Thursday 5 October 2017

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles Review - The cliff notes for Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica.


By Sam Coles:

The Wii often gets regarded as a system for children; however publishers like Capcom and Sega produced some games that were for more mature audiences such as Madworld. Capcom produced a few re-releases of Resident Evil Remake, 0 and 4, but it’s the Chronicles games that are the stand outs. The rail shooter fits the Wii perfectly and filled the void due to the fact that light guns don’t work on modern televisions. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a fantastic game and pushes the Wii hardware to its limits. Let’s get into it.

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles takes place in between Resident Evil 3 and 4 where you see Leon and Claire talk about past endeavours, from Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica. It switches from the present day to the past and it’s what I like to call the cliff notes of the story of Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica for those who can’t be bothered to slog through those games. The cutscenes look great with decent animations and great character models, but the dialogue in typical Resident Evil fashion is awkwardly delivered, with segments where they try to be funny and it makes me want to slice my ears off.

Gameplay is a first person on rails shooter evoking the old school games that were the craze in the arcade back in the 90’s and mid 2000’s. You go through levels taking down waves of the undead and other biological weapons of mass destruction, with difficulty slowly ramping in each level. This game can get rather challenging as you have to time your shots when enemies attack you because if you hit the sweet spot you can parry their attacks. This can get frustrating in some sections as the camera shakes all over the place like a drunk on Park Street in the centre of Bristol on Saturday night. I expect that this is intentional to give a sense of urgency and panic from the main characters as they are battling these disgusting monstrosities.

You can use a wide array of weapons, where you start off with a pistol that has infinite ammo, this gun is generally for dealing with the standard cannon fodder zombies you encounter. You have an Uzi great for dealing with small creatures that litter the floor, a shotgun that is great for dealing with bigger enemies and more exotic weapons like the magnum. All the weapons suit different situations and it encourages you to think on your toes because if you keep using the infinite ammo pistol you’re going to die a lot as it does not do a lot of damage.

Similar to Resident Evil 5 after every chapter you can customise what weapons you want to take into the field, and organise your inventory. This is also a good time to spend your gold you have earned which can help upgrade your weapons, this is the standard increase magazine size, damage and reload speed nothing particularly remarkable.

The presentation surprised me because the Nintendo Wii is not known as a graphical powerhouse because it is a slightly beefy GameCube with standard definition resolution. The monsters look amazing with decaying flesh, coupled with the updated models of the monsters and bosses give it a fresh coat of paint. The only issue is that the frame rate drops to unplayable levels when it gets busy in certain sections.


Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a fantastic rail shooter, with great action and beautiful visuals for the Nintendo Wii. Pick this game up on the Wii if you have to chance as it’s rather cheap these days, or if you have a PS3 with a set of move controllers you can pick it up on that. 

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