Medal of Honor: Rising Sun Review

Rise and dull!

Blecchh…another boring morning on the boat. Man, I wish I could get some shore leave or something. We're out here in paradise and all I get to do is write reports. But I shouldn't complain - I did make it out alive, after all. You want to hear about it? Fine, I guess I have some time, but it doesn't really have a happy ending.

I'll never forget the day. December 7, 1941. I was just getting out of my bunk on the California when the explosions began. Before I could even figure out what was going on, fire was breaking out everywhere. I somehow managed to stumble topside and what I saw was amazing. The fleet was gone, man, GONE! Japanese Zeroes were everywhere and the air was black with smoke. Immediately, I grabbed the nearest turret and began blasting away at the bogeys, desperately trying to stay alive.

I imagine that this was the kind of excitement they felt on D-Day with all those guys rushing up the beach. It's all classic war, man. The kind they'll be making games out of someday.

When the dust finally settled, the sight was terrifying. I had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the worst was still to come. I still had two handfuls of missions to deal with and boy, were they rough. I mean war is hell, but I thought I knew what I was getting into. What I got instead was a tedious romp through the worst-looking jungles and random locations in the Pacific. It wasn't all bad, but it definitely could have been better.

The explosions from that initial attack must have scrambled my brains or something, because aiming and shooting was a chore. Either that or I had too much to drink the night before. Even though I've won a ton of marksmanship awards, I just couldn't seem to get the crosshairs where I wanted them. Shooting guys ten feet in front of me was oddly difficult and movement in general just felt clunky no matter how many adjustments I tried to make. At least the gun didn't jam.

But even if it did, I probably would have been fine since my enemies were so…stupid. Those guys were terrible shots outside of ten feet and never seemed to notice anything as I took out their buddies one by one. I could be louder than a rhino, but they would sometimes just sit and stare in the opposite direction. The only guys to watch out for were the ones that I ran into headfirst.

Ah yes, as I recall, those guys had some weird magic up their sleeves, too. On many occasions they would seem to appear out of thin air, right before my very eyes! Was I hallucinating from lack of food? It was almost as if certain actions called them down out of the sky. For example, I could clear out an area in front of a turret, but the second I touched the gun, the guys would pop up out of the ground like worms in the rain. It was like I was suddenly living in some badly scripted movie!

I also have to wonder what part of the world Uncle Sam dug up my own squad mates. They could often be seen running in circles and constantly blocking my line of fire. At least they were resilient; one of the guys was turned into Swiss cheese by an enemy bayonet and shrugged it off like nothing happened. Tough guys…tough guys.

Even our equipment seemed to malfunction. My standard issue compass often led me down the wrong path. I'd have to backtrack through enemy territory like a cow that got separated from the herd. Man, that was embarrassing.

What's that? You want to hear about the exotic places I visited? Well, I suppose they were interesting. After all, it seems like everyone's always talking about the European front and whatnot. There weren't any burnt-out towns here, but I would hardly call it paradise. The forests had a strange look about them and the trees seemed to form an impenetrable wall all around me, forcing me down a strict path. Plus, it looked like everything was made out of little squares. Base camps weren't much better. It's like all of these buildings were really, really old, relics from a past generation that should have been retired. The Xbox and Gamecube issue goggles improved things a bit, but not by much.

But while the sights were sore, the sounds have stuck with me to this very day. Big explosions, all kinds of ambient chatter…I swear they were even playing a rousing score while we were fighting. Must have hid the cellos in the bushes somewhere.

I'm glad that at least I didn't have to run solo missions all the time. The brass gave me an option to have another soldier tag along to watch my back. Yeah, we had some good times back then. We even got to run drills against each other from time to time with Firebase PS2 flying in other troops from all over with some fancy satellite system.

But in the end, war is still hell. There's too much confusion on this battlefield to keep me from returning. Something about this war is driving guys on both sides insane. Oh well, time for me to get back to my reports. Besides, the Rising Sun is getting in my eye.