It makes such a wasteful use of its source content, something even Operation Raccoon City couldn’t be accused of. It’s so very rare to find something exciting about Umbrella Corps. If Umbrella Corps isn’t being frustrating, then it’s sucking the joy out of your life with its utter banality. Online battles swiftly degrade to six people swinging the Brainer about while you dream about all the ways Capcom could have made A) a better Resi spinoff, and B) a better Counter Strike clone. Otherwise it’s pretty overpowered, and much like the guns, it appears to have about as much weight and impact as a comically-sized inflatable hammer. Its one drawback is the animation for it needs to finish before you can move again, leaving you exposed momentarily. This extraordinarily malicious-looking pickaxe takes enemies down with ease, and if you charge it, you can obliterate small groups in one hot, visceral swing. Bad enough that they have little in the way of impact, with zombies taking shotgun blasts like a gentle push, but the fact they are all eclipsed by the Brainer melee weapon. You get a selection of guns n’ grenades to swap in and out so it’d be great if they were really useful tools. You end up avoiding using it entirely after a while because it puts you more at a disadvantage than not being in cover at all thanks to its clunky, treacly transition animation. While we’re at it, the overbearing cover system is as useful as suntan lotion in a British Summer. Here it feels like that idea was started and ditched before they finished. A big part of Resident Evil’s legacy is using sound to let you understand a threat is beat, yet still not give away exactly where. If there was some help from the audio then it wouldn’t be such an issue, but there’s no cues as to what you cannot see. It takes up far too much of the screen and is a massive hindrance to your ability to spot threats. Not quite first-person, not quite third-person, instead you view it from the Perspective of a gremlin hanging off your soldier’s back. You view the action from one of the oddest camera angles going.
![umbrella corps review umbrella corps review](https://www.relyonhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/umbcorp-e1466555573325.jpg)
The fear is that all the recent goodwill garnered from that Resident Evil 7 announcement could be knocked into a cocked hat if Umbrella Corps dares repeat that notorious day in gaming history.
#Umbrella corps review series
That gaming lowpoint for the series is in fact Operation Raccoon City, a festering puddle of rot that played fast and loose with the Resi brand, appearing to be more of a discount store knockoff than a fine non-canon addition to the rich, daft, and often shite, tapestry of Resident Evil. You have your remasters (Resi 0,4,5 and 6), an enticing teaser demo for the next installment that evokes fond memories of what sparked the series into life, and you have a spinoff that uses the name and locations pluckled from the Resident Evil universe in the shape of the squad-based shooter, Umbrella Corps.Ĭapcom’s latest offering brings to mind one of Resident Evil’s lowest points outside RE: Apocalypse’s depiction of the cold and menacing killing machine from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis as a blubbering, touchy-feely crybaby who sees the error of his ways. It’s the series’ 20th anniversary and we’ve been seeing a distilled version of the timeline this year with the games that are currently coming from it. There’s quite the wave of nostalgia surrounding Resident Evil at the moment.