Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles has drawn huge amounts of flak since it was announced. It’s Capcom’s first original resident evil outing on the Wii to date. It was announced almost around the same time as screenshots for Resident Evil 5 on the Playstation 3 were making their way around the internet.

Basically, it’s a first person rail-shooter, which means that you don’t control exactly where you go. It’s similar, in many ways, to classic Arcade shoot-em-ups like Time Crisis and House of the Dead (spookily similar to the latter actually). Unlike every single other Resident Evil game you have unlimited ammo, a limited trajectory and little to no advancement of the Resident Evil lore, because it revisits all the previous RE titles.

Having said that, it’s this on-the-rail aspect that’s received the most criticism and it’s this aspect that we don’t get. We now have the opportunity to play a Time Crisis style arcade outing from the comfort of our own homes, and quite away from the terrifying youths that frequent our local arcades.

We also think that there’s something very undignified about hurriedly shelling out coin after coin while the Continue? screen flashes for all to see. Capcom have also coincided the release with the release of the Wii zapper and so you can almost completely recreate the environment at home, apart from the smell...

The thing that makes this game a must-have this Christmas is the two player co-op aspect and nothing feels quite as good as inviting a mate over (who might have a zapper too) to team up and save Racoon city from the Zombie menace.

Christmas time is for sitting prostrate with a friend or sibling and blowing the heads of your enemies right off.

’Tis the season!- Got a Wii? Got A Friend? Go get it…