We received a review copy and for our 3rd year wedding anniversary, April and I played through some levels of RE: TDC that evening.  We are happy to say that while it’s not perfect, it was an enjoyable night of co-op play that I can recommend to any fans of Resident Evil.  You have the option to play the game using just the Wiimote or a gun controller like the Wii Zapper with the Wiimote and Nunchuck.  We used Nyko’s Perfect Shot gun peripherals.

If you are a fan of Resident Evil, then you already know that this isn’t a typical Resident Evil game. You play through the events that happen in Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica, but instead of wandering around solving puzzles in third person, you are along for a bumpy ride that puts you in the shoes of the characters in a light-gun style rail-shooting adventure.  I’m not kidding when I say bumpy. The camera shakes, sways, twists and turns, as your chosen character runs around each locale. It really puts you inside the character, and also makes the game very challenging. The camera doesn’t just shift from one still section to another as in most rail-shooters. Instead, it bobs and weaves constantly, making it tricky to maintain your accuracy.  To add to the difficulty, our guns did not shoot at the area we were aiming. Our aiming reticle, which you can choose to turn on or off, moved in relation to our movements, but did not line up with where we were pointing at the screen. You can adjust the vertical pitch of the reticle, but we couldn’t get it to adjust enough to properly align the WiiMote. We chose to keep the reticle on so we could see how responsive the control was, and once we got a feel for it, we were able to up our accuracy quite a bit which was good, because you will have to be accurate to get through some of the bosses. While the camera is moving around, so are these poor victims of the G-Virus. Usually the creature’s are twice your size, but their vulnerable area is pretty small,like just above the mouth of the creature, or the creature’s tiny little heart. To beat some of these bosses, you will have to employ a little bit of strategy to get through them, like when to use your powerhouse weapons and when to use your pistol. While some of these bosses can be pretty epic, it’s the regular zombies that are the most fun to blow away.

It’s great just mowing through a horde of zombies as they shamble mindlessly into a barrage of your bullets. This game features bonus points for head-shots, but the game doesn’t always count a shot to the head as a head-shot. You can shoot a zombie several times in the head, but until the head explodes, it’s not a head-shot. This balances the game out, but can be slightly frustrating if you are shooting a zombie square in the head several times only to have your partner swoop in a blow it’s head off with one bullet from their handgun.  On the bright side, this element of the game adds a little competition to the co-op. For every kill, you receive points. At the end of the level, you get to see how many zombies each of you killed, how many head-shots you made, along with how much time it took to get through the level and how many times you had to continue. You are graded in these different areas to receive a final score. Getting a better score unlocks various things.  You can also unlock other items by finding them within the level by shooting at inanimate objects. There are several galleries you can visit from the main menu to view all the items you find.  While April found this mechanic to be a little annoying, I felt that it gave you extra targets in the game to shoot at if their are no zombies on the screen. And I’m all for extra targets!  While you are shooting around these levels, you can also find new guns, ammo for the various guns, and money to upgrade different aspects of your weaponry.

The weapons we found included the shotgun, bow-gun, grenade launcher, sub-machine gun, magnum revolver, rocket launcher, and grenades. Each of these have limited ammo, except your default handgun which has infinite ammo.  You can find more ammo throughout the level, but you need to keep your eyes open so you can grab it quickly.  The game usually give you a few chances to pick up items but sometimes, it’s the luck of the draw.  You carry your ammo over into the next level or if you have used it all up, it will get replenished when you start the next one. In the co-op mode, you share all of your ammo, so we found that using different specialty weapons is the best strategy so we aren’t dipping into each other’s ammo. You each can assign any unlocked weapon to each of the four directions on the analog stick or d-pad.  To switch weapons, you simply tap the stick in that direction. This worked really well, making it a breeze to switch guns if needed in the heat of battle.  Shaking the nunchuk to reload your weapons also worked very well. You have the option of making the action more or less responsive to your movements, so if you jerk around a lot while you play, you won’t needlessly reload your gun in the middle of a battle. We set it to Medium and it worked flawlessly.

We had an issue with the mapping of the C-button in the zapper control setup. You can customize the controller setting but there are pre-set items that you can choose from for each button and the choices for the C-button were menus. Since it is so close to the Z-button, both April and I would constantly be going to a menu screen instead of picking up an item. We finally got over it, but it took about half the game to shake the habit.

Controls aside, the graphics are a mixed bag. The cut scenes are so good they really bring out the fact that the in-game graphics are pretty weak. They are not so bad that you can’t function in the game, but I couldn’t help thinking that certain moments would be more breathtaking if they were closer to the cut scenes in quality. I figure that it would be easier to produce great graphics for an on-rails shooter. It didn’t seem to make too big a difference in this case.  I have to mention, though, that the graphics did not take away from the game. Either did it’s music, which was a little too frantic at times when it didn’t need to be. In one level, the mood of the music seem to suggest a boss battle, or an epic fight with a horde of undead, but we just wandered the halls for a few minutes. Overall, though, the music stays right in line with what you are used to if you play Resident Evil. At times, moody and spooky, other times driving rhythms push the action.

April’s Impressions:
I really enjoyed the game.  I actually liked the crazy camera, it gave it more of a realistic feel.  It did get a bit overwhelming at times and was frustrating when trying to land your shots, but as the game progressed, both Norm’s and my accuracy started to improve.  As Norm said earlier, I wasn’t really a fan of the constant shooting to get items mechanic.  It got really old, really fast, although I kept on shooting to get more stuff!  For the most part, the controls were good, with the exception of the C-Button.  That could’ve been solved with a more dynamic in-game controller customization or by ditching the Nunchuck altogether.  With our extending game playing, my right wrist started to hurt from the excessive use of the gun controller (go figure) so I had to switch to the Wiimote controls.  It took me a level to figure out that I no longer needed the Nunchuck, but strangely enough, I liked the Wiimote controls better that the gun controls.  You don’t get the fun feeling of shooting a gun but my wrist stopped hurting and I could keep on playing.  I had to remap the controls so that shooting was with the A button and knife mode was the B button and I was golden.  A quick shake of the Wiimote reloads your weapon and the aiming accuracy was better than with the gun controller.  We had played through most of the game with the guns, so I had to adjust to the new scheme, but both worked very well and gives the player a little more flexibility.  When you complete the game, you are also treated to the Secret Mode, where you get to play alternate levels where the zombies are, well, tofu!  Tofu mode is hilarious, but unfortunately is a single player mode only.  As someone who has NOT played Resident Evil 2 or Code Veronica, this was a really great way to get the meat of the story without having to go through two 20+ hour games.  I am definitely planning on going through all the Resident Evil games eventually, but until then, I am really enjoying the wild ride that RE: TDC offers.  Oh, and there are spiders – really big, ugly, disgusting spiders.

There is plenty of action in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. With four levels of difficulty, tons of unlockables, online leader boards, and a wild story, there is plenty of replay value. It’s a fun way to go back and relive some great moments in the franchise in under 12 hours. Then again, any self-respecting fan will probably want to go back and play the originals after playing through this game.

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is rated M for Mature and is available now for the Wii. Visit the Official Resident Evil: Darkside website.

A review copy of the game was provided by Capcom and did not affect the outcome of this review.