Resident Evil Review REviews

The mastAH! wrote:

CHRIS

Ah here we go, the campaign EVERYONE hates because IT HAS TOO MUCH ACTION!! TOO MUCH LIKE CALL OF DUTY!! Well, that may be so, but I don’t see a well made story in CoD, in fact Chris has the best story out of the 4 campaigns.

And what, is it because he had amnesia? Hell no, not completely. It’s because it showed how much he cared about his team mates, through the trailers you constantly saw the scene with Ada clone, the virusball and the infected soldiers. Those were Chris’ men, and as Chris mentions, it was his job to make sure everyone would make it through alive, and the thought he had failed his soldiers

Spoiler:

led him to his amnesia.

I know that initially most of us thought it was going to be a stupid CoD campaign, Chris', but does anyone actually hate it? I mean, I think pretty much everybody and their mama loves Chris' campaign the most of all 4.

Oh, BTW, just want to point out Chris having amnesia, is similar to a certain other character in RE, Ark Thompson, who had amnesia in Survivor, after he and Vince Goldman crashed in a helicopter. I just think that's cool.

Very nice review MastAH! It looked super long, but once you start reading, I was like,"What?! It's over already?!".

7.7 is a fair score too. I consider RE6 currently, one of my fav's. The others in that spot are RE1, CVX and RER, so RE6 is a welcome addition.

Obviously Gamespot and IGN are going to give bogus reviews, they don't know what RE is about, and will not give RE a fair review. They expect different things from an RE game, than we RE fans do. Nuff said.

Resident Evil Gaiden



The first handheld entry in the survival horror franchise, Gaiden is highly regarded as one of the best games of the...



Nah, just messin (Although I can review Gaiden if you really want me too....)

If you'd like. Especially if you played the entire thing and can give a full review?

We'll take any and all reviews, as long as they are RE.

I know I'd really like a review of the Chronicles games, each of them.

I think I may give a review of Degeneration, and currently I'm playing RE0, so I might be up for reviewing that one after I'm done. I'm playing the Wii Archives version BTW, as I've played the GC version so many times, and would rather not mess with my mem cards right now.

Spike Omen wrote:

If you'd like. Especially if you played the entire thing and can give a full review?

We'll take any and all reviews, as long as they are RE.

I know I'd really like a review of the Chronicles games, each of them.

I think I may give a review of Degeneration, and currently I'm playing RE0, so I might be up for reviewing that one after I'm done. I'm playing the Wii Archives version BTW, as I've played the GC version so many times, and would rather not mess with my mem cards right now.

I actually did play Gaiden, quite recently, doing a marathon of all the games right now in release order

I'll do the Chronicles games if you'd like.

GTMippey wrote:

Spike Omen wrote:

If you'd like. Especially if you played the entire thing and can give a full review?

We'll take any and all reviews, as long as they are RE.

I know I'd really like a review of the Chronicles games, each of them.

I think I may give a review of Degeneration, and currently I'm playing RE0, so I might be up for reviewing that one after I'm done. I'm playing the Wii Archives version BTW, as I've played the GC version so many times, and would rather not mess with my mem cards right now.

I actually did play Gaiden, quite recently, doing a marathon of all the games right now in release order

I'll do the Chronicles games if you'd like.

Sure, you can start with UC is you like.

I keep meaning to play through those again, but I find rail-shooters kind of boring sometimes, because of how the pacing isn't your own, it moves at it's own pace. They are both fun games though, with tons of awesome scenes and storyline stuff that you can only get in Chronicles.

Spike Reaver wrote:

Very nice review MastAH! It looked super long, but once you start reading, I was like,"What?! It's over already?!".

7.7 is a fair score too. I consider RE6 currently, one of my fav's. The others in that spot are RE1, CVX and RER, so RE6 is a welcome addition.

As great as I tried with the review I feel I could have put more, but since the game is still quite new, people haven't played it yet, so i couldn't go into extensive detail.

Also I felt I really wanted to give the game an 8 but I think 7.7 was fairly close to that.

I'm currently running down Resident Evil 4. Expect it soon.

Spike Reaver wrote:

I keep meaning to play through those again, but I find rail-shooters kind of boring sometimes, because of how the pacing isn't your own,.

That's why I was very sceptical about RE UC,but it turned out to be better than I expected.True - you don't move on your own,but the zombies are so close...I never noticed how tall the Tyrant was,before playing UC.

will1234562 wrote:

Spike Reaver wrote:

I keep meaning to play through those again, but I find rail-shooters kind of boring sometimes, because of how the pacing isn't your own,.

That's why I was very sceptical about RE UC,but it turned out to be better than I expected.True - you don't move on your own,but the zombies are so close...I never noticed how tall the Tyrant was,before playing UC.

Okay, I had popped in UC the other night, after completing RE0, because I was really in the mood for some Rebecca. Now I know I usually bash on Becca, but that's just because of the boy-haircut. I do really like her character, especially in Zero.

Anyway, point being I had a lot of fun with UC. I had played it mainly for the Richard and Rebecca levels, but ended up doing more. Very nice.

Also, I feel the need to take back something I said earlier, in regards to the audio in Mercs3D. After playing through RE4 again recently, after years of it just collecting dust, I noticed awesome and scary the Ganados and Illuminados sound in there, and how terrible they really sound in Mercs3D.


The BGMs in Mercs sound fine, but pretty much all the VA sucks. Of course it's still not a story game, but they could've done better with the enemies.

Short hair on girls are hot, though.

Mercy wrote:

Short hair on girls are hot, though.

Eww no.

Wait you mean like Natalie Portman in V Is For Vendetta? Yeah, that was hot.

Okay, so I watched Degeneration and here is my review guys.

Resident Evil Degeneration (2008)

So this is the first canon, CG RE film. The first CG RE film is Biohazard 4D-Executor, which is only in Japanese, with English subtitles, and isn't exactly confirmed as canon, but fits in nicely. Degeneration was a nice little way for RE fans to get the RE movie they had wanted, but didn't get with the live action Paul W.S. Anderson films, that star Milla Jovovich, as NiteKrawler's favourite character, Alice.

Now this movie takes place in 2005, one year after the events of RE4, and stars Allyson Court and Paul Mercier as fan fav's Claire Redfield and Leon Scott Kennedy. Roger Craig Smith also provides a voice in this movie, as Curtis Miller, before his debut game, RE5 came out. Most of the VA in the movie is pretty top notch, and fun to listen to, like Senator Ron Davis.

The entire film takes place in Harvardville, in the airport terminal, and in a local WilPharma facility. WilPharma is a pharmaceutical company, competition of former Umbrella, and current Tricell obviously, and is under protest(MLK style!) from Claire and the tree hugging group, TerraSave. They picket WilPharma and try to stop them at every turn, because they are against the testing in India and all the stuff they suspect WilPharma of, much like Umbrella. FWI, WilPharma isn't really that bad.

In addition to the familiar RE characters Leon and Claire, it also gives newbies Angela Miller and Greg Glenn from the S.R.T.(Special Reponse Team) a chance to come in and join the team, and also give new fans characters to relate to and understand and experience the story with. Most of the interaction will be between Leon Kennedy and his shipping interest, Angela "Dead Eye" Miller, known for her dead eye stare, and the sibling story with her brother, Curtis Miller(Funny how Roger Craig Smith plays Chris Redfield, Claire's brother, and Curtis Miller, Angela's bro. Clearly he is the brotherly type). Other character's include a little girl that Claire babysits for a few parts of the story, and Claire's nemesis, Senator Ron Davis. Claire vs Ron Davis is a fued that'll definately match up there with some of the top fueds in RE for sure. haha

The movie begins with a little montage of clips from the news, showing Raccoon right after it was nuked by the government. It also shows stuff on this newly introduced pharmaceutical company, WilPharma, and sets the scene for what's going on with TerraSave boycotting WilPharma. They are a real thorn in their side.

Once the movie finally begins, we see the lovely Claire Redfield walking into the terminal with her bags, after exiting the plane. She immediately is spotted by Rawni and her Aunt. They talk, and Claire mentions that her new boyfriend has been keeping her busy, referring to her work of course. Claire ends up having to babysit the little kid, Rawni, much like she has in the past, with Sherry and Steve. Some creeper named Frederick Downing, who actually works for WilPharma, ends up talking to Claire and Rawni before taking his leave.

Eventually, when Senator Ron Davis intends to leave, in disguise(a baseball cap), is pretty much when all hell breaks loose. A couple of infected are in the vicinity and end up biting securtity and Davis' bodyguards, further spreading the infection. Then an airplane wrecks into the terminal, and the door opens, spilling out more T-virus infected zombies. Claire can barely believe her eyes, and can't believe that this is happening to her again. Her and some other survivors, including Rawni and Senatory Davis, hold up in the VIP room, and wait to be rescued.

Enter Leon. Leon and SRT members Angela and Greg all go in to save the survivors in Harvardville airport. Eventually, with some losses, they manage to escape, find out that WilPharma was bringing vaccinations for the T-virus, but was held up by TerraSave, Claire gets a case of the blues, but Leon cheers her up. Quite a bit of the rest of the film shows Claire joining Frederick Downing at the WilPharma facility, for a cup of tea, and the Leon/Angela story.

There is an explosion at WilPharma, and a sample of the G-virus is taken, and used by Curtis Miller. Downing supsiciously dissapears, and Leon and Angela go to save Claire.

From here we get plenty of action, although not so much from the Leon/Claire team, as one might have deduced from the trailers, but it all still works pretty nicely. Again, Leon/Angela ends up being a big focus of the movie, they even have a kissing/breathing scene underwater. In addition to the diving scene, these two become pretty close, which often happens with Leon in the RE games, and the two always seem to get interupted by an incovienant calling Hunnigan.

The film looks amazing, although most of the characters actually look a tad weird. The VA is top notch, and the music is pretty nice. The plot of the movie, being that Terrorists want the truth about Raccoon City revealed, or else they will spread the T-virus across the US, into every major populated city, is okay. The movie has a few twists, and really is just filler until RE5 came out.

I really wish there were more tie-ins with the games, and vice versa, having more of the games make referrences to the events in Degeneration, even if just having a Mercs level being the Harvardville Airport Terminal, or the Bio-dome Garden Sector from within WilPharma, or even just a referrence to WilPharma.

Leon seems pretty reserved in this movie, not his sarcastic self that we may expect from RE4, but perhaps the situation called for a more serious approach. The love interest with Agnela also seemed to hold him down. I don't really recall Leon having any of his nice, signature, zingy one-liners, like previous appearances, but hey, it is Leon. Claire was very well done in the film, and seeing the way her character has evolved since her RE2 and CVX roles in quite nice. She even does that winking thing she did at the end of RE2 a few times in Degen.

The film has pretty much all of the trailers in the special features, as well as 2 RE5 trailers to watch at your leisure, including the epic Tokyo Game show trailer.

The theme song for the film is pretty nice, it's called "Guilty".

Overall, I found the movie to be enjoyable, especially on my most recent viewing. You got Leon, Claire, some action, some zombies, some G-virus, plenty of referrences to Raccoon City, and the movie looks phenominal, although the characters look odd. I do feel like Capcom almost sold the movie as RE, with Leon/Claire, and that was supposed to be enough. I do feel like it could've been wayyy better. I honestly found the first Anderson RE film more enjoyable, and more RE-like, but this is still a must have for any RE fan.

I'll give it a 7/10. It's RE, but is lacking some of the ingredients to make it a perfect experience. I will say, that it's sequel, Damnation, did much better, but that'll be for another time.

Spike Reaver wrote:

The first CG RE film is Biohazard 4D-Executor

Great movie,too bad it wasn't longer.

will1234562 wrote:

Spike Reaver wrote:

The first CG RE film is Biohazard 4D-Executor

Great movie,too bad it wasn't longer.

It was short and sweet.

I had actually burned it onto a disc awhile back, gotta find where I put that thing...

I think I'd like to review 4D-Executor. As soon as I watch it, sometime soon, I'll post my review!

Resident Evil The Umbrella Chronicles (2007)

RE UC was the first Wii exclusive to come out for Nintendo's then new console. It is an RE game, but it's also a rail-shooter, utilizing the Wii's wireless wiimotes to aim at the screen and shoot at the RE enemies we know from previous games, zombies, Hunters, Lickers, other BOWs.

The basis of this game, was to witness the end of Umbrella. As it says in the game, the rise and fall of Umbrella is something to which only a select few are privy, and this game, while it is a rail shooter, it does help fill in some really important and interesting storyline holes. That alone makes it pretty enticing.

Okay, now this game goes over the events from RE0, RE1, RE3 and a completely original story, showing how the protagonists take down Umbrella once and for all.

The games story is broken into 4 different Scenarios, with each one having 3 main chapters to tell the story, then however many Extra chapters to help fill in other gaps. The playable characters are Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Billy Coen, Rebecca Chambers, Carlos Oliveira, Ada Wong, Albert Wesker and HUNK.

The first Scenario is called Train Derailment, and goes over the events of RE0 with Billy and Rebecca. It also has 2 extra chapters showing Wesker as he parted with William Birkin, and met up with a new, yet intense, psychotic character, Colonel Sergei Vladimir. A high ranking Umbrella officer, with close ties to the founder, Ozwell E. Spencer.

The next Scenario goes over the Mansion Incident, with Chris and Jill. It also has extra chapters, including 2 with Rebecca and Richard Aiken from STARS Bravo team, after the events of RE0, but before Alpha makes it to the Mansion. It also has a couple of chapters for Wesker, after the Tyrant's unveiling, leaving him lifeless, as he comes back with superhuman strenght and speed.

The 3rd Scenario is all about the Raccoon City Incident, involving Jill and Carlos. Now while the main story that it covers is RE3, it would've been difficult for them to put the events of RE3 into 3 measly chapters, so the events of RE3 are really retold, and shown under a different light. Instead of traveling throughout the Uptown and Downtown areas of Raccoon, and meeting up with other UBCS survivors like Nicholai Ginovaef and Mikhail Victor, and having the notriously relentless Nemesis chasing you all throughout, you simply play through 3 levels from the Outbreak series.

Despite it not following RE3's story quite right, it isn't a contradicting canon, you can pretty much ignore the retellings of the stories that we already know about, with the Extra stuff really being the new canon things we can take from the Chronicles games. In the case of the Raccoon City Incident, you get to play through the first level from Outbreak, but with Jill and Carlos, traveling through the streets in front of J's Bar, and traveling through the sewers and past the Apple Inn, much like you do in the first Outbreak level. You also get to see the underground subway station from Outbreak File#2, as well as the remade Raccoon City Police Department shown in File#2. In that chapter Nemesis chases all throughout, until a final encounter on top of RPD.

The extra chapters include one with Ada trying to escape the city before it's destruction, after being wounded during the events of RE2 with Leon. The other is essentially a remake of RE2's 4th Survivor mini game mode, starring Mr. Death himself, HUNK. The cool thing about this one, is that he is picking up radio signals all throughout, with bits from a Raccoon City radio station, and his teammates from Goblin 6 crying for help. It's actually worth playing through just to hear all of it.

The fourth and final Scenario is Umbrella's End, starring Chris, Jill, and Wesker. Not exactly the family reunion that we see later on in Spencer's European Estate, in fact, Chris and Jill never see Wesker even once, but their fates are forever intertwined indeed.

You get to see Chris and Jill geared up for a very cold envornment, going in via choppers with a team of Anti-Umbrella soldiers. You fight hordes of BOWs, and get to see one of Umbrella's ultimate facilities, the Russian Caucasus Facility, and their ultimate new BOW, TALOS. Tyrant- Armored. Lethal. Organic. System. controlled by the Red Queen super computer, guarded by Sergegi Vladimir, with his Ivan(Tyrant) bodygaurds.

While Redfield and Valentine see their mission through to the end, Wesker is doing his own thing, taking advantage of the distraction, as he works his own way through the facility to aquire the UMF-013, basically all of Umbrella's data, backed up onto a tiny disk. Expect plenty of shennanigans here in this Sceanrio.

The graphics are nice. Although they look a tad...cartoony? Definitely inferior to RE4, REmake and RE0. But they look nice enough. Most of the character seem to be reused character models from previous games, like Chris, Jill, Rebecca, Wesker, HUNK and the whole bunch. Jill's REmake alternate attire, which is her RE3 outfit is used for the Raccoon City Incident obviously, and such stuff like that. It's a bit lazy at times, as HUNK is wearing his RE4 Mercs attire, instead of his Umbrella Special Forces gear, as well as using a TMP in the scenes, instead of the standard issue MP5 machine gun.

The voice work in the game overall is pretty good. You'll notice a few voice changes from previous games. Actually nobody returned to voice their respective characters in UC from previous games. Wesker is basically the star of the game, and in fact does the narration for the game, but it isn't Richard Waugh, who previously voiced the character in Code Veronica, RE0, RE4 and the Wesker's Report, but is a newbie, DC Douglas. The first time I played the game, I didn't even realize it was Wesker narrating, until he made a first person statement during the Mansion Incident, then I realized..."Oh, that's Wesker?" Some of the new characters actually sound great, like Sergei's VA, as well as Keith Silverstein for HUNK. Chris and Jill sound good enough, but Rebecca and Billy sound a bit off. It's hit and miss using new people for no reason, but it's not too awful to where you can't enjoy the overall product.

The music in the game is a bit different from anything we've heard before in an RE game, but is actually really cool and memorable. Good job in that department. I even have some UC tracks on my iPod.

The gameplay, which can make or break a game. It's a rail shooter, on the Wii. Basically, the story and cutscenes are what make the game for me, but the gameplay ain't too shabby either. If you hold the Wii-mote steady with two hands, you can find yourself getting plenty of satisfying headshots, and while you are roaming around through these locations such as the Training Facility, the Underground Lab, the Spencer Mansion, and various locations of Raccoon City that we all know and love, you get to see it all through a first person perspective.

I personally loved trying to view the pictures up on the walls in the Spencer Estate. The dialogue between the characters is another thing that makes the gameplay pretty nice. At least some of them, like Chris and Jill, Rebecca and Richard, and that's about it. Otherwise, Wesker, Ada and HUNK all talk to themselves a bunch, and Billy/Rebecca didn't have the same charm as they did in their awesome RE0 appearance. HUNK's saving grace is the radio deal that he picks up.

As far as the weaponry goes, you get a sh*t ton of weapons to choose from. 3 Different shotguns, mahcine guns, mangums, grenade and rocket launchers. Your starting pistol has infinite ammo, but has to be reloaded of course. You are able to unlock and upgrade weapons, so that will keep you busy for awhile. Not to mention all of the great extras. You can collect so many cool Files from previous games, as well as new ones, going over events, characters, and other stuff. There are other extras, like specific items that you collect in the actual games, to be viewed.

Unfortunately that's about it though. No Cutscene Browser like Outbreak and RE4. Which is a shame, because UC has so many awesome cutscenes.

There is also one little mini game, in which you fend off waves of Zombays, who move at incredibly ridiculous sppeds.

On the whole, if you have a Wii, or even a Ps3(HD version), this is a must have. It's worth at least one play through. The replayability, because it's a rail shooter, for me isn't so high, but after not playing it for awhile, I can come back to it and have a damn good time with it. There's so much to do ,and so much story to get from it.

I'll give UC a 7/10. Great game, but plenty lazy in many departments, including the Extras.

--Spike

Whoever wants Darkside Chronicles can have it. Otherwise I'm down to review something else, even DSC!

Eight years ago, Capcom defined the next generation of gaming with their hit title Resident Evil 4. The game was hailed by IGN as "…the best survival horror game ever made." I distinctly remember that as I look at the back of the game box and thinking to myself: surely, there could be a better game that come out, and maybe in the future there would be some other survival horror game to trump this one. Well, eight years have passed, and I can honestly say that IGN doesn't lie when they say something like this. Recent games such as Dead Space, or old time competitors like Silent Hill, or even indie games like Amy or Amnesia don't hold a candle to Resident Evil 4. Are some of those games more scary at times? Yes, but scares don't really equate for greatness. There's definitely one thing Resident Evil 4 does best, and it was innovation. Capcom admitted that the games leading up to Resident Evil 4 felt formulaic and they themselves were growing tired of it. From story to core gameplay, the series had begun a new step in it's evolution that brought in more gamers and fans than the producers would have dreamed, causing a broken contract and more ports than any Resident Evil title has ever had. The spirit of influence flows through today's gaming market, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Batman Arkham Asylum, Dark Sector, Grand Theft Auto, and Uncharted to name a few, all very different games, and all had something to learn from Capcom's Resident Evil 4. There have been articles posted asking "What if Resident Evil 4 never came out?" The game redefined the third person shooter, and took a large step in the franchise. Now enough with the accolades, lets see why this game stands to be the best in the series.



The game takes no time in starting you off; not thirty seconds into the game, you are faced with an insane villager that leads you through a winding road full of bear traps, trip mines, and violence driven psychotics with no turning back and what little team you had: dead. Only then are you fighting for your life in their village, trying to make it with only one first aide spray and 30 rounds plus change against pitchforks, axes being flung at you from different angles, dynamite, and of course a new series staple; an indestructible chainsaw wielding masked maniac. Every heart pounding moment of this game is a gem in its own right.



Sure, by the time you get to the end you have more herbs and hand grenades in your attaché case than a drug dealer, and yeah, you pause the game every time you want to switch weapons, but these aren't necessarily setbacks. The game does seem to lean more and more towards action nearing the end, but it also does a good job to remind you that this is a horror title by throwing in Regenerators and the most terrifying boss fight I've ever experienced: U3. You hear him breathing down your neck, never knowing when he's going to pop out at you. I've played the game over thirty times, and there really is no pattern, I tried to find one, believe me.



Resident Evil 4 does another thing very well; secrets. Little secrets, big secrets, it seems like every time I play the game I find something new about it. Whether it's a room in the castle or shotgun shells hidden in the rafters, the developers really did their best to make a game that really doesn't have much to offer other than the story to make your money worth while. The immersive experience of Resident Evil 4 shouldn't be passed.



The art direction--which still holds today--took us into a dirty gritty world, where hygiene was noticeably ignored, the brown/blue color scheme sets a mood of constant fear or uneasiness. When the colors change it usually alerts the player to let him or her know that there's danger, for example, when there's lava in the game, the screen is washed with red and orange, or in the castle when Leon and Ashley walk to the room filled with walking suits of armor, a bright red carpet leads you all the way through. The brilliant sound design instills the tones that express a general sickness, the music sounds like it's being churned, the voice cast of the enemies are mixed with violent animals. There's also a contrast whenever you heal or pick up an item, it sounds bright by comparison. It's something to give you more ease, it keeps you going. Which is smart if you want people to play your horror game. The design for all the creatures are thought out carefully and at times can get so creepy it makes you shoot piss out your nose. The wide range of monsters you fight keep you on your toes and they advance in strength as you advance in strength. When you buy an upgrade, their heads explode with tentacles, when you get a new shotgun, they carry shields, when you buy body armor, they regenerate. Ingenious foes, well balanced, every enemy has a weakness, and they're all unique in their own right.



There are some problems with the game's pacing when it comes to finding notes. They're usually not any longer than notes in other Resident Evil games, but because the quick paced nature of the game you tend to omit notes, sometimes by accident, and sometimes because it feels unsettling to sit down and read a note. Like when the Novistadors first appeared in the sewers, there are several notes by Luis that I never knew were there because I was too pumped fighting and avoiding invisible acid vomiting bugs. As the series moves more toward action, the incentive to read notes that are at times imperative to understanding what's going on, lessens. I know there are problems people have with Ashley, but if you know how Ashley's AI works, she really isn't much of a hassle. Can she get annoying at times? Yes, but I really enjoy the voice talents of Carolyn Lawrence, it was important she was properly casted, otherwise it would have been hard to be immersed in the game's world.



I'm also trying to figure out more problems I had with the game, but it's actually pretty hard for me to do. I'm usually really good with dissecting games that I like and find problems that could have made the game better; especially games that I've played more than once, but Resident Evil 4 is so polished, it's hard to nitpick. The story is sweet and simple, easy to understand, the quick time events are spread nicely across the campaign, and from the gameplay to the enemy AI, everything seems so planned out. Resident Evil 4 is the the best survival horror game ever made.

Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles (2009)



Listen to this while you read the review for the full experience!

Spoiler:

Nintendo Wii’s Rail-Shooting sequel to the Umbrella Chronicles comes to us in the form of, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles.

This game goes over the RE games that UC missed. RE2 for the Raccoon City Incident with the Memories Of A Lost City Scenario, CVX with the Game Of Oblivion Scenario, and like UC with Operation TALOS in the Fall Of Umbrella, Darkside Chronicles(DSC) gets an original story with Leon Kennedy and Jack Krauser working together, in the Operation Javier scenario.



DSC follows RE2, CVX and an original story in a much better format than UC followed RE0, RE1, RE3 and it’s original story. Instead of 3 Chapters per scenario, you’ll actually get enough to fit in all of the major plot points, so you don’t miss anything pertinent and singnificant. How brilliantly RE2 was Remade in DSC makes me wish RE3 could’ve been done this way too. The main characters that you’ll play as are Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Steve Burnside, and Jack Krauser. As well as Tofu. All of those characters, minus Tofu appear on DSC’s cover too.



The gameplay is quite similar to it’s predecessor, aim, shoot, Hold A and swing the wii-mote to knife, etc. It improves on the weapon selection as far as using a system similar to RE5’s inventory. You can assign a different weapon to each direction on the D-pad for a quick/hot key system. It works quite nicely, instead of the 2 way cycle they had in UC. The melee’s you can perform whenever a zombie grabs you happen far less often, almost never, but do have an improved system, with a meter that fills up when you swing your Wii-mote around. The game improves pretty much all aspects of UC actually, as far as the music, graphics, Voice Acting and everything else goes.



DSC actually makes it feel like you have someone with you even more, by having them appear on screen at times. You may even have to shoot a zombie grabbing and trying to naw on your buddy. The dialogues that can be heard between the charactes, Leon/Claire, Claire/Steve, Leon/Krauser, are actually pretty entertaining. There are some LOL moments for sure. Again, the VA improvement makes it so much better too.

The VA in this game includes the talents of Allyson Court for Claire Redfield(RE2, CVX, Degeneration), Paul Mercier for Leon Kennedy(who actually narrates the game and is basically the star of DSC)(RE4, Degeneration), Sally Cahill for Ada Wong(RE2, RE4) and James Ward for Krauser(RE4) and a nice cameo from Roger Craig Smith as Chris Redifeld(RE5, RER, RE6).

Graphiclly it looks very dark, and cool, and gritty. You can see the style they were going for, and it looks very nice. The characters almost seem inferior to the character models we’ve seen in previous games, like Remake, RE0 and RE4. In DSC, much like UC, the characters almost look chartoony, but it’s done so much better in this game, that I really didn’t mind. Like I said, the style of the game is really cool and dark, hence Darkside. A dark style, maybe similar to the Outbreaks and RER, and even Remake and RE0.



The score for the game is quite impressive too. I found UC’s soundtrack to be enjoyable, but sounded pretty different from any other RE game I thought, not in a bad way, but different. DSC definitely captures a darker tone in it’s musical score. You get to hear plenty of completely new tracks in addition to some nicely redone BGM’s from the previuos games. In Memories Of A Lost City, you’ll hear the awesome Malformation Of G themes when you fight Birkin, but redone and orchestrated with a nice darker feel. In Game Of Oblivion you’ll hear great tracks like The Suspended Doll and Emergency to get you in the dark mood. I’m usually pretty picky, but I think they did a great job redoing the music they did. Operation Javier also has some music to set the mood.

The upgrading system is still in DSC, so that’ll keep you playing and trying to upgrade your weapons to make them even more effective against the enemies.

As far as Extras go, DSC could be called Extras Galore! It has a Cutscene Browser, plenty of Files(New and Old), Info on Characters and Enemies(with a rendering of the character/enemy that you can examing with precision, being able to zoom, rotate and all that). You can also post your Results Online. I haven’t really bothered too much with that. Honestly kind of uninteresting I think, but hey, it’s something.



I really wish I could complain about this game. No, actually I don’t, but I can honestly say that I found this game to be a very satisfying experience. Exactly what a sequel should be. By the time the game ends and you hear that epic and dark, emotional music in the credits, you know you just experienced an awesome game. In a way, I still wish it wasn’t a rail-shooter that I got to experience such an awesome RE2 and CVX remake in, or experience the new events like Umbrella’s End and Operation Javier via rail shooter, but it’s done so nicely that you can’t help but love it. Even if we don’t get a Remake2 or a Remake3 or REmakeCVX, at least DSC gives us a cool experience that almost makes up for it.

This game also supports co-op, so if you got a buddy that you want to play through with, there ya go! The only complaints I can think of, are maybe some of the voices, like Alexia, that were just terrible. That’s about it.



This game has gotten me anxious for another sequel, a Chronicles 3. Possibly incorporating the Survivor series, Survivor Chroincles, I which it chronicles Surivor, Dead Aim and at least one original story. But I won’t hold my breath on this one.

Darkside Chronicles get’s a 9/10 from this guy. Why? Because the gameplay, VA, music, graphics, Extras and everything else in DSC is the bomb and really shouldn’t be passed up, especially now with it being on Wii and Ps3.

--Spike