Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Capcom's on-rail shooter, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, is getting close to becoming a million-seller. It's been revealed that the title has sold 950,000 copies, with the million mark well within its reach. Actually, it could have already broken a million sales, as this data is current as of the end of December.

The game did a lot better than Capcom initially thought, especially in the U.S. and Europe where it sold the strongest, as the company reveals the title did 50% better than their in-house estimations. Personally, we don't know why they would think a game about shooting the crap out of the living dead and genetically-altered beasties alike wouldn't sell a million. Plus, with the Resident Evil name attached to it, how could it not sell incredibly well?

Remember their first hands-on with the game? They weren't too excited for the game after playing it and, with the new Nintendo Zapper, it turns out the experience hasn't gotten much better, in their eyes. Of course, we here question their sanity sometimes, only to receive the whipping of our lifetime in response, but we have to voice our protest on this one. Whips be damned! Sure, some of us think the new Wii Zapper is pretty dumb, but Joystiq is of the mind that it makes the experience worse than their first time around with the game.

Can it truly bring the experience down that much?

The ridiculous new Wii Zapper wouldn't even be enough to cause us to dislike what we're seeing in the latest footage of Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles from E3. We're salivating at the mouth to the point that we need to wear a bib. On-rails shooter or not, the embedded video is enough to excite any of us Wii fans out there.

Turn out the lights, get some popcorn and pull up to your computer: it's time for Extremely Short Horror Theater! This week, we've got a super spooky treat for all of you fright fans: a chiller from the masters of horror at Capcom, called "The Evil Residents and the Umbrella," about a town full of arthritic pedestrians terrorized by a group of militaristic, gun-wielding murderers! We're sure you'll have such a screaming good time that the name "Residence of Evil" will haunt you for years to come!

[Via Famitsu]

GayGamer recently got a chance to play Capcom's Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, which pulls old RE stories from their graves and reanimates them as segments of a rail shooter. Unlike previous Resident Evil spinoff games, this one seems like it's going to be okay.

They were especially pleased with the treatment of the story-- since the Resident Evil series has traditionally had a good story element, this game has a leg up over other zombie-filled shooting games. Nobody will have to suffer like G did.

The Nunchuk use also received praise-- being able to look around freely with the joystick just lets you do more in each area, allowing the players to search for hidden items, aim shots more accurately, and choose paths.

If you've played Dead Aim or any of Resident Evil's other Gun Survivor spinoffs, it's understandable why you might be hesitant to give Capcom's newest rail-shooter a chance. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles shares the same first-person perspective and light gun mechanics as the GunCon games, so it's easy to associate the title with the mediocre Gun Survivor series.

NeoGAF forumer cvxfreak posted a well-supported list of reasons for why you shouldn't confuse the new Wii game with its PS2 cousins, claiming their similarities as superficial. Unlike with most of the Gun Survivor titles, Umbrella Chronicles' development hasn't been handed down to a lesser studio. Capcom's own Kawada Masachika is heading production, working to extend the game's length -- approximately 15 hours -- beyond the short playtimes that plagued Gun Survivor releases. Umbrella Chronicles also promises a lot more gameplay depth with destructible environments, improved weapon selection, and quick time events.

Previews for Umbrella Chronicles haven't been favorable, but it's still too early in development for us to judge. Knowing that Capcom won't be following the same formula as the Gun Survivor series, however, gives us hope for the final product.

Capcom has laid it out on the line and one thing has made us especially happy (well, just me really): Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles is still on-track for a 2007 release. Yes, we know what the game is, but we just don't care. If it has the name Resident Evil on it, we're buying it.

In the interest of everyone else out there besides this lone blogger, the rest of the tidbits are especially delicious. Capcom has announced Devil Kings 2 for the Wii (in Japan only as of right now), which if you're one of the folks who didn't play the first game, you can read about it here. Capcom also notes that they have several unannounced titles in the works for Wii, one of which will be revealed in the next few weeks.

Oh, thanks Capcom, don't you know that information such as that hurts us more than it helps us?