Steer well clear of Umbrella Corps atrocity
It’s been a while since a game as hilariously bad as Umbrella Corps reared its ugly head and, while I would usually relish my tiny part in condemning a title to the video gaming Hall of Shame, there is a touch more regret than usual with this one.
Umbrella Corps is set in the Resident Evil universe, meaning that this game is only prolonging the unfortunate demise of the once-hallowed series. Beginning with Resident Evil 5, the series took a turn from tense horror to out-and-out firepower and body counts. Resident Evil 6 and Operation Raccoon City only worsened the attitudes towards the franchise, all but bringing it to its knees. Umbrella Corps feels like another absurdly-named nail in the coffin.
Umbrella Corps is a multiplayer shooter, casting you as a mercenary seeking to profit from the remains of the Umbrella Corporation. You’re sent in to the battlefield with two identikit soldiers to battle it againt three other identikit soldiers in a variety of locations set in the Resident Evil universe. Umbrella Corps is a cover shooter that can’t quite get its head around what cover means and how it should work. Maps are infuriatingly fussy about what can and can’t be cowered behind, and once you’re pressed flat against a doorway it’s hard to know exactly what advantage is proffered. As you fight with the controls to come unstuck from whatever surface you’re attached to, it feels like the cover system simply gets in the way.
Boiling Umbrella Corps down to two modes is both too generous and not quite generous enough. One of them, Multi-Mission, is a chaotic succession of eight multiplayer staples, all strung together with little rhyme or reason - where takes on kill confirmed and domination smash into each other while players run around maps relishing in the overpowered brainer melee weapon that can be charged for a quick and grisly kill.
There are, of course, zombies. This is the one and only mechanic and saving grace of Umbrella Corps and one that I would actually like to see in games in the future. They are harmless, for the most part, but can be quickly used against players by shooting the ‘zombie jammer’ located on a players back. Disabling this protective device will cause the zombies to attack a player en masse, essentially shutting them down or stopping pesky campers.
For the most part, though, Umbrella Corps is an immensely frustrating game to play and in no way constitutes having fun or anything close. Steer well clear of this atrocity.