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> Results: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
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The Medal of Honor series, long stuck in WWII Europe, finally puts on a little sailor hat and heads out to sea. First stop? Hawaii, for some well deserved R&R. Not a bad way to spend December 7th, 1941, eh?The opening mission is the attack on Pearl Harbor, and itﾒs pretty engrossing stuff. By now weﾒre used to the scripted sequences used in these games, but that doesnﾒt mean it isnﾒt effective to watch your sailor fall from his bunk. Run through cramped hallways, put out fires with a handy extinguisher, all the accompaniment of blaring klaxons, screams of terror and panic, shouted orders, bombs bursting in air (and on deck), and the constant drone of strafing Zeros. Scary stuff despite the fact that youﾒre on a rail, you might find yourself staring out of a hull in the ship, frozen watching the carnage. The Pearl Harbor sequence is effective, but itﾒs got nothing on Medal of Honor: Allied Assaultﾒs D-Day recreation or even the Stalingrad sequence from Call of Duty. Probably the best thing the designers did was to add a spoken disclaimer about how thereﾒs no way you can appreciate the terror, tragedy, and horror of Pearl Harbor, unless you were actually there at the time. Theyﾒre right, of course. After Pearl you head to the Philippines and go island hopping from there. Fighting the Japanese in jungles and villages is quite a bit different than the hedgerows and bombed out ruins of Western Europe. Itﾒs a game full of snipers, jungles, and tenacious bad guys who are prone to ambush. The only problem with the enemy is the disappointing AI. These guys typically charge forward, shooting wildly and inaccurately at you. Since they generally donﾒt react to incoming fire, the best and, oddly enough, safest course is to charge them and root them out. The graphics are good, very colorful and vibrant, which works much better in the jungle missions than it does on board your ship. The audio is top notch, with thrilling music and good voice acting. The overall effect is like a WWII movie, and for the most part it works. But its plain this game engine is outdated. Too many textures are blurry, the animation is stilted and worst of all, the controls are imprecise. Shooting is always harder on a console game but here it feels like your targeting site is moving on its own. Making combat a frustrating challenge, which is too bad because, well, thereﾒs a lot of combat.. The main flaw with Rising Sun is also the best thing about it. The game relies on some very heavy scripting and contrived events. Too many parts of the game cast you either alone against the enemy, but too often puts you on a rail. Go sit in the machine gun for a set amount of time and shoot at Zeros. Escort a tank through a seaside village. Ride on the back of an elephant picking off bad guys. Memorize where they appear in case you have to reload. And you will have to reload now and then because the game is very ambush oriented. The problem with is that it gets in the way of immersion. You have to do what the game wants, too often. Making a game about the Far East half of the second World War was a brave thing for EA to tackle. Especially when you include the Day that Will Live in Infamy as your opening set piece. Happily Medal of Honor: Rising Sun meets the challenge head on, with respect, but that quality doesnﾒt extend to the gameplay itself. So, travel the world, visit exotic places, meet interesting people, and, well, you know the rest. Kid Factor The game is a respectful representation of WWII, but it isnﾒt a history lesson. It doesnﾒt teach, if anything it makes the hell your grandfather (or great-grandfather) went through a little easier to understand. The game is rated Teen, because, and only because, thereﾒs no blood. Thereﾒs still a lot of killing, a lot of violence, and the body count is extremely high. Reviewerﾒs Recommended Ages: 13+ ESRB: T-Teen Developer: EA Los Angeles Producer: Electronic Arts Genre: Shooter Score: 2.5 of 5 Reviewer: Andrew S. Bub 
The Medal of Honor series, long stuck in WWII Europe, finally puts on a little sailor hat and heads out to sea. First stop? Hawaii, for some well deserved R&R. Not a bad way to spend December 7th, 1941, eh?
Kid Factor by Andrew Bub
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