I once waited almost 20 minutes for a match that lasted less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately, its odd mix of mechanics don’t come together well, and its online matchmaking is a total joke. Umbrella Corps is an unusual online shooter. The only solution to this problem would be to convince five of your friend to buy the game and play it with you, but that’s how friendships are destroyed. On average, I waited five to ten minutes for games to start, so you inevitably spend more time waiting to play Umbrella Corps than actually playing it – and neither are entertaining. As a result, finding a match is difficult. Umbrella Corps’ launch had little fanfare and a poor reception among fans. Thanks to all of its flaws, Umbrella Corps feels like a grotesque online oddity that everyone should just ignore – which everyone is already doing. Even when a jammer does go out, players are fast enough that they can easily run away from the zombies, so these walking corpses don’t pose much of a threat. Most players die after only a couple hits, so it’s rare for a player to survive when their jammer takes enough hits to power down. Most of the time you can ignore these flesh eaters, but if an enemy takes out your jammer, the nearby hordes can trample you and finish the job. The technology sounds ridiculous, but it theoretically creates a neat tension between you and the zombies. Thankfully, you’re equipped with a zombie jammer backpack that prevents zombies from attacking you. Other players aren’t your only enemies in Umbrella Corps as every level is filled with shambling undead. If you simply want to play traditional team deathmatch, for example, you have to jump into multi-mission mode and hope it pops into circulation. I like this randomized element, but it is strange that none of these match types have their own separate mode. Missions are chosen randomly at the start of each round, and the first team to win three rounds wins the game.
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The second online option is a multi-mission mode, which has you working as a team to complete a series of randomly generated missions, including variations on the popular king of the hill, capture the flag, and team deathmatch modes. Unfortunately, the game’s hyper-fast movement speed doesn’t allow for slow, tactical firefights, and most matches end in a blitz of gunfire before you pop back out to the matchmaking screen. This mode aims to provide nerve-wracking team-based tactical firefights where you slowly outmaneuver your opponents. The first is One Life Mode, a 3v3 version of team deathmatch where you don’t respawn. It’s an online-only shooter with a progression system that starts unlocking new guns right away, but most of the cosmetic unlocks are pointless because you’re better camouflaged in the basic black outfit you start with.Ĭapcom is trying to be different, which you’ll notice as soon as you jump into one of the game’s two main multiplayer modes. It’s a hyper-fast shooter, but the maps are too small to accommodate this movement speed in fact, they’re so small that you sometimes spawn in the middle of a firefight. It’s a cover-based shooter, but taking cover is useless since it inhibits your movement and makes it harder to react to your speedy foes. Umbrella Corps has a muddy sense of direction at best – and a conflicting one at worst. Though these aspects had potential, Umbrella Corps uses them to prove that ideas are nothing without proper execution. I even like the insane movement speed, which results in lightning-round battles. I like that the firefights take place in environments pulled straight from the series’ history.
I like the idea of a cover-based multiplayer shooter where you have to contend with other players alongside A.I.-controlled undead hordes.
On a conceptual level, Umbrella Corps is interesting.