Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

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Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Developer(s) EA Los Angeles
Publisher(s) EA Games
Release date(s) November 11, 2003 (NA)
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (T)
PEGI: 12+
Platform(s) GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox
Media 2 × GameCube Optical Disc, 1 × DVD-ROM

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 mediocre reviews. The ending of Medal of Honor: Heroes states that Joe was planning out Japanese POW rescue raids so it's assumed he eventually saved his brother.

Contents

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.

On 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 escape from the USS California before it sinks. After escaping 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. Griffin next helps the crew of California to repel the Japanese attack. Griffin must use whatever weapons he can find, including small-arms and the ship's fixed machine-guns, to shoot down Japanese planes and 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. Some of the crewmates include G. Novotny and M. Escalante. If a player takes too long to complete the mission Escalante may die.

Despite the crew's efforts, USS California takes a torpedo and its impact throws Griffin off the deck. After swimming 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 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.

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 U.S. 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.

In order to capture a strategic airfield which is being constructed by Japanese forces, the U.S. 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, Davis and Adams with a second squad with their leader named Novotny. The squad begins their mission on a boat moving through a river. During some fighting, Davis is first shot and then gets bitten by a crocodile 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 and an ammo dump with an AA gun and finally capture the airfield.

The U.S. 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, Tomason and Brooks. During their journey through the jungle, Griffin's squad meet with a local commander, a Scout named Martin Clemens and some natives named Selas and Keip under his command. With their help, Griffin finds a small POW camp operated by Japanese soldiers. After they rescue the POWs there (one is named Dean K. Lee), 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. Harrison can also die heroically on the bridge while blowing it up but this wouldn't qualify for the bonus completion. 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 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 guerilla 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 (Fawcett, Gupta and Battersby) and reunites with Tanaka. Inside the hotel, the secret meeting is being presided over by a Japanese commander named Masatoka Shima. Importance intelligence is obtained; a Soviet General named Serguei 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 install a 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, officers to be exact.

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 reconnaissance 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.

In order to inflict more damage to the Japanese gold smuggling operations, Griffin, Tanaka and Bromley are 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, seen earlier in the level when the player crosses a bridge. It is located near the wet docks.

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 but gets killed by Shima with a katana by having his throat slit. Bromley frees himself by fighting the Japanese soldier who was interrogating him and then snapping the Japanese interrogator's neck. 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 Kate Torpedo 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 received mediocre reviews. Also, this mission is the only one that cannot be played in 2-player cooperative mode.

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


Here are the mission medals as follows:

  • Although not confirmed , there is 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 Philippines POW camps. This explains Rising Sun's cliffhanger ending.
  • It is a possibility that the large hotel in Singapore Sling was based on the Raffles Hotel, where the alcoholic beverage Singapore Sling was first invented.
  • 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 submachine gun is presented in game with having a clip capacity of 20 rounds. Normally, Sten magazines held 32 rounds.
  • The instruction manual states that the Thompson holds 30 rounds. In game, the Thompson has a 20-round clip. The in-game version is actually more correct, as the missions where the player gets the Thompson are set before 1943. After 1943, 30 round magazines were more common.
  • The Type 100 submachine gun was going to be included in the game but didn't make it to the final version.
  • The High Standard .22 Pistol was also meant to be included but was replaced with the Welrod.

The award winning soundtrack in Rising Sun was orchestrated by Christopher Lennertz. Michael Giacchino, composer of the soundtrack for Frontline, left to work on the soundtracks of the rivalry series Call of Duty, after which Lennertz took over. Lennertz's score received overall positive reviews.

A promotional CD soundtrack was released for the game. Digital versions of the soundtrack were also made available and are currently for sale off of music services like iTunes.

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 poorly programmed banzai charges. Many 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[citation needed]. 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[citation needed]. 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 Gunny 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).

One widely accepted feature was the online play. Although lacking the stat tracking and clan features that most current day shooters have, it was considered easy to learn, yet hard to master by most of its players. Most maps were areas featured in the campaign mode, with weapon and skin sets straight from the NPCs seen during offline play. The game remained popular and was the only online Medal of Honor game (European Assault featured no online play) on consoles during the servers run. During early August 2006, the servers were closed by EA without any notice or message. During the year of 2006, EA had begun to close a good deal of their online servers by using a schedule which they released to online gamers via e-mail and forum postings. Rising Sun was never featured in any of the news postings, leading to many surprised gamers who could not connect to the server[citation needed]. The game remained popular even after three years of its release (with over 40 people online at a time). After much heated and dogged persistence from the members of certain clans such as Legion, SS and United, EA were forced to re-open the server and give the players their obliged 90 day close down period. The online features were shut down on 17th November, 2006.


Medal of Honor • Underground  • Allied Assault • Frontline • Rising Sun • Infiltrator • Pacific Assault • European Assault • Heroes • Airborne • Vanguard
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