Bought because of the Price, Played Because of the Story
User Rating: 7.4 | Rise to Honour PS2
Walking through Best Buy I passed through the Video Game Section and noticed that Rise to Honor had fallen to a 19.99 Price Point, Needness to say I was torn, The game had recieved a very poor review yet it was pushed rather hard by an ad campaign so I assumed there would be some play value to it, To Start the WORST feature in the game is the awkward control set-up, Learning movements and which button does what takes some time, but at the start of the game you will find that its simple enough that some "oops" factor will not hinder your gaming. I would the choice of playing key buttons (Such as R2 being gun fire) were just plain strange, but once I got used to it it was not that bad, (Although going back and playing anything else right after this game required some time because of the strange positioning of my fingers) The movement between area's was well done, The Storyline was that or a cheesey blow em up action movie, but it worked. I have to say that the storyline kept me playing almost putting me into a movie where I could do it how I wanted to do it, and even though many games have tried to offer the gamer that experience, few actually have the same in game experience as Rise to Honor. Graphically, its really the story of two games, Your main Character Kit Yun (Jet Lei) looks great very detailed very well done, some of the chracters that play a role in the game also very well done, each level is beautiful and the lighting effects are among the best I have seen in video games in this Genre, The area that did not impress me were the "random" enemies you faced, very generic, and in some cases almost blury, not much thought or effort seemed to go into the "thugs" and they look almost like a kids drawing next to a Piece of Artwork at times. The Graphics just go to extreemes from GREAT to POOR, The Sound was excellent, The voice acting was great the music was very good in setting the scene and very well thought-out, the action sounds such as gunfire and guys hitting the floor were excellent, if they were aiming for a movie style production there were as close as they could get with the sound thats for sure. The Value is tough, and I try and rate my games on two scales "Play Value" Did I actually want to play it through and did it make me want to keep playing to see the end, and then replay value. The Play value was great, good story fast paced action scenes with LOTS of action and a good ending overall. As for replay, I don't really have the need to pick it up again and play it through, there are some parts that I found "cool" that I would show a friend when they came over and maybe on day I will play it again, but for the price I can't cry foul. It wasn't too long but it is an action game I mean what do you expect Overall, for the cost of three rentals to own this game I say its ok, Its a worthwhile experience and its a game that you could just pop in and start playing after a long day lot much thought and enough varity in the action that even messing around is fun. -Z 
