[Wii] Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles & Resident Evil 4 Wii edition

Press release

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
Official site
Promotional video 1
Promotional video 2
Article from April 2007 issue of Famitsu:


Genre: On-rails first person shooter
Release date: Autumn/winter 2007

Famitsu preview:
- The game will be divided into at least four stages (mansion, dormitory, laboratory, Raccoon City)
- All characters from Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis will appear, each being playable in their respective stages
- No free movement but the player is able to look around by using the analogue stick
- There will be branch parts just like in Resident Evil Survivor
- There will be quick time events like in Resident Evil 4
- The doors will be opened rather by shooting at them than by using keys
- Jill and Chris will explore the mansion together
- The story will be told from Umbrella's point of view, shedding more light on the company's activities and its downfall
- Mysteries from previous games will be explained by documents
- Albert Wesker will play a very important role
- the actual downfall of the Umbrella Corporation leading up to RE4 takes place in 2003

Man!ac preview:
- you'll meet single zombies only from time to time
- the trailer shown at Capcom Gamer's Day was one and a half minutes long
- producer Kawata says "For Umbrella Chronicles, we concentrated on the shooting in the 'Resident Evil'-series and tried to intensify that" + "The game was built from scratch for the Wii"
- aiming with Wii remote, shooting by pressing the B-button
- scenarios: Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, Umbrella's stronghold
- retelling of the previous games equals to 50% of the title, the other 50% is new material
- the article indicates that each of the scenarios will have the characters cooperating: Chris + Jill (RE) / Rebecca + Billy (RE0) / Jill + Carlos (RE3)
- the article doesn't say if we will be able to choose the playable character
- apart from the second character saying things like "Let's look for any survivors", he or she won't do anything; the article goes on and speculates about the possibility of a second player taking over the role of that character
- the CGD demo was 20 minutes long
- standard hangun will have infinite bullets
- reloading by moving down the remote for a brief moment
- number of bullets in the gun indicated by the Wii pointer on the screen
- confirmed weapons: handgun, shotgun, MG, rocket launcher, grenades
- a lot of things will be destroyable, the trash can even hinder the player from progressing, you can also shoot out the light which is of course a bad idea
- camera can be moved by using the nunchuk
- pick up items and choose at branching parts by pressing the A-button
- Nintendo is publisher
- uncomplicated controls
- gameplay very simple and not very varied at the moment
- there are little boxes for each character telling their stories ~ the boxes of Leon, Claire and Ada contain a little note "Character has yet to be confirmed for UC"


Q: Why did you choose the Wii as console?
A: Because of the possibilities the Wii provides with its fancy controls. The Wii is a wonderful console to develop games for and its perfect for "The Umbrella Chronicles".

Q: "The Umbrella Chronicles" contains only episodes from "Zero, 1, 2 and 3". Is there a reason why "CODE: Veronica" was left out?
A: We choose those four games because the Umbrella Corporation is present most prominently in these. We're going to tell the story of Umbrella and want to narrow the storyline down to the most important games.

Q: The gameplay of light-gun games in the RE-series is nothing special. Why do you try using the ego-perspective once more?
A: During development we tried many possibilities and eventually decided to use first-person-view. Because we want to concentrate less on the movement and more on the shooting, this camera-view seemed most reasonable.

Q: Will there ever be a an old-school RE?
A: We haven't decided yet. We think a lot about the future of the series and how to keep on telling the story of RE.


Resident Evil 4: Wii edition
Official site
Interview with developers - no gameplay footage (Password: BIO4WIIED)
Article from April 2007 issue of Famitsu:


Release: May 31st, 2007 (Japan)

- Will include Ada's PlayStation 2-exclusive scenario "separate ways"
- true widescreen support
- visuals from the GameCube version with some minor tweaks here and there
- The Wii Remote is used for aiming
- The laser pointer has been replaced by a cross-hair (green when aiming, red when pointing at something that can be shot)
- Knife fighting and quick time events are also performed by moving the Wii Remote

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think the PAL box art is absolute shit. I loved the original PAL GameCube one...

...but I hated the PS2 one the moment I saw it. It just looks so cheap and crappy with this brigther red, like a five minute MSPaint work. Everyone could have done this.
I wouldn't have believed that you can even make that one look any worse by bleeching it and putting a Wii logo on it, but it works. Then again, I won't buy the game until the price comes down, anyway.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by surasshu

38/40 from Famitsu.

I don't know how forgiving Famitsu is when it comes to ports but that rating seems to indicate some good controls. It will be my first Wii game so I hope it's not too hard to aim.
Getting this as soon as the price drops. 60$ is just way too much for a two year old game that has its PAL localization already done.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Now with crappy voice actors!

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Kairi Li

its all the same voice actors... I think...

Huh?
These are all new voice actors. Only Jill sounded distinctly familiar.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Slayer X

Also the actor's are probably away doing the script for RE5 because a good amount of the original VA team has already been casted for returning roles in it (i.e. Wesker)

Voice-overs are traditionally done at the very beginning of the game, even before graphics and the gameplay engine itself is finished. And it doesn't take very long, so it's not due to BIOHAZARD5.

Originally Posted by Krelian

A Resi game with good voice acting? RE4's VA was actually fairly good.

Yes. It was just the script that hurt the atmosphere a bit, the voice acting itself was pretty good.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by RainMan

Still, the impressive pricetag and the 'upgrades' for RE4 are making the WII look much more attractive.

Yep, but that is totally nullified for PAL countries. You'll have to pay well over €40 here to get the game. It's something like double the US price, not to mention ridiculous for a two year old game.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Slayer X

it's double the price, but is it double the value? (ie. exchange?) It's probably the only game ever to attempt to stay true to USD -> CAD exchange values. Instead of kicking the price well above exchange (usually $10 increase from the USD price) Resident Wiivil 4 was only a $5 increase.

It's value, not price. $30 are approximately €22. Pity that the price is not due to exchange rates, development costs or taxes and tolls. It's just CAPCOM being greedy.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Additionally, biohazard4 Wii edition sells like crazy.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I extracted the MP3 samples from the official websites and have to say: God! I hope a soundtrack gets released for The Umbrella Chronicles, the music is shaping up extremely well (not that they game wouldn't).

Get them here instantaneously!

Also, watch the new trailer at the official Japanese website (English version available at YouTube, but I suggest watching that higher quality trailer first).

There's nowhere I can't reach.