AMN's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is an interesting release. It takes the gameplay from the Resident Evil Survivor light gun series and blends it with past games in the Resident Evil franchise, such as Resident Evil, Resident Evil Zero, and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. You basically relive the experiences of the classic Resident Evil games through the first person perspective while using your Wii remote's pointing capabilities to take down enemies light gun style. You'll revisit the mansion, battle crimson head zombies, lickers, dogs, and some pretty crazy bosses. Umbrella Chronicles is one part fan service, one part light gun shooter, and one part classic Resident Evil. It makes for an interesting and freakish mix.

What's Hot
From the day the Wii remote was shown off, Nintendo fans have been asking for light gun games to come to be released, and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is one of the first of what is sure to be an active genre on the system in the years to come. Not only does the game have the novelty factor going for it, it also manages to breathe new life into the old, classic locales of the RE franchise. Playing through the mansion and other areas in the game, while familiar, is quite exciting as you'll experience it in a whole new way.

The game also allows for two players to experience the horror cooperatively, which immediately doubles up on the fun. Sure, the difficulty might lower with a second gunner, but it seems that you can't but help to rile each other up during tense moments. It's a good title for playing with a buddy in 15-20 minute spurts, much like an arcade light gun shooting experience.

Another thing that fans of the franchise will appreciate is the great wealth unlockable content that is packed onto the disc. As you play you'll open up galleries, informational content about the series, and much more. Even for those that aren't big on the genre, the bonus content may be enough to get them to spend some time with the game purely for the fan service.

What's Not
As can be expected for a first attempt at using the Wii remote as a light gun solution, there are some hiccups in the execution. Obviously you aren't able to play the game with full 1:1 accuracy, so at times you'll have to deal with some accuracy issues.

Weapon selection is a bit awkward as you have to cycle through your guns in a clunky manner. Instead of coming up with some sort of gesture for weapon swapping or merely having you pause to switch guns, you're forced to cycle through your arsenal from one gun to the next until you find the one you want. This can be pretty awful when you need a specific gun quickly.

Graphically, the game is a bit of a downer. You do get widescreen support, but the game doesn't even look top notch when compared to last generation efforts. One thing that Resident Evil has always had going for it is its superior graphics, but Umbrella Chronicles doesn't quite live up to that tradition. The game isn't ugly, but it's just not used to what we're seeing from Capcom.


Final Word
It would be pretty hard to call yourself an avid Resident Evil fan and not be able to enjoy Umbrella Chronicles on some level. Sure, the shooting action is a little bit flawed, but it's still fun and works well for the most part. It's great fun to see the old locations from past games once more, and it's even more fun to dig deep into the unlockable bonus content. For a first attempt at the genre, Capcom has done pretty well, but there's lots of room for improvement with either a sequel or another shooter in an entirely different setting. Despite some flaws in the overall execution, Umbrella Chronicles is a good game. We hope that this is a sign of more good things to come.