This is accully a really fun game which got a lame score, but finally the first WW2 game set in the Pasific.
User Rating: 7.3 | Medal of Honor: Rising Sun PS2
Gameplay: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun starts out with a big bang. It starts off with the invasion of Pearl Harbor. You play as Joseph Griffin, you are awoken from your slumber in a carrier as torpedoes start hitting the ships in the harbor. What follows is one of the coolest ten minutes of gaming action. So for the first mission is to shoot down Japanese airplanes and try to extinguish fire on ships. Missions are often based on moving through a set path of terrain or rooms in the jungle and killing everyone/ destroying everything along the way. With the exception of one open area per level. Missions have a variety of objectives, like stealing documents or blowing something up. But they'll never get in the way of finishing the game. It's quite refreshing to have a diffent setting then always having a World War 2 shooter set in Europe. Whats unique in this game is that the fire fights are crazy, there will be swarms of Japanese soldiers come down at you firing there guns and trying to stab you with there bayonets. What I did not like was the AI. For example the enemy won't see you or shoot you unless you are in a certain range around them. A guy can be looking dead at you with the sniper rifle and you back it him and he won't fire because "he doesn't see you" which is **** So all you have to slowly walk up and then snipe the enemy. They also added co-op mode so you and a friend can beat the game together because that's always fun to do. The is also the online and offline multiplayer section. The multiplayer gaming has been stripped down to the bare essentials: deathmatch and team deathmatch. It is pretty fun and quick and pretty much a "run and gun" type of thing doing on. In "Rising Sun" it has nine online maps for play with a mix of tunnels, sniping spots, and walls to duck behind. One map has two battleships that are floating next to each other, their guns pointed at each other. It's possible to pass from ship to ship with wooden gangplank bridges or by walking from gunbarrel to gunbarrel. Another map is set in a baseball stadium that has had a small series of tunnels dug underneath and piles of crates left all over the infield.
Graphics: The graphics are allright. EA has created a list of historically accurate missions. All of the assignments take place in real locations, the uniforms are accurate and the guns act just like they did back in the 1940's which is good. The envoriments looks pretty neat and are nice to look at. But the engine sometimes has problems rendering even indoor locations, dropping the framerate down to choppy proportions. Sound: The sound is accually really well done. The sound lives up the high standards the Medal of Honor series previously set. It is a pleasure to hear the different effects coming from each weapon. It's well worth it to hook up the stereo and crank it up to get yourself into the action. Backing up the sound is a score of oriental influenced music. The Philippines have drums banging in the background and Singapore has wooden flutes whispering as you sneak from guard to guard, silently killing along the way. Value: All in all this is not a bad game, and the theme is nice for a change along with Medal of Honor: Pasific Assualt. But it seemed that EA did not do to much to improve Medal of Honor. Particularly in "Rising Sun" in any way. It feels like that they just slapped World War II missions in the pasific to get more money. Newer Medal of Honor should kick it up a knotch if they want to survive as a series with all the better gameplay World War Two shooters out there. I give this game 7.5 out of 10.
