Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles - Mini Review

After I finished my last exam on December 12, I had much more free time available. I had an opportunity to try out Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles on the Nintendo Wii. I had always been fascinated by the Nintendo Wiimote's apparent ability to replicate the Arcade light gun experience in the comfort of the living room and I was able to see if it lives up to the expectation.

I was quite impressed by the game and its use of the Wiimote. The Wiimote's pointer is quite natural for pointing and shooting the zombies that appear in the game. It wasn't awkward at all to "aim the pointer" instead of aim the monster. In several parts of the game, there is action button sequence where the player has to press a button or wiggle the controller in order to dodge an attack. Those sequences add excitement to the game play as the player cannot rest while the game is in progress. The only drawback is that the button that needs to be pressed appears to be random. There are several time where the player has to wiggle the Wiimote, but the action performed on screen had nothing to do with "wiggle".

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles is a great game that shows off the unique feature of the Nintendo Wii.

First Impression of Nintendo Wii Controller

One of the facinating aspect about the Nintendo Wii is the motion sensing controller called Wiimote. Before the console's release, many people had had high expectation about the controller's capabilities (ex. lightsaber). Last week, I had the opportunity to try out the console at a friend's house. I was able to test out one of expectations that I had regarding the Wiimote.

One of the minigame in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess involves controlling a flying dragon using the Wii's pointer capability. Even before I tried using the pointing capability, I already know that the controller derives the point relative to the Wii LED emitters. What I did not expect, however, is that it requires more thoughts than anticipated to keep the controller pointing at the screen. Whenever I need to reoriented the dragon quickly, I have a tendency to overtilt the controller. This is because, unlike the analog nob, the pointer does not provide any tactile feedback. As a result, the game would prompt me to point the Wiimote at the screen. I would be interested to know if the Gamecube version of Zelda provides more intuitive control for that minigame.