Rise to Honor

"Honorable Mention"

Jet Li's Rise to Honor is an action packed game full of fighting, gangsters, and all that good kung fu game stuff. This game is great, but sadly it is too linear and too short to earn a high rating. That's too bad, Jet Li makes an awesome video game character, and this game will give some fun for a while.

Story: The story is that Kit Yun is an under cover cop who has infiltrated the crime organizations of Hong Kong, but when his boss dies, he has to find the killer. Its a matter of honor to him. The story is ok, great basis for an extremely linear fighting game. The only problem is that sometimes, you really don't know what's going on in the story, because things are just thrown out in the open without any real explanation. Even the ending and extra scenes don't clarify anything. This really could have been handled better.
SCORE: 7

Gameplay: The gameplay is the strong part of the game. A unique take on fighting, where the direction is brought into play. You can attack in any direction at any time, making for some really cool combos and abilities that require attacks in multiple directions to pull off. The attacks that you do are somewhat randomized, so you can expect to see attacks and super awesome combos that you've never seen before. This style of fighting is innovative, and truly fun to play with. You can also interact with the environment with your attacks, which is nice. You can pick things up, grab enemies, do super powerful attacks... what I'm trying to say is, this game is fun. Really fun. Too bad there really isn't much in the way of unlocked content, making it slightly boring once you play through once. That's another thing, its way too linear. Almost too linear for most gamers. A plus is that you can select any level that you have already played, so you can select some levels that you really like and start from there.
SCORE: 10

Graphics: The graphics are great. They certainly aren't the best that they could be, but they are good enough for a PS2 game. The character and enemy design is ok, and they aren't blocky, which is super, super good. Blocky graphics are the bane of all gamers. The level designs are actually really cool, and take you through Hong Kong like a nice little tour. You just happen to be bashing heads and shooting stuff.
SCORE: 7

Sound: The sound in this game is nothing special. The sound effects are really not that interesting, and the levels where you get a gun are completely annihilated in the ways of sound simply because they gave you infinite ammo, so you will be hearing an endless stream of gunshots the entire way. Other than that, the music and sounds are nice. Its always nice listening to a bad guy get beat up.
SCORE: 7

Replay Value: The replay value that this game has is varying. It really depends heavily on the type of gamer you are. For those hardcore Kung Fu and Jet Li fans, this game will definitely get some replay time, but for most people this game will probably only get one play through. This is because of many reasons. There are very few extra things, not enough to make another play through fun. The fighting system, although innovative and fun, gets boring eventually. The game is also way to limited, linear and short. This is a game that would be very fun if they had spent more time on the extra content and things that would keep players playing. Sadly, that kind of stuff is lacking here.
SCORE: 5

FINAL SCORE: 7
This game is good, but not really good enough to warrant buying it. Instead, you should try renting it or borrowing it from a friend that has it. If you see it in a bargain bin, get it! This game is worth at least one play through.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/07