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While progressing through stages and laying waste to countless monstrosities, you'll continuously fire off shots at helpless pieces of scenery, and doing this ratchets up the challenge. A far away zombie may be easy headshot pickings, but they could be surrounded by furniture that you want to blow up first. If you shoot around looking for items, the undead will be on you before you know it and you'll risk getting bitten.
Things like that provide the thrilling freedom of choice, and help the experience stay tense, but it's never scary. As in most rail shooters, enemy appearances are predictable. You'll look down an empty hallway, move 180 degrees, and when you turn back around – suddenly, zombies! Luckily, that doesn't make for a dull game. The further you get into it, the more enemies it throws at you; you'll abandon your reliable handgun and go for another weapon.
Including unlockables hidden in destructible scenery, there are lots of guns to choose from. Bringing back the old RE mantra of “save your bullets,” they'll make you sorry for clearing zombies with one of them when you reach an overpowered boss, and have no potent ammo. In fact, many of the stage bosses are far too hard, even for a Resident Evil game, and this is one of RE:UC's greatest flaws (second only to the default control scheme). Wasting an hour or more (including your failures) on killing them isn't unheard of, and that's not acceptable for a game this fast-paced. Like installing a solid concrete wall at the end of the Autobahn, they're unwanted and abruptly stop the fun.
Eventually, you'll master the controls and kill faster, and the entire RE:UC experience amounts to on-rails beauty. Skipping through years of Resident Evil mythos never feels rushed, for the game mostly progresses at just the right pace and makes it entirely worth experiencing. Even if you're never played (or liked) Resident Evil before, this rather different (Dead Aim and its kin aside) entry can be enjoyed by anyone with a lust for action. If you like co-op gameplay, there's yet another reason for you to try it out. There's tons to do, it's all sharply presented, and unless blood and guts makes you puke, every Wii owner should give this a go. Don't forget to change that blasted default control scheme first, though.
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