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Medal of Honor - Fun but WAY too short and AI is lacking

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

mediocre at best

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you are a WWII nut then the realism of weapons/ uniforms might be enough in this game to convince you of its excellence.

For those of you that are not enamored with the real "Great War" this game offers nothing exceptional. The graphics become progressively more dark and sloppy the farther you get in the game. The programmers became lazy and sloppy and recycled visual themes moving through the game to confuse and tire you.

I hate it, I mean I really hate it when programmers get lazy and pull that recycled landscape crap. You all know what I am talking about, when you see a landmark you have already seen twice, or a passage you may have already been down (but you haven't). This game is sloppy. The first two levels are entertaining, and the vidoes were fun, but this game really doesn't cut it.

What I think is supposed to be Japanese music intermitantly in the game, at first is eerie and beautiful, but then melts into native american indian music, and I got confused and then irritated.

Sorry, EA. You really dropped the ball on this one. The laziness and rush really shows. Poor form. Don't even rent it.

Over-hyped, under-produced

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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.

Don't waste your money.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: December 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

One star is being generous, frankly I don't think this game deserves a star becuase it is another installment in a series of same titles that has almost no improvements and is worse in a few respects. (for whatever reason my review is now showing 4 out of 5 which isn't what I selected and it will not let me change it - I apologize for that, but it is 1 out of 5) I have played Frontline (also on Xbox) and Allied Assault (on the PC) and gave both titles less than stellar reveiws for reasons that are still a plague in the latest installment. Let's get to the review...

The Good:
- Very little here, but it was a WWII game, a genre that draws many (including myself) to these games.
- The sound was not stellar, but was better than average.
- You get to man the guns on a gun boat during the Pearl Harbor mission and then be gunner on a japanese airplane at the end of the carrier mission.

The Bad:
- Almost everything about this game fell into this category. For starters, the game is short. If you skip the movies and intros, you could complete it in about 1-2 hours. Hardly worth the rental price. There is no feeling that you are actually taking part in the war in the pacific, and when you watch the videos between missions they span years without you ever taking part in the battles. You don't defend Midway Island, you don't make a stand on Wake Island, you never set foot on Iwoa Jima, you are only on Guadacanal for one night time raid and then one daylight mission where you are hunting through a cave complex for some artillery peices, and then you are in Burma for one mission (Bridge on the River Kwai), one mission in the Phillipines and one mission in Malaysia, and finally there is a mission on an aircraft carrier.
- The missions don't feel like you are actually in the war. This was bad in Allied Assault, worse in Frontline and is really, really bad in Rising Sun. You did get to neutralize some artillery and survive pearl harbor, but the focus of the game is hunting some stolen gold (and while that has its importance, I would like to have more to do with the actual mainstream combat).
- The weapon selection is poor. The M1 Garand is still modeled nicely, but the .45 recoils badly and is nearly impossible to hit anything with because the rounds do not always go where you are aiming even at what I would consider close range. In addition to the aforementioned there is the Sten (incredibly underpowered, but more accurate than some of the other weapons), a shot gun (one of the better weapons), a sniper rifle (not quite as accurate as Frontline, but fair) another pistol (single shot, very accurate and powerful), the Thompson (you won't get this gun much), a Japanse automatic rifle (not sure what this one was) and a Japanese light machine gun that is both inaccurate and weak, and while it is an automatic the rate of climb when firing is so bad that you can only expect to hit someone with one or two shots before you are firing at the ceiling. There are some fixed machine guns that are lethal if somewhat difficult to aim. There are also grenades on some levels, and I hear there may be other weapons, but I never saw them.
- You are able to kill with a single swing of any weapon which will save you many, many times when you have someone right on top of you and a weapon that isn't powerful enough to kill them before they kill you, or you are simply out of ammunition (which happened to me only in one level, but was really, really annoying).
- Weak guns. The weapons are so weak that you can fire into an enemy's face at range 3 times with the .45 or Sten before they drop, even twice with the sniper rifle. Even a non-lethal shot to the head should affect the target, but they continue to happily stand at post.

The Ugly:
- The graphics are some of the worst I have seen on the xbox. People are animated the way they were on PC's 5 years ago...it is absolutly horrible, they look like splotchy animated skeletons in a paper mache world. Sometimes people are visible sticking through walls or vehicles, when they die they will fall half in and half out of a wall and at times the scenery dissapears all together and you have people hanging in midair. At times the enemy will fire near the edge of a wall and you can watch the streak of the round come right through the wall as if it wasn't even there.
- Unlike frontline when an enemy dies you can't pick up their weapon or their ammo. This is extremely annoying when you are walking around with a pistol and you would love to pick up a fallen enemy's machine gun.
- No AI for your allies or the enemy. They shoot when you walk into a certain area and continue to shoot until they have fired all of their ammo, then reload and start firing again non-stop. They don't pursue, they don't run when wounded, they don't usually even scream for help. Once I had my grenade thrown back at me, but the rest of the time they just stood there and let themselves be blown up. Really conveinent, but not realistic at all. If you havn't stepped into their programmed "kill zone" then they can't see you and you can shoot them to your heart's content and they will hop around and then stand at attention again.
- The game has the look and feel of any no-name shooter you can pick up at your local superstore for almost no investment. EA Games has merely done a poor job of adjusting the scenery and weapon skins (most part time programmers on the web do a better job in their spare time) to reflect the Pacific Theater. Don't waste your big bucks on this one.

DO NOT BUY IT !!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME !!!

ALL OF THE BAD REVIEWS DON'T EVEN COME CLOSE TO EXPLAINING HOW BAD THIS GAME IS - IT IS HORRIBLE

This game is much, much worse than I thought any game could be. I played better FPS-es on N64. Graphics are pathetic, game is buggy, story is linear, backgrounds are recycled, etc... The best part of the game by far is the packaging. I think the box is made out of really nice and shiny plastic, and I think it has the EA holographic sticker. I guess that is why they charge so much for it.

Besides that, this is the worse game I have played in many years, and I have both XBOX and PS2. I don't remember PS One games being this bad - at least what they didn't have in graphics they compensated with great story lines and reliable software, e.g., GoldenEye. This game has absolutely no redeeming qualities what so ever. At least they could have recycled the old MOH game and port it to the pacific. Instead they came out with a video game equivalent of the movie Gigli. On the other hand if you like BenLo then you probably wouldn't be reading this anyway...

I hope you are not reading this too late - as I read other reviews too late. Trust me on this one and DO NOT BUY THIS GAME !!!

Ground Truth

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: November 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is my first review ever and the fact that I felt compelled to write one after a year and a half of ownership should give credit. Bottom Line: EA dropped the ball. I really don't know how anyone could give this game 5 or even 4 stars. I routinely hit glitches in the game that forced me to restart. The AI is WEAK. Very little exploration and overall too frustrating. There are several times that if you are not in the right place at the right time, the game freezes. Hidden passages won't open or the controls lock and you can't move forward.

One thing that is also starting to bug me is when game designers have to "dumb down" a game. What I mean is the graphics and details should have been leaps and bounds above what they were. But since the PS2 has to be able to play the game, voila. Dumbed down.

EA owes everyone who bought this game and expected it to be like `Frontline' an apology and a free exchange for a `Rising Sun 2, The Improvement'.

What happened with this game?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First of all, anyone expecting major innovations in this lackluster sequel to medal of honor frontline will be disappointed. This version is not even up to par with frontline. The graphics are average, the AI is almost non-existent(enemies standing in place 10 feet away while you reload, if they even notice you firing on them in the first place), the enemies also can take up to 10 shots, including head shots, before they go down. My friend and I played multiplayer and shot the nips at point blank range with .45's and a spingfield rifle and it still took 4-6 shots to kill them. Is this realistic? No, it's frustrating as hell when your getting shot at from all directions. This sequel was massacred almost as bad as Red Faction was with it's lame sequel. "Money, Money, Money, let's pump out another sequel and cash in before they find out whats goin on." I can almost here the executives mantra. If they do the same to Halo 2 I'm going to smash my x-box on the street! Thank you EA, nice job. Have a nice day.

P.S. my buddy Paul's still shaking his head in disgust with the ending.

Blows

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game, is without a doubt the WORST game I have played in the past two years or so. First of all, it's incredibly short. It took me about 5 hours to beat it. Throughout the game, if you don't look for large amounts of time for the different guns, you get to use about nine of them. Every single level is completely linear. In almost every one of the levels, you follow the path that is forced on you. I can only take one path to your objective. Even in the jungle mission, you are only allowed to walk down a VERY narrow path. Probably one of the most irritating things about this game is the jumping. You cannot even jump over the lowest boxes, or branches, or whatever. One other incredibly annoying factor, is the fact that if there is a desk with two chairs sticking out of it at either side, you cannot go in between them.

Overall, this game deserves a 22/100

A let down after MOH Frontline

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm not a big FPS games fan, but I got hooked on to MOH Frontline which I thoroughly enjoyed. So I bought MOH Rising Sun expecting it to be even better...what a let down it was! The game was way too easy and when it abruptly came to an end, I was very disappointed. The storyline and missions are not bad, but the level of difficulty and the dumb soldiers are ridiculous. The graphics are mediocre. In the single-player missions your comrades sometimes get in between you and the enemy, and your enemy can still shoot at you but you can't! I think two pluses for this game - it now costs only 15 bucks or so, and the game has save points all along the various missions (a big improvement over Frontline).

Shortest game ever!!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Do not buy this game. I beat it in less then a day and the story line seems incomplete. I feel EA has really short changed there customers on this one. Keep in mind that the people who made Frontline did not make Rising Sun. I all so felt that the makers of Rising Sun left a ton of history out with out giveing away the ending oh and by the way the first thing you'll think when it's over is. "It's over?" I think in todays market where games are fifty bucks a pop EA really drop the ball on a franchise that has a great following.

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