Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection PS3 Review

This week I've been playing the latest title from the people at Capcom, the Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection, a HD make over edition of the 2007 Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and the 2009 title Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, both of which started their life on the Nintendo Wii and have now been ported to the Playstation 3 with the inclusion of Playstation Move controls in favour of the original Wii Mote of course. Both these titles are in fact separate games, which are being sold via digital download on the Playstation Network Store, while they do come as a set, or at least that's how Capcom is marketing them, you can just as easily pick either title on its own for purchase, but for the purpose of this review, I will be taking a look at them as a collection. Capcom have been making games in one form or another for over 30 years now, creating many multi-million selling titles, plus they have been behind the Resident Evil franchise ever since the Playstation 1 days, turning Resident Evil into Capcoms most successful brand so far and with stacks of titles to the Resident Evil name, an array of movie adoptions and spin off and a whole lot more keeping the zombie slaying antics alive for 3 console generations and no doubt planning to continue it onto the next. So lets take a look at what these two HD re-releases have to offer and see if Capcom have brought these two Wii releases a new lease of life on the Playstation 3. The HD editions of these games may not be the pinicle of high definition gaming when it comes to graphical prowess, but they're not the worst looking games either, the HD makeover really has brought the now five year old Umbrella Chronicles and three year old Darkside Chronicles titles back to life since their original release on the Nintendo Wii, which as most of us should know by now was not a HD capable console. Aside from the obvious resolution upgrade, it doesn't take long to notice, at least for those that have played the original titles anyway, to see that Capcom have improved things such as frame rate, textures and a few other things, even things like lighting look better, but this could just be thanks to the resolution increase, with HD graphics generally providing a better contrast ratio overall compared to a standard definition AV setup. Light gun shooters were well suited to the Wii and back when these two titles were launched they were welcome additions to the consoles ever growing masses of less mature titles, while these are a bit slapstick at times, with the sort of cheesy voice acting and story, gunning down zombies is generally the sort of thing I would consider more mature in terms of gaming. Fortunately the gun mechanics have ported over to the Playstation Move really well, so well in fact that its easy to notice the game has seen some fair improvements in the shooting controls and even other things such as the camera, which all help add to the HD make over, showing that Capcom have gone a little further than just upping the game engines internal resolution. The improved controls are helped in a big part by the Playstation Move, which was long regarded as a copy of Nintendo's Wii controller, but is in many respects a much more complex and accurate device, something which really shows when playing these two titles. In the end it just means those precision head shots just got a whole lot easier. There is no lack of controller setups for this title either, offering up the use of the Playstation Move Wand, which is great for precision, definitely more so than what was offered with the Wii controller (although that was more than capable also), or you can play using the wand and navigation controller, a Sharpshooter attachment and of course should you need to there is also support for the Dual Shock controller, although with that last one the game seems to loose nearly all of its purpose. It's a pretty cut and shut scenario when it comes to story, sure there is a plot, but as with any other on-rails shooter, it has little consequence on your actions. As a player, you're along for the ride with your main objective being to shoot anything that gets in the way, it couldn't be much simpler. The games revisit the stomping grounds of the original Resident Evil games from the Playstation 1, with the voice of Albert Wesker narrating to fill you in on some of the back story, for those of you who haven't played a Resident Evil title before, Albert Wesker is essentially "the bad guy". While the story is nothing ground breaking it does serve as a nice retelling of some of the events of previous games in the series, at great way to catch up for those that have only played the games from the last few years. The Umbrella Chronicles find you taking the rolls of Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen on a train full of zombies, although its worth pointing out, there are zombies everywhere in these games, no points if you guessed that your self already. Then we have Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine in the mansion from the original Resident Evil title and some new story elements based around Umbrella's base in Russia. Darkside sees you taking the roles of Leon S Kennedy and Jack Krauser in South Africa in another piece of original story to the series, but also features Claire, Steve Burnside and some of the adventures in Racoon City from Resident Evil 2, Rockfort island in Code Veronica and a little that touches towards Resident Evil 4 for good measure. So plenty to keep the fans and new comes happy here. There are already a few good gun shooters out on the Playstation Move, titles such as House of the Dead: Overkill and Dead Space: Extraction are notable mentions. If your a fan of these titles or of course of the Playstation Move in general, then either of these two titles will make a welcome addition to your collection. One of the things I enjoyed the most about these games was their robust support for co-op, with full two player support throughout both games stories (with the exception of some bonus levels which are limited to one player), helping to add to the experience. While either of the two games are good in one player mode, I just couldn't see my self sitting down for a quiet night of gaming to play a move enabled shooter, but when it comes to two player co-op a game like this really comes alive as in my opinion a game like this is all about the co-op. So over all I'm fairly happy with these titles, but I feel it's not quite worth our Gamers Choice award, which is no bad thing because these games are already a few years old, something which still shows even with a bit of HD shine added to them. That being said, if your a fan of light gun shooters, a big fan of the Playstation Move or a big fan of co-op action games, then this is a great deal for you, since both titles can be purchased for little over £20.00, which these days is a really good deal for one game and even better deal for two, which is why I'm going to do something a little different and award Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection our Bang for Buck award.