Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles hands-on

Nintendo had RE:UC set up so that two people could play co-op together. Nicky and I stood in line and waited our turn to get a taste of the action. As you know, I got to play the game back at E3, and came away rather impressed. Something strange happened this time around though. When Nicky and I finished our co-op run, we both came away rather let down. There are number of reasons why this could be true, and I’ll get into them below.

Last time I played the game, I was wandering around in the alleyways behind the police station. This time around we played on the train level from RE0. This level consisted of a few zombies but a lot more bugs. It just wasn’t much fun shooting at tiny bug after tiny bug. You can launch a grenade at them to take them out, but some of them will still leech onto your face. You just take them out with your pistol and continue on. These bugs just kept coming, and coming, and coming… It really got pretty tedious. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun shooting zombies than it is bugs.

We only got to play up to the first checkpoint on the train, and then we were kicked off the machine. I think the rest of the level would have picked up a bit more. I know that game can definitely be fun when I compare the two levels. At E3 I was blasting away tons of zombies, as well as crows. That level was really great, and had me psyched for the game. I guess going from that to this Zero level just didn’t match up. As I said, the rest of the level may offer more fun. I just hope that the final game isn’t full of ups and downs like this.

Shooting, on the other hand, has gotten a lot more responsive. Zombies definitely react more to your shots, and they have specific zones on them that will give you even better shots. Your cursor will flash to let you know that you are aimed at a particularly weak spot, and if you shoot there the zombie will have a much bigger reaction. This is kind of hard to do in the heat of battle, but it gives you extra incentive when you are trying to take care of massive hordes in a little amount of time.

RE:UC is a mixed bag right now. I didn’t expect to come out of this demo with less excitement. I really hope it was just a poor selection for a demo level. I would have been much happier replaying the portion I did at E3, but two player this time around. I still plan to purchase the title…I just hope that more of the game is like my first experience instead of my recent one.