Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

Written by Chris Reiter on April 14, 2003

First Impressions: ...or how to make Japanese sushi with an automatic rifle.

War is ugly. War is brutal. War is depressing. But war can also be a good thing. Electronic Arts is a company who seems to know the war of World War II like nobody else, and in the last three years they've brought gamers closer to it than any history book could. Wanting to delve into this devastating war's rich history, Electronic Arts is digging even further into a dark chapter not yet fully touched on in the gaming medium -- and one of America's most dreaded days since then: December 7, 1941, a date that will live on in infamy -- the dawn of Pearl Harbor.

There was a time in America's life when it was believed we were invincible, that no one threat could penetrate our defenses...but one did. On December 7, 1941, hostile Japanese troops in league with the Nazis, executed a surprise air raid attack on U.S. soil's Pacific naval fleet located right in the heart of Pearl Harbor. This is where you'll come in, dressed up as Joe Griffin, an aspiring American soldier who will rise from the smoke of disaster to strike back at the abominable Japanese dogs that they were at the time by using the only means necessary: kill or be killed.

When you think of World War II, your first thought is probably about Hitler and his legion of Nazi troops. Not all of World War II was about Europe's decline, however. Japan at the time came into the picture and proved to be as much a common threat as anyone. Now turning the tides of war over to the conflict America experienced across the Pacific channel, Electronic Arts is leading the gameplay into new heights. Because Japanese troops at the time period were willing to die for honor, you should expect the A.I. to be even more aggressive than in its previous Medal of Honor offerings, for one thing. It's also interesting to note that your comrades' actions will not be predetermined, as one example of Electronic Arts' next of kin in the Medal of Honor lineup will feature soldiers that can leave your side from their own will, head out elsewhere to take offense against a looming enemy, and return lickety split. Now that's what I call impressive!

Staged across ten missions, set in their real world counterparts from a dramatic opening in Pearl Harbor, to the distant lands of Singapore, Burma, the Philippines, Guadalcanal, and even the bridge atop the river of Kwai, Rising Sun will take players straight into the face of a riveting action ride never before seen. Each mission will again include the same origin of gameplay past Medal of Honors' gave challenge to. Whether you're undercover, using cover to reach your goal, or gunning down enemies the old fashion way down inside and outside corridors, Rising Sun will offer a familiar taste of shooting from behind the eye's view action with a few slight differences. A major change in the coming release will offer broader areas of exploration. No longer will you have to take one route to kill the bad guys, break into a facility, or board a getaway vehicle -- now you'll be given multiple paths for more ways to play the game.

Speaking of more options, Rising Sun will do like no other Medal of Honor has done, which is to give you, the player, a morality choice. Strewn throughout certain areas of the gameplay, you may stumble across certain occurrences where say the Japanese are holding a prisoner captive. What do you do? You can either attack the brutish soldiers by risking your own life to save another, or you can sneak right by and move on. Though, if you do manage to polish off the enemy guards, the prisoner refugee just may help you out by clearing a path for you through a thicket of jungle right outside. The choice again will always be yours.

To enhance the war game even further, Electronic Arts is tying on a few multiplayer bells and whistles to its solid single player adventure. Amidst a deathmatch mode, a teamplay mode, and a four-player split-screen mode, in which two to four players can vie against one another or team up in and clobber their partners, there'll also come peddling along the way an entirely new mode of play for the Medal of Honor franchise: cooperative play. Through all ten single player missions, a friend will now be able to join in and wipe out the opposition right by your side, be it towards your aid or not.

While still in its early steps of development, Rising Sun is already looking to be yet another visually appealing winner in the epic war saga. Where the last few games in the series left off in Europe, Rising Sun is where things will get more interesting as now there'll be much more outside terrain to venture across rivers, darks and greens of the jungle, and naturally the big blue sea of Pearl Harbor. And if Frontline, the first PlayStation 2 Medal of Honor release, was any indication of how Electronic Arts can handle incredible character modeling and war torn environments, then Rising Sun should end up looking nothing less than brilliant in the end.