Given the awesomeness and success of RE4Wii, both of these games should have been done in that style.


However, even as (boring ol') rail shooters, they provide an excellent Cliffs Notes to a long and complex backstory.  And as someone who tends to value plot about all else, I appreciate that!!

While I'm not a big fan of rail shooters, Umbrella and Darkside Chronicles are two of the best ones I know.  They may not play like most of the games in the Resident Evil universe, but to me they felt like them (and they certainly felt more like them than RE 5 did) with plenty of item collection; a little bit of exploration; and some cinematic drama occasionally.  They even managed to condense some of the more stupid or convoluted aspects of the series down into something a tad more digestible.  From where I stand, that's quite an achievement considering the constraints of the genre.  It's good to see Capcom giving them another chance as a bundled experience.

I don't own either of these games, so if this came here, I'd probably get it.

You may already know this, but Umbrella Chronicles originally started development with the RE4 engine, then was made into a rail shooter to appeal to the whole casual craze. Neither game sold more than RE4, however.

@broodwars

I agree with all you just said! We should frame this ^_^

PS - is your name a Breath of Fire reference? I've just started going back and (re)playing those games.

I did not know that (about the development).  But I did know the sales were not as good as RE4Wii ... ain't it funny how awesome third-party games can sell on the Wii?

Also, I don't know if "casual" was the right word.  I don't think any of the HotD games or Virtua Cop games or any other rail shooter was ever popularized by the truly casual crowd.

But I'll grant you that they might have thought the Wii audience couldn't handle the awesome responsibility of "moving" =P

Probably not, but that's of course the word that CapCom used.

No, there's a bit of a story behind it but it's a StarCraft reference, StarCraft 64 to be more exact.  Long story short, StarCraft 64 (which, incidentally, is NOT a bad version of the game even if it is inferior to the original PC version) is the game that led to me playing the original StarCraft and its Broodwar expansion (which at the time I always thought of by the name "Broodwars" since there are multiple wars in the game).

Playing StarCraft got me into the fan modding scene with the Robotech Expeditionary Force StarCraft/WarCraft III Total Conversion (I practically built the WarCraft III version, such as it was, by myself using the WC3 World Editor).  Sadly, the project never made it beyond the Alpha stage, though I'm happy with what we accomplished given our severely limited resources.  I was eventually able to use my experience on that project to obtain a tester job with a local AAA games publisher/developer, so for me the name "broodwars" carries a lot of sentimental value.  It reminds me of where I've been, and what a person can accomplish with the right amount of enthusiasm and effort.

@broodwars

Hey man, that's an awesome tale!

I was never deep in to RTS but I did devour WC1+2 and my friends used to make me play StarCraft at their LANed house all the time =P  I sucked at it but it was a lot of fun.  I really liked those human units that were like a little dude on a flying motorcycle thing.

Also, I flappin' love Macross (Robotech)!  I bet I would have really been in to that mod.

PS - "Jack Dan!"

The Terran campaign was the only one I bothered completing since I didn't like the Protoss and especially the Zerg.

Cool.  If you ever pick up WarCraft III, the mod's still out there (and I still have all my old files) so you should give it a shot.  The AI's abysmal because we changed so much it doesn't know what to do (and there's a major bug with the MAC II Monster Destroids I could never fix), but the gameplay was excellent in human on human matches.  We only got as far as changing the gameplay; the 2D artwork; and the music/sound effects because...well...our "team" in the end consisted of just me and the audio wizard that was our team leader.  Man,  the story we could have told if we had ever gotten a 3D modeler and level designer for the campaign stages (I scripted most of them myself in Word), but I suppose that's just the nature of fan projects like that.

WarCraft III was not a popular modding program, despite how easy it was due to the excellent World Editor Blizzard programed.  By the time the StarCraft version got off the ground, the modding community had moved elsewhere and the game just couldn't handle what we wanted to do (which is why we went to WC3).  So we never got the support I would have liked, but I think we put something out I can be proud of personally for all its faults.

If you ever followed where Robotech went after Macross, you probably would have liked the story we were going to tell regarding the human expedition to find the Robotech Masters.  It was going to be big and epic, including a generational story we had planned for the Masters Campaign covering 3 different periods in time.  Ah...memories...

Anyway, if you ever give WarCraft III a try, give the TC a try (the WC3 version went under the name "Robotech: Enemy Frontier"...aka "REFmod").  What's there is limited, but I think it turned out pretty cool.

Yeah, the Terran Campaign in the original StarCraft is the only one I really cared for.  It had the best variety, the best pacing, and it's not particularly difficult until that very last mission.  I've never liked the Zerg.  They have the same problem I had trying to plan out the Invid campaign for my mod: they're just boring and rely heavily on mass & rush tactics, which I despise.  Their story is pretty dull as well.  I liked the story in the Protoss campaign, but those missions are brutal, and I had to cheat just to see the end of that campaign.

Someday, I'm going to get a PC actually capable of playing StarCraft II, as I'd really like to play that game since I've heard the SP Campaign is really good.

You know, at one point in college I watched the other two Robotech series and ya know what? I liked 'em ... not as good as the rest of the Macross creations... but definitely enjoyable.  I downright love those motorcycle armor suits.  (This thread makes it sound like I really have a thing for motorcycles!)

So yea, if my gaming ever takes me to SC I will most definitely visit your page again.  Thanks for sharing!

To appeal to more hardcore gamers, Nintendo should bundle certain mature third party games with a black Wii (or black Wii slim if released in NA).