Poor Resident Evil: it used to be scary you know? Mere mention of the franchise had teenagers shivering at the thought of zombies jumping out of obscured closets, dogs jumping out of bizarrely placed windows and giant mutated enemy plants.

That was the 90's however, and with the advent of the noughties the franchise had to shake it up a little to make the sales grade. While REmake and Zero followed the same style of pre-rendered "tank" controls and forced camera angles, 4 and 5 had to radically rethink the approach by introducing a more action-oriented experience for players hungry for blood.

Now us Wii owners, with our slightly less horse-power, have got a slightly different take on the classic franchise. The Wii is the natural home of lightgun games, and given the more casual audience approach Nintendo have taken this generation, it has heralded a rebirth for a genre that the hardcore used to deem too "arcade" –spitting the last syllable of course.

Following on –in a disjointed sense, from Umbrella Chronicles, Darkside gives us what we all suspected would happen next: Resident Evil 2, Redux. But of course, this time there are bells on it. A new story as a semi-prelude and continuation and a calorie-free version of the original tale that condenses proceedings into around an hour.

We cannot possibly overstate the importance of having Paul Mercier reprise his role as Leon Scott Kennedy: he quite simply is Leon. Ever since he performed as the character in Resident Evil 4, the man has stamped his authority all over the role and it is a wonderful thing that Capcom have realised this and brought him back time and again to do his stuff. The rest of the voice acting is of a similar high quality, and the script a far cry from the melodramatic pantomime that dogged the first few games of the series. However, the lip-syncing is noticeably off the pace and the experience feels less authentic because of this.

Equally frustrating is the overall presentation of the game, on the one hand, the cut scenes are some of the best you will ever see on the Wii and are superbly directed with just the right amount of emotion and drama. The in-game graphics are a real mixed bag however, with some locales far too brightly lit to be scary and certain enemies looking like they have been badly Photoshopped into the world. In many ways it is graphically a big step backward from the Umbrella Chronicles, which itself was equivalent in graphical power to REmake on the Gamecube. This game feels in parts like it has only been made for the PS2. Some zombies are just walking lumps of pink flesh with MS Paint-style splotches of red blood on them, and enemies like the Licker and the frogs have jagged edges that make them look far less organic than before.

Criticism must also be levelled at the jerky camera –it's a leaf obviously taken from Dead Space Extraction's book, in the latter it was possible to compensate after a chapter or two. With Darkside Chronicles we have yet to adjust even ¾ into the game. Realism may have been the target of the developer, but instead it's just irritating at best, and at worst makes the game totally unplayable in some sections.

At your disposal this time is a selection of fairly standard survival horror weapons: the pistol that never runs out; the shotgun that takes about 10 seconds to reload; the semi-automatic that doesn't do any damage; grenades which never go where you want them to and finally, the bowgun, which is almost totally useless. Whereas in the previous game, the ammo counter was located around the reticule and depleted right in your face, now it's in the top left, meaning you have to look up at the ammo counter when you fire, not good seeing as the jerky camera makes it difficult to aim when you're only trying to focus on one place on the screen.

Furthermore, the weapons seem to have been massively de-powered since Umbrella Chronicles. It's true that a pistol is always going to be the weakest weapon in your arsenal, but this time round it actually seems like you're firing ping-pong balls against the enemies. The shotgun takes far too long to reload in a tight situation, maybe adding to the realism, but if we wanted true to reality, we would start a Zombie Apocalypse with a pair of Tom's old socks and Franklin's embalming fluid. We don't want reality, it would be horrible.

One good addition to the gameplay is the ability to take all of the weapons you have collected with you in each level and use them from the start, instead of taking the pistol and one other then collecting more if they are scattered throughout the level. Though again, this good idea is completely spoiled by its execution. The mapping of the weapons to the Nunchuck control stick proves frustratingly inaccurate, often ending up choosing totally the wrong weapon in a tight spot, e.g.: Big group of Zombies suddenly appear! Quick! Shotgun! Oh no, no! I don't want the bowgun, no! AAAAAhhhhh! Dead.

Further compounding this problem is that level-to-level you keep the same amount of ammo for all your weapons, i.e. if you use all your good weapons fighting the mini boss at the end of one chapter, then face off against a huge boss only a few minutes into the next, you're pretty much finished.

The bosses themselves are the usual screen-filling monstrosities from the original games, anyone who has played RE2 will instantly recognise them in their slightly upgraded form. These guys are not so much of a pushover as their fellow B.O.W.'s and in light of the de-powered nature of your weapons, they are much harder than in previous games: you get mere milliseconds to hit the weak point, which with the jerky camera makes it a nigh-on impossible task to emerge unscathed –and with enough ammo for the next section.

Weapons are upgradeable as before, and cash to do this can be collected during the levels. You never quite know where cash is going to fall from though, and as with Umbrella secret files concealed in the ceiling lights, chairs and computers, you are just as well to shoot indiscriminately as actually pick your shots – good luck firing randomly, it doesn't work so well either.

Length wise, there's plenty to do, and it's probably a good twelve hour experience on the first play. But will you go back to get the things you missed? Probably. Only if, however, you can get used to the dodgy camera and sometimes cheap sections where you're instantly hit without the chance to raise your weapon.

In conclusion, Darkside Chronicles is a frustrating step back from the original and has fallen into the trap that so many sequels end up in: getting rid of the good ideas and keeping the bad ones. It's a shame, as there are clearly some great aspects to the game, but every positive has a corresponding negative that brings screams of bewildered frustration. If it was a case of giving a game a score for what the developers tried to do, then this game would score higher. Unfortunately, there's only a score what they did do, and frankly what they did is not so good.