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At the close of 1941, the Japanese empire unveiled its imperialist plans to unite the western Pacific under the flag of the Rising Sun. The name for the new territory would be the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Beginning with the unprovoked, devastating raid on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese military launched surprise attacks against key strategic targets in an all-out effort to secure victory. From Singapore, to Manila, to the tiny island of Guam, the nations of the western Pacific faced the most dangerous enemy ever--men who considered it an honor to die in service of the Empire of Rising Sun!

Now you, too, can take your stand at Okinawa with TalonSoft's Rising Sun. Storm the shores of the islands of the South and western Pacific or hunt your foes down through the snake-infested jungles of Burma. Do battle on the sandy beaches of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Betio, and many others.

Review

Back in 1998, TalonSoft lined up a host of wargaming heavy hitters like Bob McNamara, Charlie Kibler, John Tiller, and even James F. Dunnigan himself to headline what was to be a blockbuster new game called East Front. Unfortunately, the game released with a completely inadequate manual and a host of bugs that rendered it almost unplayable. But TalonSoft was undaunted by the game's poor reception, and quickly made much additional documentation available for download from its web site, just as it soon issued the first of several patches. This kind of product support and improvement has helped restore a good reputation for TalonSoft and its wargames. TalonSoft's Rising Sun shows that the company has continued to refine its wargames even more, and the result is very impressive.

Rising Sun is the third piece of the TalonSoft tactical wargaming trilogy called the Campaign Series. After the release of East Front, the game engine underwent a significant overhaul for the subsequent West Front, and it's the West Front engine that has been improved on for Rising Sun. Because Pacific Theater combat differs so much from that in Europe, there are a lot of additional rules in the game. For instance, since it was common for Pacific Theater combat to occur at night, there are extensive night rules. Rules for caves let players re-create the bitter fighting on islands like Iwo Jima and Okinawa, while banzai attacks are a fearsome weapon unique to the Japanese arsenal. Pacific Theater terrain, such as dry and flooded rice paddies, jungle, and even kunai (elephant grass), is also well represented in Rising Sun.

The game mechanics will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played serious wargames in the past. Rising Sun is a platoon-level game that plays out over a hex grid. Movement and combat are carried out simultaneously, as players alternate turns. Each unit has 100 action points, which can be spent moving, firing, or a combination of the two. The number of action points required to perform a certain action depends on the type of unit involved, the terrain, and sometimes even the weather. Scenarios can combine a wide range of units, as armor, infantry, mortars, artillery, and air support all play a part in the battle. The game's database accurately models the performance of just about every weapons system in use in the Pacific from 1941-45, so if an engagement took place there in that time, it's probably possible to re-create it within the game.

Though there's a lot of detail involved in the game mechanics, the user interface is actually very manageable. A combination of simple mouse clicks and keyboard shortcuts is enough to perform almost any game function. The map can be viewed from both 2D and 3D perspectives, and the latter can be helpful when you're trying to determine line of sight. Unfortunately, the game doesn't let you view a prospective computer-calculated path before moving a unit more than one hex. A closer 2D view, with combat values displayed directly on the units, would have been helpful as well, but for the most part the game does an excellent job of both displaying information and letting you manipulate units.

Traditionally, wargame artificial intelligence has always had the burden of having to handle very complex situations, and thus has tended to come up short against capable human players. Given wargamers' lowered expectations, the Rising Sun AI isn't necessarily excellent, but it does manage to hold its own in most cases, and seems to understand how best it should handle Allied troops (which typically have high firepower) compared with the Japanese troops (which are better suited to close assaults). In fact, if the AI has a specific weakness, it's the computer's reluctance to break from its patterns; the AI ought to actually assault with the Allies when the situation demands it (such as in beach landings), rather than just sit and exchange shots in unfavorable circumstances. Playing against the computer tends to be more challenging if you stick to the suggested side in the solo scenarios. -- Bruce Geryk
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