As well as building these plots and adventures, players have been known to start a single character, and continue with that character slowly building up their experience and skills over a series of adventures in their playing groups for a number of years. For years, players of Rifts have made their own scenarios and adventures, from single night quickies to massive campaigns that last many months and years. With a set-up like this (and a gorgeous introduction sequence on the MMC going over this again for newcomers to the Rifts world) there’s a world of adventures that can take place. If you are resourceful enough, then these are all available to you. These shanty towns sit awkwardly alongside the remaining military grade weaponry and technology that some people still hold on to, and the re-awakened power of magic in the human race. With these rifts cracking open, the majority of technology on the Earth has collapsed, leading to an almost medieval level of existence for the majority of the population.
An Earth at some point in our future, after a huge disaster has released a bundle of psychic energy that cracked open the ley lines of the world, opening rifts to another dimension and allowing all manner of beasties and things to crawl through and invade the Earth. Suffice it to say, all of this detail has transferred to the N-Gage in glorious detail, with Nokia, Backbone and Siembetta working alongside each other for the last 18 months to make sure of two basic things that Rifts players would not notice a single thing missing and that non-players would be pulled into the Universe of Rifts and never want to leave.īut most of all, it's just very, very playable. In the sourcebooks of Rifts, there are pages and pages on each of them, from the mega armour and rail guns of the Glitter Boys to the drug induced frenzy and strength of a Juicer. There are 12 of these classes, each of which has their own history and specialities. In Rifts you have 5 proto classes, and each of those can be customised into a wide range of classes. RPGs generally have a few types of characters. The sheer scale of this mobile game is worth mentioning as well. What was there about Nokia and Backbone (the developers) to go ahead with the feisty Finnish Platform? Kevin Siembetta, the creator of the paper based Rifts RPG system, has long turned down deals from development houses on various platforms. The first one is probably the one that caught everyone by surprise - the simple fact that it is Nokia and the N-Gage that has the very first computer version of Rifts.
There are over 50 enemies and NPCs, 80+ hours of gameplay and the world is actually fully 3D so that you can rotate the map at any moment for a better view of the action.Where do you start with a review of Rifts? (Near the end? - Simon Pegg)? It's a problem because there are so many things that make Rifts. The original books featured 500 character classes, and from those the N-Gage edition makes available - Glitterboy, Juicer, Headhunter, Mind Melter, Ley Line walker, Burster, Cyborg, Cyber Knight, Battle Magus, Crazy and Mystic. Settings include: Germany, the Coalition States, Lazlo, Scotland, Old Bones, China and more. The game has been adapted into an isometric tactical RPG but at the same time retains all of the rules and ideas of the original. Rifts of energy are pulling creatures into a post-apocalyptic world and because they pull from everywhere, the world is soon populated by wizards, robots and everything in between. Genre-defying RPG based on the popular pen-and-paper roleplaying game from Palladium Publishing.
Complex character building and open-ended tactical missions are two great tastes that go well on N-Gage.