The game's soundtrack was first available only as a promotional disc, but still made it into the hands of a number of online score reviewers, who generally greeted Lennertz' creation with much enthusiasm. Highlighting that EA well understood the contribution of Giacchino's orchestral music to the success of earlier Medal of Honor games, the 120-member strong Hollywood Studio Symphony was booked to record Rising Sun's score in a a first for a video game. However, his compositions for films like America and Saint Sinner had shown him to be capable of composing rich and dramatic music with a strong sense of patriotism. In the end, the job went to a composer whom not many people had on their lists: Christopher Lennertz, who up to that point had mostly worked on television projects. Not surprisingly, speculation on who should replace Giacchino - or rather who would be adequately able to do so - run rampant. This included composer Michael Giacchino, who to many soundtrack fans had come to define how video game scores should sound through his groundbreaking works for previous Medal of Honor titles. Most of the key production personnel of the previous Medal of Honor games parted way with EA Games before development on Rising Sun began. Still, probably based on the above mentioned gamer goodwill, Rising Sun sold like hotcakes and ultimately clocked in sales of more than four million. The resulting game, however, proved to be a disappointment, yielding the franchise its first critically derided title and arguably marked the beginning of Medal of Honor's decline as the reigning king of console first person shooters. Medal of Honor: Rising Sun would then take place in the Pacific and highlight the fight between American and Japanes forces.
And what better time to shake things up, given that consumer goodwill towards the franchise had hit an all-time high with the best-selling Medal of Honor: Frontline. After previous entries into the Medal of Honor franchise had mined the European battlefields of World War II, EA Games correctly decided that it would be a good idea to make some changes to the well-worn formula.
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