22-Apr-2004 Cartilage scraping across bone makes a sickening sound, but for fans of Hong Kong action movies, there's nothing sweeter. Fists connecting with faces, boots knocking the wind out of quaking guts, all accompanied by a macabre symphony of limbs a-cracking and skulls a-poppin'.
Hong Kong action fans like it raw, bloody and brutal, and Jet Li knows how to deliver. Now he's decided to transfer his double-jointed, ass-kicking talents to the world of videogames, will the result be John Woo-style hardcore realism or Tarantino-esque parody?
The story kicks off in Hong Kong where Li's character, Kit Yun, is a bodyguard for a notorious crime lord. When his master is murdered, Yun travels to San Francisco to deliver a note to the dead gangster's daughter, Michelle. And that's really all you need to know about that. Like many of the best Hong Kong action movies, the plot is merely a paper-thin device on which hangs an endless succession of set-piece brawls, chase sequences and boss battles. Even so, the linking cut-scenes look so good they could have been lifted straight from Romeo Must Die, Lethal Weapon 4 or any one of Jet Li's 30 movies.
Kiss Of The Dragon Can you wiggle your thumbs and crook your index fingers? You can? Good. That means you'll have no problem mastering the Rise To Honour control system. All combat moves are performed with the right stick, while movement is controlled by the left stick. There are some variations that involve holding down the L1 and R1 buttons (see Turning Tricks, left), but most of the time all you have to do is waggle like crazy to send your enemies straight to hell. It takes some getting used to and feels a little random at first, but once you start stringing the combos together you'll be laughing.
Behind all the stunning motion-capture work, lavish cut-scenes and big screen production values, Rise To Honour is a humble old-skool beat 'em up, with the odd stealth or chase level tossed into the mix. It may be linear and occasionally repetitive, but the spectacular set pieces will surely rock your world as hard as any Hong Kong classic.
Kick-ass action featuring the authentic moves of a Hong Kong legend. You won't have to do much thinking, but the finger-waggling is fun while it lasts.
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