This is the best game I have played in 2013 so far and Is everything I want in a game.
the story in rising takes place after mgs 4 (which you don't have to play in order to understand) where you play as the cyborg ninja raiden who first protects the african prime minister who is then later attacked by the obviously evil group called desperado. which they end up killing the prime minister and injuring raiden. So raiden comes back with a revengeance with upgraded armor,strength, and an eye patch. The story is really not meant to be taken seriously and it's a fun time. I really ended up liking Raiden which he has improved a lot since mgs 2. The boss characters are memorable and as well as blade wolf the robot dog that aids raiden. the story fits well in the metal gear universe quite well actually.
The visuals in metal gear rising are very good and there is a lot of cool animations and design. the most impressive part is the blade mode technology and how it hardly slows down the game is almost always at 60 FPS which is awesome.
Sound is excellent specifically the music and damn this is how you do an action game soundtrack it gets you PUMPED it's pretty much rock and techno and orchestral music and they fit the game very well. Voice acting is over the top and pretty good for that. sound effects are very good.
Now what makes this game so awesome is obviously the game play. The core sword play is really fun,fast and smooth as silk. There is also sub weapons like rocket launchers and grenades however these are a sometimes thing. The sell point of the gameplay is blade mode which allows you to slice enemies into bits and pieces and it never gets old at all. There is also stealth elements however they are completely optional. When you try to do them it mostly doesn't end up well. there is also ripper mode which the super ultra form which makes you powerful how do you do this? by clicking the left and right stick well I didn't know we were playing the god of warz. The boss fights are some of the best bosses i've fought since neverdead. now people complain how short it is however it really isn't since it has a ton of replayability like differant types of swords, cutting left arms ,wigs, vr missions, models, and customes that alone is worth the price. Also this is one of the few games I've beaten more than once which is an accomplishment for platinum. There are some flaws for once the camera which can be annoying at parts and selecting weapons. one minor exploit I found is that when you get the infinite blade mode energy when you ripper mode you can basically breeze through the game it's not too bad but it's something I had to mention.
Overall I love this game it's everything I want in a hack n slash done extremely well. If your a metal gear and hack n slash fan buy it!