember you saying, and I quote:

I thought you went a little overboard with the exclamation marks, but I don't want to try and douse your obvious enthusiasm for this hidden gem ;P

That's always how it is unfortunately; whenever the series take a look back at the older games from a more modern mindset all of the characters are typically much more confident and quipy. Well, I say ''always'' but I guess it's only actually the Chronicles games and Operation Raccoon City... Though I think there may have been some flashbacks to RE2 events in one of the CG movies as well.

Curious as to why you have a ''fuck that game'' stance with Umbrella Chronicles. I'm clearly not especially fond of it myself, though not to that degree.

I do remember having some fun with it in co-op mode with my friends back in the day. Though for me personally I had more fun watching 2 other friends play it, than playing it myself.

@belegorm said:

Part of me wonders if I would have been better served in just watching this being played over Youtube instead really.

Hahaha that's just the way I talk. The game is a fine on rails light gun shooter. It's just such a nothing game though and I don't think it adds anything really interesting and worthwhile to the RE series(not that the story has some sort of strong integrity plot wise) but yeah.

Just kind of a competent waste of time in my opinion.

Yeah, UC's kind of hit and miss. However, DC is much better. Better abridged versions of the stories within, and a better original story. Also looks a heck of a lot better.

@frostyryan: Ah, fair enough then.

I think you might be the only person I've encountered who says Darkside Chronicles is the better of the two. Still, I think UC will be enough for me. If my curiosity still isn't entirely sated with these games then I'll likely just watch the stages on youtube instead.

Yeah, that's a perfectly fine way to experience it. It's worth watching the stuff, but actually playing it isn't essential in any way.