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Review: Umbrella Corps Is A Clunky Unnecessary Spinoff

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Resident Evil… I recall a time when that name was synonymous with survival horror and all the things that the genre entailed. They were games that forced you to conserve ammo and rely on sparsely available green and red herbs to survive. Instead of focusing on the next big title, (and getting Resident Evil back to its roots) Capcom decided they would venture far off the path. They decided that an online shooter was the way to go. Who could blame them? That is what holds the shelf life of a game these days. So, Umbrella Corps was born.

The story and the options are pretty barebones from the get-go. A training option allows you to suit up as an Umbrella Corp mercenary and learn the ropes of the game. Training is as you would expect, boring for an experienced or even half experienced gamer. It goes through the vanilla motions of showing you how to move around the map, switch and use weapons. The highlight of the weapons comes in the forms of a nasty little hatchet that you are able to charge up in order to unleash vicious melee attacks.

Once you are all trained and ready to go. An almost empty title screen, offers you the options of a multiplayer mode that places your merc in a 3 V 3 game, where you are unable to spawn after you are killed. Loading times between these games are long and annoying. Oddly enough these multiplayer matches are 3 mercs V 3 mercs. Even more odd is the fact that zombies are peppered in on the maps. They are easily dealt with and feel like more of a nuisance than an adversary. Would it have been cool to include Hunters and Lickers and have 3 mercs V those creatures? Well, it definitely would not have hurt and may have added a little variety to gameplay.

“Leveling up 

feels like a chore…”

The matches are unbalanced at best. That is partly due to clunky controls and and weapon damage that makes no sense in any given situation. Once the round is over you are awarded experience points in order to upgrade weapons and customize your mercenary.

Leveling up feels like a chore as opposed to something you are excited to do. Weapon customization is one of the few good things here. Merc armor customization is generic for the most part and will make you recall playing through better Resident Evil games where you were decimating these mercs.

Multi-Mission mode supplies you with a variety of game modes where you are able to re-spawn. This is a little more fast paced and a little more enjoyable but even at my most hopeful, clunky controls would hinder total immersion. The cover system is something that really leaves the game a long way from where it needs to be. The fact that an opponent can run up to you while in cover as easily as they are able to makes it completely useless, outside of hiding.

Umbrella Corps also offers a single-player mode. While I was playing through the multiplayer matches, I kept telling myself that maybe they saved the best stuff for single-player. Again, I was wrong. This mode consists of you mind-numbingly blasting your way through zombies and collecting DNA viles that are dropped. After a few of these types of missions, additional generic objectives are added to later missions that include, collecting briefcases, clearing areas, etc.

“clunky controls  

hinder total immersion”

I’m a huge Resident Evil fan and I had a very hard time finding anything worthwhile contained in this misguided spinoff. The fascination with being a merc for Umbrella, dissolves quickly. The weapon upgrade system and the chargeable hatchet are the only shining lights that remain when all is said and done. Any fun that is had is short-lived and doesn’t give any reason to revisit. Let’s all look forward to Resident Evil 7 and try to forget this departure ever existed.

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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