I loved the Time Crisis and House of the Dead series, so while the unveiling of Capcom's Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles dashed my hopes of a new traditional Resident Evil title on the Wii, my frothing demand for a rail-shooter increased significantly. Chris Remo took you through the basics of gameplay with a hands-on preview during Capcom Gamer's Day. The new build at this year's E3 had an additional level, but it also came with an added bonus: Capcom had Nintendo's Wii Zapper peripheral for my arcade-emulating enjoyment.

I played the level both with the Zapper and without, and came away with mixed feelings. You hold the Zapper with two hands: one on the front where you pull an enhanced trigger to press the B button, and the other on the back where you have access to the nunchuck attachment. Playing with the Zapper certainly added the feeling of rocking an arcade shooter, but aiming wasn't as accurate as with the Wii-mote alone. I did get better by the end of the level, but it still felt like I was more of a marksman playing sans Zapper. And doing Wii-motions like reloading and knife slashing required me to move with both of my hands, making things slightly more awkward than using one hand to gracefully wave the Wii-wand. A game designed for the ground up for the Zapper might avoid such design decisions.

With the nunchuck attached to the back of the gun, I found it a little disorienting using the analog control to look around while simultaneously moving the Zapper to aim. Since the game is on rails, the control aiming is really a secondary control method, but it's still nice to be able to use in case you miss items or zombies. Overall, the Zapper made things more fun, but took some getting used to. It's a tradeoff between more intuitive controls and actually holding a gun-like object, so choose whichever suits you best.

Regarding the actual game, the new Umbrella Chronicles level had me playing as Jill Valentine, making my way through the zombie-infested streets of Raccoon City. Legions of the undead were crowding the streets, slowly ambling toward me or feasting on the fallen dead. I could shoot cars or obviously-placed barrels for multi-zombie kills. Other contextual elements were less visible, like a destructable white strap holding up a bundle of zombie-crushing girders. I ran into other Resident Evil mainstays like zombie dogs and giant spiders, all of which took fewer hits to kill than the standard zombies. Headshots are actually fairly difficult to pull off on the undead, requiring you to focus your aim on the ugly's forehead in a very particular spot until the crosshair focuses with a bright red dot.

At this point, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles looks like a fairly solid title with above-Wii-par graphics and co-op gameplay. Though certainly nothing groundbreaking, it should at least be better than the mediocre Resident Evil: Dead Aim on PS2, and having the Wii Zapper available to gamers won't hurt.

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