Customer Reviews

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun is a huge improvment over Frontline.

First of all, the game is even more dramatic. It starts off with the Pearl Harbor bombing scene, which is even more dramatic than the Omaha Beach scene Frontline started with. The game's levels are much more fun, and are more exciting. Rather than leading you down a linear path like in Frontline, there are several paths, and many ways to get each thing done. However, there are no puzzles, just bigger and more complex levels.

Rising Sun takes place in the Pacific. Certain levels have you in a boat, and the water effects are incredible. Graphics are very good, with more detail than in the first. There is still no blood or gore. The sound effectds are again excellent, and the music adds to the cinematic feel.

Control is great as well. There are two setups to choose from, just like in Frontline. One is classic, using one analog stick. The other is a dual analog stick setup that plays like Red Faction 2 or Halo. You can also fully customize it from the options menu.

Multiplayer is included this time around. It feels much better than the muliplayer mode from Frontline. The levels are well designed, and there are over 15 of them. There is no online play, but four player split screen is supported.

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun is a must buy FPS. It is historically accurate, and Frontline's flaws are cleaned up.

I have never written a review for a game before. Im only doing it because of the shock value of playing this game. I am a monster fan of the Medal of Honor games and was eagerly awaiting this one. I played a couple levels and kept noticing how easy it was, the enemy A.I. was pathetic. Many times I literally stood for several seconds within point blank range of the Japanese and they couldnt hit me before I calmly aimed and fired. and the thing is Im not one of these gamers who spends 10 hours each day playing games and needs a difficulty level thats so hard that you need a novel-sized tip book to get you through. I actually like linear, easy to follow games that offer decent, but not too challenging gameplay. The thing is, it was just so easy that I kept swearing that the system must have automatically gone to the easy level somehow. Here is what finally shocked me into a near heart attack. I was just about to finish what I thought was about half of the games levels and I told myself that before the next level I would have to up the difficulty to the hardest level because it was just too easy. What happens? I finish the level thinking Im about half finished the game and the credits start rolling!! I finished the whole game! I thought I was seeing things. I went through the main menus thinking there must be something I missed. My jaw was on the floor. Here I am a weak game player at best because I just dont play that many games, and Im finished this game in no time at all. I never thought I would be so dissapointed in a Medal of Honor game. Its almost as if it was a rush job. Now I know what people mean when they label a game a "rental only". I have no problem spending money, but this isnt worth anywhere near $50.

I have never been so unchallenged by a video game in my life, and since I am no video game pro, that is saying a lot.

I bought the game on Friday, the day it came out, and beat it today, Wednesday. It took me about five hours spread over 3 playing sessions to beat it.

There has been a lot of hype over how realistic the Pearl Harbor scene is in Rising Sun, and unfortunately it was undeserved. Instead of the breathtaking gunfight the ads promise, you basically flee to the deck of the sinking ship and then fire blindly at enemy planes with a rifle. Then you get on a gunboat and fire blindly at some more enemy planes. End of level. They could have done so much more with this Pearl Harbor scene.

After the somewhat unique first level, the game retreats to what is practically a clone of MOH Frontline, except you are shooting Japanese instead of Germans. Rising Sun is identical to Frontline on even the most basic levels. For example, there is a bell tower in Frontline you must go up in, and, guess what, there is one you must ascend in Rising Sun too! As far as weapons go, you get the same sniper rifle and assorted machine guns. Allegedly, there is also a bazooka available, but in the only level in which I found the bazooka missiles, the bazooka itself was nowhere to be found, so I never got to use it before beating the game.

The ending of the game, as other reviewers have pointed out, is the biggest sham I have ever seen in a video game. You make your way through an aircraft carrier, get into a plane, and blow up the aircraft carrier once you have taken off. Even the ending is a clone of Frontline: for those of you who have played it, Frontline ends with you taking off in a plane.

To say I was shocked when the game credits started rolling after I blew up the aircraft carrier would be an understatement. I thought I had at least a few more levels left, if, for no other reason, because I had not yet used the bazooka. Not to mention that the ending to the game was simply anti-climactic.

The people at Electronic Arts must have been behind schedule on the development of the game, and, determined to release it in time for Christmas, resigned themselves to releasing a sub-par product and propping it up with extensive marketing.

I have loved MOH since the first PS1 version so it was with shock and anger that I watched the credits roll after what I thought was about half of the game. Way too short, way too easy, graphics OK but the whole thing has the feel of an expansion pack not a $50.00 game. This does feel like an absolute xmas rush job by - congrats EA you got the thing out for christmas but you've soured some of your best customers.

I pre-ordered this on Amazon.com after playing the "Frontline" version for many many hours and being very pleased with it. While you could review every level, my main impression is this:

(PROS) The game play is great. The Japs you are fighting use a different AI than the Germans. They will rush at you instead of diving for cover, even if you are manning a machine gun. Very disconcerting at first. On one of the levels you are walking though the jungle with a sniper rifle and a pistol. You use up your pistol bullets pretty quick, have no grenades, and the Japs are popping up out of fox-holes ahead of you! A real pain at first, but you can find a box of pistol bullets next to a truck, and later on there is a machine gun on the top level of a building under construction you can use. Makes the rest of the level much easier. The makers have changed the controller setup so you no longer need to move two joysticks to aim, reverting to the easier, left joystick moves you, the right joystick aims / looks. You can also change the controller setup as well, but I did not use that feature so can't really comment on how well it works. I like the multi-player feature where you can play in split screen mode, so you can "actually" play with your friends rather than taking turns. Too often "multi-player" means having to sign up for Xbox Live.

(CONS) It is FAR TOO SHORT!!! My friend and I finished it in TWO DAYS. Didn't use any cheats and had it set to NORMAL difficulty. Neither of us are "hard-core" games, we just enjoyed playing it and kept going. I think there are only 6 or 8 levels to play. We never really ran short of ammo or health the whole time. Not really a huge challenge, you just have to figure out how to get past the Japs and plod along through the level. VERY disappointing given the number of levels in MoH FRONTLINE.

Great game play, but not as good as MoH Frontline (worth a 3.5 out of 5), but not worth my $...USD (hence the 3). Should have rented it for a week. We went back to playing MoA Frontline when we were done with "MoA Rising Sun".

"You don't play, you volunteer"... to pay 50 bux of your hard-earned money to play another example of over-hyped, over-marketed, mediocrity. Sure, 1 star may be harsh, but deserved. The buildup to this game made my mouth water. There is nothing special about this game. Sure, it looks pretty. You get to rewrite history and shoot down 100 zeroes over pearl harbor. The rest of the levels are just the same old tired FPS fare, with the "sneaky level" that you can just blast through anyway. You get to ride an elephant for all of 39 seconds, stuck to a machinegun. There is no innovation here. You unlock storyboards, which only show you how far they missed the mark from what they intended to produce. I finished this game, and thought, what? that's it? The bigger the buildup, the bigger the letdown. Oh, and to get the "honor" of playing that last secret level, just volunteer a few weeks locked in your room to get enough medals. I feel swindled. I'm going to try to get my money back.

First off, the gameplay is pretty cool until you get the sniper. Everyone who owns the game knows that three or four shots with a sniper will take you down but in Rising Sun they dont go down they just shake their hand(acting like they got shot in the hand when you know it was on their head). I mean cmon whats the deal here. Next, short short short and more short. The first scene is Pearl Harbor and that is the best thing on the game but then it goes downhill from there. They might say how you have "multiple paths". WRONG. you have one path with saving points hard to find so you might finally get past one hard hard part and the next thing you know you get stabbed from some guy who came out of nowhere and you start all the way over. I am very dissapointed. I anticipated this game so much. The game is not worth spending 50 dollars on because you could literally beat the game in 6 hours. 2 nights. Thats a rental game not a buying game. So I hope you take my advice and definetly rent this game first. You will thank me because you have 50 dollars still in youre pocket.

So many of my friends absolutely raved about this game that I ended up buying it and am totally disappointed. I have never played a first-person shooter that is as little fun as this game. The multiplayer is lackluster in comparison to Quake, which came out almost a decade ago, and as far as consoles go, Halo has it beat hands down. My opinion, of course, but the world that this game tries to put you in doesn't strike me at all as immersive and I was very disappointed with the feel of the controls as it's nearly impossible to make any sort of coordinated-looking assault on the enemy. Not to say that it's difficult seeing as the enemy guys have almost no autonomy whatsoever so once you know where they are you can easily pick them off even though it takes a great deal of effort simply to shoot one of them. I am a master sniper on Halo so it's not a problem with my ability to use the actual controller, just in case you were wondering.

That all being said, this game COULD have been really cool. My main complaint is that it just wasn't fun for me. Not in the slightest. I've been having more fun with my copy of Sega GT 2002 that I picked up for $3, and I'm not even usually a racing game fan. If you want a cheap first person shooter go out and get Goldeneye for the 64. They had it right back then... not sure why they can't get it right now... Hm.

My family plays a LOT of games. MOH: Rising Sun looked to be a great one for lots of enjoyment. The is cooperative play, but there is no system link play or online for the Xbox. EA seems to have some deal with Sony.

I have to say first, that the game started off with a mission that recreated Pearl Harbor. It was different, and quite enjoyable. The game is a standard FPS from there with a few neat pieces here and there. And the 'hint' system from headquarters is neat, though sometimes the hints are in the wrong places (especially the jungle scenes).

Unfortunately, I'm going to list the reasons why you should rent this game instead of buying it.

First, this game is WAY short. About 4-5 hours and the game is done. I will echo the sentiment of other reviewers, that when the end credits rolled, I was shocked.

The Graphics are good, but not great. The trees and bushes and 'boundaries' almost remind me of a Commodore 64, definitely not an Xbox. I'm guessing the graphics were limited by EA's deal with Sony and the PS2 - slower chip and limited graphics.

The AI is HORRID HORRID HORRID. You can shoot someone from 10 yards away, and the enemies standing BESIDE the dead guy will start aiming all over the place, *sometimes* even towards you. It's kind of funny to stand and pick off 4 or 5 people and not have a single one look at you even though you aren't in cover.
Of course it's not funny when you are being shot by enemies who are *inside* walls and around corners. The best though is when you shoot someone in the head, and they 'shake it off' and go back to scanning the horizon. And you wait a few seconds, and shoot them again, and they do the same. You can also throw a grenade between a group of 4 or 5 enemies, and they usually just stand there 3 or 4 seconds until they all get blown up.

Another annoying feature is having a bunch of guys pop up from nowhere for no reason other than the fact you made it to a 'special point'. I like when they pop out of locked doors, or whatever but not when they pop out of thin air.

You don't need to worry about ammo or health either. You can finish missions with "Hits taken: 3 or 300" and you'll still find enough medpacks/drinks/food to keep you alive.

If you want to kill someone for sure, use the weapon smack. Much better than 3 shots to the head. (Don't get me wrong, most of the time a shot to the head will kill your enemy, but not always).

The friendly AI is quite funny. If you try to sneak in somewhere to take a few shots at machine gun nests, your allies will usually run out in front and have *EVERYONE* shooting at them. With their unlimited health (for the important guys anyways), they get hit literally thousands of times and you can just pick off whichever bad guys you want from further back.

And lastly, the 'stealth' mission(s). The beginning of one mission with your silenced welrod pistol, you can simply walk around and shoot people while others stand around watching their dead buddy fall over without any alarm raising even though there is a 3-4 second delay to reload the single shot gun. As you get past the beginning though, all of the sudden you meet a lot of super seeing/hearing enemies, mixed in with moronic enemies. 3 guys will be shooting at you from around a corner through a wall, but 2 others will be standing in front of you looking around for something to do even though a firefight is going on...really weird.

Final thoughts - This game is a fun game, even with all of it's flaws, but it is too short. It IS definitely worth renting if you enjoy this type of game. The AI is a joke, but makes the game funny and really easy on any difficulty setting. The graphics are Nintendo 64-ish in a lot of cases. The missions are 'big' and fun but overall, 4-5 hours of gameplay is really low.

My family loves almost every kind of game, but this might be the most disappointing game of all. We have to thank EA for not supporting system link play, or we might have bought two of them instead of only one.

I played this game over a friend's house thinking it would be amazing but it wasn't. The graphics are muddy (even on Xbox), character animation is average at very best, and the enemy's AI is horrible. There were times when we were playing and the enemies would just stand there looking at us. I gave it a 3 rating only because i love FPS's and the weapons are pretty good. Do yourself a favor and get Medal of Honor: Frontline instead, it is only $20 now.