Rise To Honor
HK action cinema meets Bay Area videogame programming with tasty results. Juicy new screens and impressions await you.
Published: September 21, 2003
For years now we've seen attempts at merging Hollywood and video games. Suffice it to say the results have been laughable at best, but with technology progressing to the point where the gulf between games and movies has shortened to point where it's sometimes hard to tell the two apart. This is due mainly to the convergence of mediums and high budgets, but in standout cases like the Medal of Honor series, the deciding factor comes in the form of a talented bunch of developers.
Such is the case with the boys and girls down in Foster City at SCEA's in-house dev studio. Rise To Honor started as a project merely mimicking the HK action flicks that made Jet Li famous. In an odd move of confluence, Jet put in a call to Sony to test the waters on the possibility of making a video game, and as it turned out Rise To Honor was already well into the design phase. The two talents got together and began work on the game with not only the full blessing of Jet Li (and the go-ahead to use his likeness and moves), but the addition of long-time collaborator and choreographer Cory Yuen for a boatload of authentic motion-capture data.
The result is what was shown off in demo form at last year's Gamers' Day; an action game that mixes equal parts 360° beat-em-up (more on that in a second) and Max Payne-style run-and-gun shooter. Tying it all together is a story worthy of a Jet Li flick that takes hero Kit Yun (played by Jet) from his home in Hong Kong as triad leader Boss Chiang's bodyguard to San Francisco after Chiang asks Kit to deliver a vital message to his estranged daughter. When Kit arrives in the City by the Bay, he quickly gets caught up in the city's more seedy elements and quickly must choose between his sense of duty and honor (hence the name).
Where the story gives way to action (and the two intermingle many times throughout the course of each level) is where Rise To Honor stands out. SCEA Foster City's goal was to build a combat system that could accurately capture the choreographed sequences in Hong Kong action movies. Instead of using the usual shape button setup, they mapped the hundreds of moves, counters and blocks to the right analog stick, so when you're surrounded, all you have to do is tap in the direction you want to attack. At any point during your combos, you can change direction seamlessly, and the result is damn close to what you'd see in the movies, making it entirely possible to take on two, three or even four enemies at the same time.
Rise To Honor's combat system, while easy to use (it doesn't get much easier than tapping in different directions), really stands out when combined with the reversal and block modes. By holding down L1, you can block any attacks that come in, though each blocked move (some of them are avoided outright with slick ducks and bobs) slowly decreases your block meter, and when it's gone, so is your ability to avoid attacks. Hold L1 and R1 and press in a direction and you can turn a defensive dodge into an offensive throw in seconds. While we had our doubts as to the smoothness and ease of execution of the combat system, it's made impressive strides even since E3 earlier this year and should it continue to tighten up, we could see something as impressive and innovative as The Mark of Kri's combat.
When it comes time to swap fists and feet for lead, the controls get a bit more complex, but not much. You still aim with the right analog stick and move with the left but you can first (as fast as you can press, we might add) with R2, and activate a slo-mo dive with L1 in any direction. It's actually possible to target multiple targets and lay down a hail of gunfire that axes a couple of enemies in one slo-mo dive. Taking cover is as simple as getting near an object and pressing the catch-all action button (this is also how you jump and interact with objects during the action sequences, enabling you to easily do everything from wall spring to get to higher elevations to run along walls to flip over obstacles). The ability to target objects in the environment and take them out with usually explosive results is more than a little fun.
Rise To Honor went from interesting promise with doubtful execution to a game that's slowly beginning to show the kind of polish and tightness that makes a must-have action game. We'll be sure to track the progress of the game as it nears its January 2004 release (it's already been pushed back from the original November release for polishing, something we're more than a little happy to hear), but if Sony's Foster City studio can keep on track and tighten the combat down a little further, watching Rise To Honor in action will indeed be a perfect digital reflection of modern Hong Kong action flicks. We think Jet Li will be proud.
Such is the case with the boys and girls down in Foster City at SCEA's in-house dev studio. Rise To Honor started as a project merely mimicking the HK action flicks that made Jet Li famous. In an odd move of confluence, Jet put in a call to Sony to test the waters on the possibility of making a video game, and as it turned out Rise To Honor was already well into the design phase. The two talents got together and began work on the game with not only the full blessing of Jet Li (and the go-ahead to use his likeness and moves), but the addition of long-time collaborator and choreographer Cory Yuen for a boatload of authentic motion-capture data.
The result is what was shown off in demo form at last year's Gamers' Day; an action game that mixes equal parts 360° beat-em-up (more on that in a second) and Max Payne-style run-and-gun shooter. Tying it all together is a story worthy of a Jet Li flick that takes hero Kit Yun (played by Jet) from his home in Hong Kong as triad leader Boss Chiang's bodyguard to San Francisco after Chiang asks Kit to deliver a vital message to his estranged daughter. When Kit arrives in the City by the Bay, he quickly gets caught up in the city's more seedy elements and quickly must choose between his sense of duty and honor (hence the name).
Where the story gives way to action (and the two intermingle many times throughout the course of each level) is where Rise To Honor stands out. SCEA Foster City's goal was to build a combat system that could accurately capture the choreographed sequences in Hong Kong action movies. Instead of using the usual shape button setup, they mapped the hundreds of moves, counters and blocks to the right analog stick, so when you're surrounded, all you have to do is tap in the direction you want to attack. At any point during your combos, you can change direction seamlessly, and the result is damn close to what you'd see in the movies, making it entirely possible to take on two, three or even four enemies at the same time.
Rise To Honor's combat system, while easy to use (it doesn't get much easier than tapping in different directions), really stands out when combined with the reversal and block modes. By holding down L1, you can block any attacks that come in, though each blocked move (some of them are avoided outright with slick ducks and bobs) slowly decreases your block meter, and when it's gone, so is your ability to avoid attacks. Hold L1 and R1 and press in a direction and you can turn a defensive dodge into an offensive throw in seconds. While we had our doubts as to the smoothness and ease of execution of the combat system, it's made impressive strides even since E3 earlier this year and should it continue to tighten up, we could see something as impressive and innovative as The Mark of Kri's combat.
When it comes time to swap fists and feet for lead, the controls get a bit more complex, but not much. You still aim with the right analog stick and move with the left but you can first (as fast as you can press, we might add) with R2, and activate a slo-mo dive with L1 in any direction. It's actually possible to target multiple targets and lay down a hail of gunfire that axes a couple of enemies in one slo-mo dive. Taking cover is as simple as getting near an object and pressing the catch-all action button (this is also how you jump and interact with objects during the action sequences, enabling you to easily do everything from wall spring to get to higher elevations to run along walls to flip over obstacles). The ability to target objects in the environment and take them out with usually explosive results is more than a little fun.
Rise To Honor went from interesting promise with doubtful execution to a game that's slowly beginning to show the kind of polish and tightness that makes a must-have action game. We'll be sure to track the progress of the game as it nears its January 2004 release (it's already been pushed back from the original November release for polishing, something we're more than a little happy to hear), but if Sony's Foster City studio can keep on track and tighten the combat down a little further, watching Rise To Honor in action will indeed be a perfect digital reflection of modern Hong Kong action flicks. We think Jet Li will be proud.
