Game Review: Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun

Game: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: EA
Release Date: 28th November 2003

As a game fast approaching its tenth anniversary, Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun doesn't seem all that old (at least not to me). Its certainly a game that I picked up cheaply at the end of the PS2's life and never got around to playing until now. As I had suspected from its title, the game focuses on the American campaign in the second world war beginning with Pearl Harbour and continuing on through Asia to feature missions in Singapore.

The game's protagonist, Joseph Griffin is shipped out to fight in the far east after the Pearl Harbour attack. He meets up and quickly loses contact with his brother, Donny who comes back to feature later on in the plot. There's a fun mission where you're tasked with infiltrating an Axis summit whilst impersonating a German officer, at which point he bursts through the door in his underwear to reveal your true identity. Overall the missions featured in the game are fairly varied, despite the general objective of every level being to shoot Japanese soldiers.

Being a first person shooter, there's not too much to explain in terms of gameplay; you have a health bar at the bottom-left of the screen which is depleted when you're shot by enemies, and also shows where damage is coming from. On the bottom-right your current weapon and ammo selections are displayed, and in most missions there's a choice of at least 2 weapons. Most levels feature a preset path through enemy infested territory, with objectives scattered throughout. Once all main objectives have been completed and the end of the level has been reached, the game shows a cutscene explaining the relevance of the next mission to the war as a whole.

Most missions take around 30 to 60 minutes to complete depending on their content and the playstyle of the gamer. Sometimes they can drag on a little, such as in the case of missions with area after area of enemy troops without any interesting breaks in play. The most exciting missions tend to be those where you're either taking control of a large vehicle based gun (such as those in Pearl Harbour) or where you feel that you're making a large difference to the war effort as a whole (such as the aforementioned Axis summit mission).

The control scheme of the game works well as it's easy to use the dual analog sticks to move and aim, with weapon switching, grenades and crouching all easily in reach. There are three main problems I found with the gameplay as a whole; the first is that although the locations and levels give the impression of choice as to the routes the player can take, in truth most of the options are dead ends or lead to locked doors. The true mission route is usually very linear and getting lost along the way can result in a frustrating search for the correct path which isn't always obvious.

The second main problem lies in the AI, specifically that of your comrades who tag alongside you in a majority of the missions. Although invincible they often get in the way of your shot at enemy soldiers, hang back when you'd rather they move forward and vice versa. Neither your comrades nor enemy soliders are particularly intelligent and will stand around getting shot from behind for far too long without realising it.

The final problem seems to be worse in later levels of the game. I'm aware that the game uses a body part hit system to determine how many shots it takes to kill an enemy, however I found at times that three shots to the heart or head just weren't enough. In levels with many Axis soldiers this became frustrating as I had 100 or more enemies to kill, who each took 3-4 shots to actually neutralise.

Graphically the game is between realism and early PS2 graphics and as a result doesn't look amazing in the modern day, but there's no problem with recognising soldiers from bushes or anything like that. The biggest graphical issue I encountered was certain areas which looked clear but were actually invisible walls which couldn't be shot or walked through. The soundtrack to the game features an orchestral score with an almost generic war game sound, but it sets the tone for the game as a whole.

Overall Rising Sun has its problems; the searching for which route to take, combined with rather unintelligent soliders who seem to be able to withstand a great deal of damage makes for a somewhat unrealistic vision of the life of a solider at war. The game does feature a lot of excitement with an entertaining storyline and large choice of weapons and missions. It also shows its age at points both graphically and in overall game pacing. As a war game there's fun to be had with it, if you can stand the flaws.

Rating: 71/100
Grade: C