System: Wii
Developer: cavia
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Shooter
Players: 1-2
The release of Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was a surprise to all. The on-rails shooter proved to be a huge hit, as well as help to close off one of the longest running plot threads in the Resident Evil series – the end of the Umbrella Corporation. Given he runaway success of that title, it came as no surprise that Capcom are working on a sequel, the Darkside Chronicles, and we had the chance to play a build at THQ’s Gamers Day event. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to play too much of it, but what we played was intriguing.
Where Umbrella Chronicles told an original story using new plot elements and events from the original sequel, its prequel Resident Evil Zero and sequel Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Darkside Chronicles is a retelling of the events of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica. While there were promises of completely new sections to flesh out segments, we didn’t get to see any of these.
The demo level we played took place effectively at the start of Resident Evil 2, playing as Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy, specifically starting at the point where you first take control of the player character in that game. Unlike in RE2 though, Leon and Claire don’t get separated, allowing reason for a co-op partner to exist. It was quite cool to go through the level and see just how developer Cavia has remade the opening segment of the game, complete with a visit to the Kendo Gun shop. Unfortunately the owner still doesn’t make it out alive. The demo level concluded upon Leon and Claire hitting the Racoon City Police Department building – where the majority of RE2 takes place.
Compared to most other on-rails shooters, Darkside Chronicles offers a surprising level of depth, and feels more similar to an RE game than Umbrella Chronicles was. While you have a number of weapons and sub weapons, you can now assign your favourite weapons to specific buttons on the Wiimotes D-Pad, similar to what you could do in Resident Evil 5. To do this, you head into a ‘setup’ menu that’s very similar to the inventory system of past RE games. This is also where you go to heal up characters. It was a little different to what you’d expect, but it’s an interesting change nonetheless.
Visually, the game was really impressive. Everything in the game had a good level of detail present, and you really do wish that the game wasn’t on rails, so you could explore the environment more. It definitely shows that when developer cavia have reportedly said they spent a lot of time on the visual look of the game, it shows. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear much in the way of an aural component, so we can’t comment there.
One area that kinda fell flat was the pacing of the game. It’s quite a slow game, with characters slowly moving or stopping completely to have conversations, and the action feeling a bit sluggish at times. Compared to the frantic pacing and action of something like House of the Dead Overkill or Ghost Squad, Darkside Chronicles is quite reserved, with its enemies taking longer than expected to finally drop dead. It feels a lot like Konami’s Silent Hill: The Arcade – which had the same fantastic visual and aural atmosphere that the Silent Hill series is known for, but featured incredibly slow gameplay which practically stopped for characters to have conversations. It’s not a major issue, but it is something worth noting.
The controls also don’t quite work the way that they should. We played the game used a Wii Zapper setup, and found that it was a little cumbersome to control. For instance, the D-Pad swaps weapons, the A button picks up items and is the general interaction button, the B button shoots the currently equipped weapon and the C button opens up the ‘equip’ menu. Though we were told that you could be able to shoot items to collect them – similar to most games of that type, and something you couldn’t do in Umbrella Chronicles. While that functionality wasn’t implemented in the build that we played, it would have helped the game a lot.
Darkside Chronicles is an impressive game. It’s easily one of the better looking titles on the Wii, and the added depth to the gameplay makes it more than just a standard on-rails shooter. Though while the game may have some control and pacing issues, these can no doubt be ironed out when the game launches later in the year.
Baby and Me
