Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Platform(s): Sony Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft Xbox
Developer: EA LA
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Who hasn't seen the commercial for this Playstation 2 game playing repeatedly on television? I know I have, and I was really looking forward to writing this review until I played the game. The game wasn't a total waste of time, but it could have been quite a bit better. For those of you who don't have a television, this Medal of Honor installment is based on America's campaign over the Pacific beginning with the attack on Dec. 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor.
The commercials give viewers the impression that the game is based around the single Pearl Harbor level and that it is the best level that Electronic Arts has made yet. However, the level is only a small portion of a very large first-person shooter. This game takes you mainly through Japan, China and other surrounding nations and islands. It ends with the collapse of the great Japanese War Machine.
The one level that I expected to have all the bells and whistles used in first-person shooters was the attack on Pearl Harbor. It did in a way. This level looked great and had an amazing feeling of realism, but was way too short. If this is the level that you are going to sell to the public, why make it the shortest one in the game? All you do in this level is shoot at planes as they fly overhead with fixed machine guns, which is disappointing.
My hopes were not very high at that point, but the rest of the game was a good example of a World War II first-person shooter. The weapon selection was great with new weapon additions being it is a different part of the world in comparison to the other Medal of Honor series. The levels were intense and the objectives were much different from each other. One complaint I have about the levels is the exterior walls in the jungle levels, which are not convincing at all. They look like the four walls of a room with trees painted on them.
The other really big complaint I had with this game was the poor selection of controls. I personally like to use the digital pad for controlling my movement and the analog stick for controlling the aiming of weapons. This is not even an option for this game, even if you customize your own control settings. Once I got the hang of these very awkward controls, I had very big difficulties aiming my weapons. The response on the game to your movements of the stick is either very quick or very slow, regardless of whether or not you change the sensitivity of the axes.
The characters in this game are just as vivid as they could possibly be, with great story lines. The only thing I don't understand is why characters don't turn around or move at all when I am standing behind them. It is as if the character is not paying attention and is talking to an invisible person. Maybe this is just a bug that got through to the final version of the game. The artificial intelligence for enemies is just about as bad. You can run up to an enemy and stand right in front of them and they will not notice you.
They also do that annoying thing like walking back and forth in the same place just asking for a sniper to pick them off. Also, when you are walking through a level and find a vacant positioned machine gun, just leave it alone. If there are no enemies around you at the current time and you hop on the gun for some weird reason, a flood of enemies runs at you as if it was asking to be shot up. If you enjoy a game in which you shoot enemies but are not challenged at all, play this game.
Overall, this is not a game I would run out and buy. I would rent it, beat it and forget about it. If you are a hardcore World War II fan who can't get enough of the these types of games, then I suggest you buy it. The artificial intelligence becomes old quickly, and the level designers apear to have spent all of their time on the Pearl Harbor level. There is one advantage to this game, but I did not really get to try it. The cooperative play on multiplayer was a blast and was almost like playing Halo on Xbox.
All in all, I give the game a C-.
Reach the reporter at mhinshaw@asu.edu.
