A recent trend in gaming has been to incorporate many cinematic elements into the game experience -- ideally to help tell a better story than games usually do, to allow players to become part of their favorite film or perhaps even to attempt some combination of the two. The attempts are sometimes successful, as in the highly acclaimed "Metal Gear Solid" series, or in the most recent addition to the James Bond franchise, "007: Everything or Nothing."
Unfortunately, "Rise to Honor" falls far short of this goal. Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) attempts to recreate the experience of a classic Hong Kong action movie with "Rise to Honor."
While great attention was given to the look, sound and story of the game, it almost seems that the actual game play was thrown in as an afterthought.
Rise to Honor features the talent of Jet Li as the likeness and voice of the main character, Kit Yun. Yun is an undercover cop who has infiltrated a Hong Kong crime family and has been assigned the task of protecting the group's aging leader, Boss Chiang.
The game's various stages take you through several different locales in Hong Kong and San Francisco. The story is ultimately interesting enough and comparable to many action films. The voice acting, unlike most videogames, is surprisingly decent. The dialogue can be set to both Cantonese and English, adding a nice touch to the scenes that take place in China. The sound and music do a good job of setting the tone of the game -- the fighting sound effects in particular are quite well done.
In terms of visuals, "Rise to Honor" shines in most areas. While the backgrounds are generally pretty bland, the character models are quite good and surprisingly varied for what amounts to a pretty short game. SCEA used motion capture technology to digitize the movements of Jet Li and other martial artists, giving a very authentic and impressive look to the hand-to-hand combat in the game. All the characters in the game use their own particular fighting style, and each major character has a wide variety of moves to show off. Visually, the game has a lot to offer.
With all these fancy visuals and realistic sounds, it's a real shame that "Rise to Honor" is, in actuality, barely a game at all. Most of the major plot and action scenes take place through pre-rendered cut scenes, leaving players in control of only tedious and repetitive fighting and shooting sequences. Kit Yun may have numerous impressive-looking martial arts moves to show off, but players do not have control over the execution of these moves.
Players use the left analog stick to move Yun around and then simply flick the right control stick in the direction of the enemy they wish to attack. Through this repetitive flicking, Yun will then choose his punches and kicks at random. You have no control of the distance or the nature of your attack, so most of the game consists of you sitting and mindlessly flicking the controller while the onscreen characters pull off whatever moves they choose.
There is very little strategy to the fighting, save for moving out of the way when others are attacking you. Bosses move through a predictable sequence of attacks, and defeating them amounts to little more than finding the point in their routine you're supposed to counterattack. Unlike most good video games, "Rise to Honor" does an extremely poor job of making the player feel like he has any part in the game or in story's progression at all.
While the majority of the game involves this style of fighting, a good chunk of the game puts a pair of guns in your hands. This part of the game is generally less challenging and just as repetitive as the hand-to-hand parts. You lock onto enemies by flicking the right control stick toward them and then press R2 to fire until the target enemy is dead. Kit Yun, as well as all of the enemies, have unlimited ammunition and never need to reload.
Like other shooting games, you have to strategically hide behind obstacles while moving forward to avoid getting hit. The fact that these pieces of cover are indestructible, combined with the fact that you have infinite ammo, make these sequences amount to little more than players tapping the R2 button really fast.
Another problem with the game is the mini cut scenes that appear in the middle of battle. At seemingly random times, the game cuts to a slow motion widescreen shot of you delivering a punch/kick/shot to an enemy. These cut scenes do nothing more than disrupt game play, disorient the player once the game relinquishes control and add to the feeling that you have very little control over what is going on onscreen.
"Rise to Honor" ultimately resembles the films it tries to emulate more than the games it tries to pass as. While impressive from a technical standpoint, the game offers very little game play -- something a number of other games do far better. This game can only be recommended to die-hard martial arts fans, as this game really only amounts to a cookie-cutter action movie that retails for $39.99.
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