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Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

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Medal of Honor: Rising Sun is a video game, released by Electronic Arts in November 2003. Rising Sun is another first-person shooter, set in World War II during the Pacific War. This game features single-player and multiplayer capabilities, including an online multiplayer. In the single-player game, the player assumes the role of Cpl. Joseph Griffin of the United States Marine Corps. In the beginning of the game, the player is at Pearl Harbor, and must escape from the USS California. The game goes across the Pacific theater, fighting in places such as the Philippines, Guadalcanal, and Singapore, as Cpl. Griffin goes in search of stolen Yamashita's Gold from East Asia. A sequel to Rising Sun was planned in which the player assumes the role of Joe's brother Donnie but was scrapped due to Rising Sun's poor reviews.

Contents

Missions

Medal of Honor : Rising Sun features some of the most famous battles of the Pacific War; particularly the attack of Pearl Harbor, the evacuation of the Philippines and the invasion of Guadalcanal. After successfully completing the first initial missions, Griffin will be enlisted by the OSS and sent to more dangerous and critical missions. The game also offers 4-player battles and 2-player cooperative mission play.

Day of Infamy

In the morning of December 7 1941, USMC Corporal Joe Griffin is rocked in his bunk after hearing explosions all around the ship. Your initial task in this first mission as Joe Griffin is to survive from the USS California before it goes down. After surviving the damaged ship and helping some friends along the way, Griffin manages to get to the deck and sees the unbelievable scene of Pearl Harbor being attacked by hundreds of Japanese planes. Now Griffin should help the crew of California to repel the Japanese attack. Griffin must use whatever he can find, firearms or the ship's fixed machine-guns to shoot down Japanese planes as well as destroy incoming torpedoes. It should also be noted that this is the only mission in the game which allows the player to use the famous Browning Automatic Rifle.

Despite the crew's efforts, USS California takes a torpedo and its impact throws Griffin off the deck. After trying to swim to the surface, Griffin is taken in to a small patrol boat by his Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Jack "Gunny" Lawton. With the help of Gunny and Griffin's friends, Pvt. 1st Class Francis Giovanni Spinelli and Pvt. 1st Class Silas Earl Whitfield, Griffin takes control of the small boat's gun turret. The surviving marines then begin shooting every Japanese plane they see. They witness the tragic destruction of the USS Arizona and then go to the rescue of the USS Nevada which is trying to get out of the port. After some intense fighting, the Japanese withdraw. While Griffin and his friends rejoice, Gunny gets angry with them and tells them to pay respects to those that died.

Fall of the After the initial Japanese invasion, the Commander of the US Forces in the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, has been ordered by President Roosevelt to evacuate the country. Now on the retreat, US Marines in the area also begun to fall back and leave the Philippines. Griffin there meets his brother Donnie Griffin and after a family reunion Gunny orders them to help him in finding a truck full of explosives to blow up a bridge on the area. Gunny and Donnie commandeer an old US Stuart light tank while Griffin gives infantry support on foot. After some heavy fighting which involves going through a baseball stadium and sewers, the team finds the truck. While Griffin tries to contact the demolition team, Japanese troops attack the squad. Donnie tries to save his friends by staying on the tank and fighting the Japanese while Gunny and Griffin fall back with the truck, but the tank is quickly overrun. In the end, they manage to destroy the bridge but Griffin is bitter that he lost his brother. Gunny tries to comfort Griffin by telling him Donnie was a good marine and says that he can't expect any more than that. Donnie is officially recorded as MIA.

Midnight Raid on In order to capture a strategic airfield which is being constructed by Japanese forces, the US 1st Marine Division performs a night time amphibious invasion of the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands chain, marking the beginning of the Battle of Guadalcanal and one of turning points of Pacific War. Griffin is once again sent in to battle, accompanied by Gunny and two other marines. The squad begins their mission on a boat moving through a river. During some fighting, one of the other marines (named Davis) is first shot and then gets bitten by an alligator and pulled under the water. When Griffin and other marines successfully land, they begin moving towards the airfield in the thick jungle. After some heavy fighting, Griffin and Gunny manage to destroy a Japanese tank with an AA gun and finally capture the airfield.

Pistol Pete Showdown

US 1st Marine Division managed to capture the Japanese airfield in Guadalcanal and rename it Henderson Field. However, a group of Japanese artillery codenamed "Pistol Pete" begin shelling the field all day which forces the marines in the area to send in a fireteam to take it out. Gunny once again assigns Griffin along with two other marines. During their journey through the jungle, Griffin's squad meet with a local commander, a Scout named Martin Clemens and some natives named Silias and Keep under his command. With their help, Griffin finds a small POW camp operated by Japanese soldiers. After they rescue the POWs there, a lieutenant named Edmund Harrison asks their help to destroy the Pistol Pete. After some intense fighting, Griffin and others manage to destroy the artillery positions with explosives and Griffin (as a bonus objective) manages to save Harrison who is wounded on the top of the bridge. After the mission ends, Harrison says to Griffin that he looks familiar. Harrison met Donnie while he was stationed in the Philippines. Griffin is also recruited to OSS by Colonel Michael Floyd with the Gunny's strong recommendation.

Griffin's first mission as an operative of OSS is to infiltrate a summit of Axis commanders in Singapore. After Griffin makes his way to the harbor, he mets another OSS operative, a Japanese-American known as Ichiro "Harry" Tanaka. After an unfortunate crash which throws their rickshaw off the road, Griffin and Tanaka split up in order to reach the hotel where the summit being held. On the road, Griffin meets with a wild card British SOE operative, Major Philip Bromley, who has been waging guerrilla warfare against the Japanese for a long time. The plan is to capture the German commander Kandler's uniform to allow Griffin to attend the summit in disguise. With the help of Bromley, Griffin captures Kandler's uniform and then Bromley and Griffin separate. While en route to the hotel, Griffin rescues some British POWs and reunites with Tanaka. Inside the hotel, the secret meeting is being presided over by a Japanese commander named Shima. Importance intelligence is obtained; a Soviet General named Borov is in attendance. It is revealed that the purpose of the summit meeting is to stage a coup against Joseph Stalin using the gold captured during the Japanese conquest of Asia with the help of General Borov and instal pro-Axis government in the Soviet Union. Just then, Kandler barges in to the room and Griffin's identity is revealed. Fortunately for Griffin, Bromley also dives in to the room and gives Griffin a Sten MkII submachinegun. After some fighting in the hotel, Griffin, Tanaka and Bromley escape. It should be noted that, this is the only mission in the game which you kill a few German soldiers, along with Japanese.

In Search of Yamashita's Gold

Griffin, Bromley and Tanaka have been sent to Burma in order to disrupt General Tomoyuki Yamashita's gold mining operations. At the beginning of the level a Flying Tigers pilot attempting a mission of aerial reconnisance over the area gets shot down. Going through the thick jungles, the squad manages to gain entry to a Burmese temple where both the gold and captured pilot are supposed to be hidden. After intense fighting inside the temple, Griffin and Tanaka rescue the pilot and find a way outside the temple. Bromley and his men begin destroying the anti-air guns and Griffin and others must reach the end of the temple before the 4th gun explodes. They succeed in evacuating and Bromley picks them up with an experimental helicopter, surprising Tanaka.

A Bridge over the River Kwai

In order to inflict more damage to the Japanese gold smuggling operations, Griffin, Tanaka and Bromley again sent to the Thailand & Burma border, the famous River Kwai. The three must first establish contact with Chindits and enlist their help for breaking through Japanese defences. In this mission player can experience riding an elephant, attacking enemies with a light machine gun on top of the large animal. After reaching the railroad (which is probably on the famous bridge built by the Allied POWs) Bromley and Griffin sabotage the railroad with a crane nearby. After the great explosion which derails the train and critically damages the bridge, Bromley and Griffin destroy the train by opening the fuel tanks and jump to the river. After that they are taken in by Tanaka who apparently hijacked a Japanese Flying Boat.

Supercarrier Sabotage

In this final mission Bromley, Griffin and Tanaka infiltrate a Japanese Aircraft Carrier named Toshikaze. While Tanaka, dressed like an IJN officer, tries to find Shima, Bromley and Griffin infiltrate deeper to the ship hoping to find the gold and sink the ship along with Shima. Although they manage to heavily damage the ship by tampering with the fuel system, they are captured by Japanese who gas them when they enter the chamber containing the gold. When the two gain consciousness, they realize they have been tied to chairs and are being interrogated by Shima himself. Shima says their pain has just begun and tells Griffin he looks somehow familiar. Tanaka, still in disguise, enters the room and manages to free Griffin and Bromley but gets killed by Shima with a saber by having his throat slit. The ship begins to shake and Griffin and Bromley decide to exit the ship. After fighting through the carrier's corridors and its hangar, Griffin meets with Shima, who is escaping with Griffin's long-lost brother Donnie. Griffin and Bromley manage to hijack a Japanese Val Dive Bomber and escape from the sinking ship, shooting down a number of Japanese planes in the process. What happened to Donnie and Shima after that is up to the gamer since EA canceled the sequel after Rising Sun had poor reviews. Also, this mission is the only one that cannot be played in 2-player cooperative mode.

Extra objectives

Many missions have optional, often well-hidden objectives to complete and get a better score.

Medals

Here are the mission medals as follows:

Weapons

Allied weapons

Japanese weapons

Trivia

Although not confirmed , there's a strong possibility that Pvt. 1st Class Ichiro "Harry" Tanaka is from 442nd Regimental Combat Team

Two levels were planned but scrapped from the final release, possibly due to being rushed. One was the escape from Singapore via boat, and the actual final level, which was to be the liberation of the Phillpine POW camps. This explains Rising Sun's cliffhanger ending.

Possibly due to being rushed, the Type 11 machine gun appears as a normal weapon and as a fixed machine gun. Each has different sound effects and different rates of fire. The fixed Type 11 sounds much like the MG42 from Frontline.

The Sten machine gun is presented in game with having 20 rounds. The Sten's magazine held 32 roudns.

The instruction manual states that the Thompson has 30 rounds. In game, the Thompson has 20 rounds. The in-game version is actually more correct, as the missions where the player gets the Thompson is before 1943. After 1943, the 30 round clips were more common.

Music

The award winning soundtrack in Rising Sun was orchestrated by Christopher Lennertz. After Michael Giacchino left to compose the soundtracks of the rivalry series Call of Duty, Lennertz took over. Lennertz's score received overall positive reviews.

Criticism

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun was criticized by players and critics alike for poor AI. One example is that many Japanese soldiers recklessly charge at the player once they are spotted, though these instances are most likely banzai charges seeing that the Japanese soldiers were used to primativly charging with swords. Many also also keep running into walls, or make movements that are completely useless, such as randomly strafing despite not even firing, or running towards the player without attacking. This can be considered a step back from Frontline's enemy AI, which is usually overaware of the players presence and usually takes cover immediately. Allied AI is said to be even worse, constantly running in circles and backwards, compared to Frontline's where many of the friendly units would start to smoothly patrol. In addition, the graphical quality of the game is also criticized as leaving much to desire, looking far more jagged and shoddy then Frontline's simpler but smoother looking environments. Also, scripted events are poorly done, usually with a character running off to a fixed position and not even facing the player while talking. Some also go unnaturally rigid, with only the mouth moving. Some events do not make sense or happen randomly, voice overs not matching what is going on (this can cleary be seen at the end Fall of the Philippines, with Gunney yelling for the non-existent demo team to fix the dynamite and fall back), and useless hints (Such as telling the player to wait for Bromley's signal to ambush a car, which he never gives).

External links


Medal of Honor series
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Console: Medal of Honor | ' | ' | ' | ' |
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