RESIDENT EVIL: DARKSIDE CHRONICLES

Console: Wii

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles is a first person shooter take on a couple of the classic Resident Evil games. The game is told from the perspective of Leon S. Kennedy, and details what he was up to in between his Resident Evil appearances. You start the game in a new mission, where he met Krauser for the first time. After that, you go through Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica in an episodic, arcade mode manner. (The astute of you will notice that Leon wasn't in CV, so this is a second hand account he got from Claire.) The game is divided into episodes, with each episode having a number of checkpoints.

This game is very simple. You have a gun. There are zombies that want to eat you. Fire said gun to keep them away. There is no movement involved because this is a rail shooter. On the upside, there is more than just the handgun in terms of weaponry. The player (each episode lets you pick between two characters) has a number of different weapons to use: handgun, shotgun, sub-machine gun, grenades, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, magnum, crossbow gun, and a knife for annoying critters. All of the guns need to be reloaded via remote wiggle, but the handgun offers unlimited ammunition (it IS a rail shooter, after all). Extra ammunition can be found for the other guns, but expect to find very little of the heavy duty stuff. There are also health items but, like any other Resident Evil game, they are in short supply. Darkside Chronicles does have an advantage over its predecessor, and that is the ability to stock health items. Previously they were used right away, which was very annoying. In this game, a push of the + button uses a herb.

Speaking of improvements over the last game, your partner actually does something if playing on one player! Before, you were lucky if you even saw him swing a knife. Here, your partner actually shoots at enemies, getting headshots occasionally, and of course hollers hints at you. They do have a tendency to get grabbed by zombies, in which case you need to help them, but it's so hard to resist shooting Steve in the head I mean hit the zombie instead of the partner.

Steve. Freaking Steve. If you don't know who I am talking about, Steve was the supporting character from Code: Veronica. He is considered the most annoying male player character of the series. Darkside Chronicles gives him a voice update, which really helps, but they don't fix his Captain Obvious, cheesy dialogue. He really makes me grumble. I will admit, however, that the new looks aren't too bad. His character model is the same, but the face is improved. Other characters to get an update are Sherry from RE2, and the creepy Ashford twins from CV. Sherry looks and sounds largely the same, but has improved expressions. Creepy Ashfords also get updated models, but there are vocal differences. Alexia has more of an accent here, and Alfred pretty much resembles his interpretation in this flash movie. The set for Code: Veronica's training compound has been altered to resemble a torture playground, with random scribbles all over the place (think Joker graffiti from Dark Knight). The set from RE2 is completely the same but with higher resolution (and more blood).

I would like to point out that the game has a fuzzy canon. Things are for the most part the same as the games, but little details get changed. For example, Claire and Leon don't split up in the RE2 chapter, whereas they did in the original game. All of it is okay for me, except one tiny detail in the CV chapter: Alexia is the one who kills Alfred. In the original game, Alfred dies from wounds after releasing Alexia. She does not kill him. That one minor change completely derails their devotion to each other (even though Alfred is seen as the less intelligent one, she still cares about him a lot).

The game is very easy to play, with a couple different difficulty settings. It's sort of short in terms of game play but long when compared to other rail shooters. It has optimization for the Wii Zapper, but I really don't recommend using it. Without the Zapper all you need is the remote, but use it and you have to hook up a nunchuck. The nunchuck doesn't go in the holster, however, so you look like a silly holding the Zapper in one hand with the nunchuck in the other.

Now for my comments: ZOMG I SAW WESKER AHH! :D Okay. Now that that's out of the way, I really like this one. Easy to play, no worrying about finding keys or crests to move forward, nice looking character models (and Wesker!) and a comfortable price ($20-$30 depending on where you buy) make this a good buy. I also think headshots are extremely fun. Yes, it sounds and looks gory, but nothing makes you happier than knocking off a zombie in one shot.

Definitely buy this game!