Not a Medal of Honor: Rising Sun sequel is it??? I hear you cry… No, it's nothing to do with that piddle. This has Jet Li starring in his first game as he joins the hall of fame for being a celeb in a game (other than movie licence) with other stars such as Bruce Willis, Jackie Chan and Britney Spears. I'm sure they'll be many more to follow.

   

Rise to Honour has you playing as Kit (Jet Li) who is a bodyguard to a Hong Kong crime boss. You take it upon your self to deliver a letter to the boss's daughter. The story takes you to a wide variety of locations like back alleys and restaurants to city streets and clubs. As you'd expect with Jet Li as the lead character the gameplay involves martial arts. The gameplay isn't simply a matter of your normal button mashing though. The fighting system is a bit like the one seen in Blade II or Grabbed By The Ghoulies. It's a more enhanced version of those games' rather basic approach though; you'll be able to pull of amazing looking combos, attacking enemies in all directions just by pushing the right analog stick in the direction of the attacker. SCEA's Team Triad have kept the game really simple, there are only 4 actions, move, attack, defence/action and adrenaline. These are all done with the analog sticks, L1 and R1; the symbol buttons (X, Square, Circle and Triangle that are normally used in fighting games) don't get used for punching or kicking at all.

   

If you've seen a Hong Kong Jet Li film such as Hitman you'll already know what to expect from Li's fighting style; it's slick and entertaining, and like I said, it looks amazing in motion. With the action button you can also pick up items like chairs and pipes to throw or use as a weapon, also holding R1 and pressing the right analog towards an attacker lets you grab and throw them. In certain places you can pull off some cool moves like tripping someone over a ledge or sliding them down a flat surface and throwing them off the edge. The game also features gun fighting on certain sections, usually back alleys where you can hide behind bins or pillars, then come out blasting. It features a slow motion dive move like Max Payne made famous (like seemingly every other game these days), but it still looks cool anyway. You also get slo-mo views of the last kick or punch in a combo. The game is a scrolling beat em up so repetitiveness is only to be expected but it's all good. They try hard to add some variety by chucking in stealth sections and one where you fight tag team with a woman (like in Romeo Must Die with Aaliyah). There are also 'Making Of' movies to unlock for playing the game, which are very good.

   

Graphically I think the game looks great, Jet Li actually looks like Jet Li, and because the man himself did the motion capture it looks incredibly fluid and realistic. Every animation looks good - even the bad guys move and fall right. The environments look brilliant - there's a level set in a construction yard and it features hundreds of things like scaffolds, bags of cement and all other kinds of building paraphernalia everywhere - the amount of stuff on screen is amazing, with no slow down at all. The game also features nice little effects that just add to the overall splendour like a fight in real time water, reflections in floors and windows; shiny leather and plastic jackets and real time shadows - it all looks good. Importantly the camera is generally good, except maybe in the game's weak spot, the stealth sections, where sometimes you can't see the oncoming guards. The in-game cut scenes have been done really well and add to the cinematic quality. You can also play the game in wide screen format, which adds to the big screen look.

   

The sound is also very well done, with cinematic music and voiceovers by Jet Li in Chinese and English. You also have all the 'Oooofs', 'Arrghhs' and other fight noises.

So overall, if you like action packed games you're going to think Rise to Honour is great, but if you like Hong Kong action films as well you're going to absolutely love it. There's a lot of fighting to do, and your right thumb is in for a real workout.