Rating: 
Summary: Great Rules, Hard to Learn
Review: Hard to rate a game like this. On one hand it has one of the most exciting sci-fi/fantasy hybrid post-apocalypse storyline's I've ever seen:Thousands of years in the future, following a utopian golden age, atomic war results in a spiritual backlash of energy as millions die. These energies overcharge the ley lines of magic in the world resulting in catastrophic magical storms and natural disasters. Now, hundreds of years later, civilization is just beginning to claw its way from the ruins. The ley lines have opened portals to alien dimensions and Earth has become a nexus for aliens, cyborgs, demons, mutants, AI robots, monsters, and animal-human hybrids. The bad parts however are really awful. First, the system is unusable. It's very close to 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but with all the wrong changes. Character creation is cumbersome. Stats are largely useless since skills are calculated separately and the stats themselves, although rolled on 3d6 (like AD&D) can go up way above 20, making d20 rolls meaningless. Skills are percentiles with a beginning average between 15-30%--so expect your players to routinely fail any skill rolls they have to do. Some skills that are always used (appraisal, awareness, social skills...etc.) just aren't there--while skills like cooking, radio scrambler, and advanced mathmatics abound. For as interesting as the setting is, it's also woefully ill concieved in a lot of ways. For a world that is supposed to be such a mix of different creatures, the player classes are all human (except dragons--which are ridiculously powerful). Some classes, like the Glitterboy, Crazy, Borg and Juicer are basically just humans who own different equipment! Also, even though the setting is supposed to be thousands of years in the future, with the world torn apart and the population decimated, none of the national boundaries have changed?? Even the various states in the U.S. have their same names and boundaries. You can also find books, guns and clothes from the pre-rifts era (which strangely looks a lot like things from our era, even though it's been thousands of years) that are intact and even concidered better than items made in the game era...yeah. It's a fun game, but one that needs a serious GM overhaul before it's playable. If you want to play it, seriously consider running it using the D20 system (Dragonstar if you can get it) and you should really think about coming up with a list of player character races and classes to build diversity rather than using what's in the book...You'll have to do a lot of work on the setting too in order to resolve a lot of the things that don't make a lot of sense. It should be a rewarding game though if you're willing to put in the effort. Good luck.
Rating: 
Summary: Something for everyone!
Review: I have played Rifts for 10 years now, and it still continues to be an exciting, challenging game. I've read the bad reviews of Rifts and I have to say to these people: get over yourselves! Sure, you can play Rifts like a power game, but a bad GM can do that to any game. On the other hand, with a good GM, Rifts can be, and is, a very rewarding experience. Be careful of anyone who starts talking about universal credits and the economic state of a fictional world. Man, that is TOO in depth. What do you play in Rifts, an accountant? I will say, though, that I have seen better and better power armor come out with each subsequent book, especially Triax and the NGR. But as you develop a campaign, and your players advance and become more experienced, they're not going to want to play with the little leaguers anymore. So it all evens out. To sum up, I really enjoy the setting that Rifts puts players (and GMs) in; I'm a big fan of the post-apocalyptic hero genre, which used to be huge during the cold war (Remember Gamma World?). This is a tough, scary world where the good guy is usually outnumbered a thousand to one, and the bad guys carry guns - big guns. Play it right, and you and your gaming group will be well rewarded for the investment you made with Rifts.
Rating:
Summary: Something for everyone!
Review: I have played Rifts for 10 years now, and it still continues to be an exciting, challenging game. I've read the bad reviews of Rifts and I have to say to these people: get over yourselves! Sure, you can play Rifts like a power game, but a bad GM can do that to any game. On the other hand, with a good GM, Rifts can be, and is, a very rewarding experience. Be careful of anyone who starts talking about universal credits and the economic state of a fictional world. Man, that is TOO in depth. What do you play in Rifts, an accountant? I will say, though, that I have seen better and better power armor come out with each subsequent book, especially Triax and the NGR. But as you develop a campaign, and your players advance and become more experienced, they're not going to want to play with the little leaguers anymore. So it all evens out. To sum up, I really enjoy the setting that Rifts puts players (and GMs) in; I'm a big fan of the post-apocalyptic hero genre, which used to be huge during the cold war (Remember Gamma World?). This is a tough, scary world where the good guy is usually outnumbered a thousand to one, and the bad guys carry guns - big guns. Play it right, and you and your gaming group will be well rewarded for the investment you made with Rifts.
Rating:
Summary: RIFTS - Science Fiction & Fantasy RPG
Review: I've never seriously played Rifts RPG, as I am easily distracted and making the NPC's alone was taking way too much time. So I gave up. And with the relaxed state that I was in, I decided to just read the whole book front to back. Took a while, but after I did I was eager to READ more about the world of Rifts Earth. I believe I'm not the only one to eagerly wait for the newest installments of Rifts book to glean new knowledge of the world and the events that shape the future (release, that is) of Rifts Earth. My belief has been partially proven correct with the release of the 6 book siege of tolkeen series.
Rating: 
Summary: This system should have died with the 80's
Review: If you want to suffer a Mega-damage stroke from trying to use a RPG system, then this is the book for you. It's rules lack any rhyme or reason, it's character creation process is as cumbersome as the stacks of sourcebooks that Palladium produces for this worthless product. If you want a multi-genre RPG, head for GURPs, instead. If you want to spend your entire gaming session on one round of combat, then Rifts away, my friend.
Rating:
Summary: Great Rules, Hard to Learn
Review: Let me start out by saying that Kevin Siembieda, the author, is an idea man. The Rifts rule book is literally a conglomeration of ideas, excellent ideas at that. But his organization lacks, for instance following the charactor creation steps in this book, you will find that you did some things to early. Their is a distinct lack of an index, making it hard for new players to find what they want, although experienced players tend to know where it is by feel. The skills list is lacking, and they end up adding to it later on. These days the Rifts Gamemasters Guide is almost necisarry for play. What Palladium needs to do is sit down, and come up with a second edition for Rifts, get some rules of consistancy, put down the date of the game in each book in the series. This is something D&D did (maybe to much) but I feel Rifts is overdue on that fact. Palladium has been wonderful on the going into depth (sometimes better in some areas than others), now they need to go back and redo each book, and not be afraid to take time to get some things right. They need to incorperate errata, and extras on the webpage into it. Serious effort needs to be put in organization and consistancy.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Concept, Horrible Rules System
Review: Palladium Books' "Rifts" line has an interesting premiss to it, that being interdeminsional portals (or "rifts") have opened up all over the world after an apolocalyptic war a few hundred years ago, and have been unleashing all kinds of otherworldy nasties upon the remaining humans. Unfortunately, the game mechanics suffers. What the Palladium System basically is is Kevin Siembieda's house rules for the AD&D system (this coming from Siembieda's own company history found at the beginning of the Mechanoids Trilogy reprint Palladium put out a few years back). The system, for the most part, is disappointingly similar to D&D with the exception of superficial changes (stats renamed from Strength to Physical Strength, Constitution to Phyicial Endurance, etc.). The skills system advancement makes no sense, with every skill going up when you gain a level whether or not you have ever used it. This game is a number one argument to why the level based systems should be put to sleep forever. Worst than that, the rules for the advanced technology make this the sterotypical power game. The main motive eventually comes down to getting stronger armor and more powerful weapons, so you can kill stuff faster and easier. Many of our combats turned into a boring exchange of weapon fire, waiting until either the enemy's or our own armor was depeleted. Sure this was fun in 6th grade, but it lacks now. Theres no point to strategy, since its a rare occasion to be able to take out the enemy with one shot no matter how good your plan is (thats what happens when everyone walks around in super tough armor that "conventional" weapons (like machine guns) don't even have a chance of damaging). Even without the mega damage armor, the characters have a huge reserve of "Structure Damage Capacity" points which damage is taken from before it is taken from the typical Hit Points. This means that characters essentially have two pools of hit points,
and can take ridiculous amounts of damage without flincing (unless of course that damage is from a non-convential (or mega-damage) weapon such as a laser, then the character is pretty much instantly vaporized...hence the need for the huge armor which brings us back to the previous paragraph). Finally, as more and more of the RIFTS World Books are published, the equipment found within tend to become more and more powerful so that players have more damaging toys to play with (and therefore a reason to buy the book). So if you get a recently released World Book, chances are the equipment inside will make the equipment found in the Core Book radically obsolete. If these "World Books" describe different parts of the RIFTS Earth at the same date (as they should), one can't say they're chronological advancements or any such excuse. I see it as just trying to sell new gimmicks to a power hungry munchkin audience. I would recommend looking into this book only if your in need of an interesting sci-fi setting. Even though there are alot of inconsistencies in the setting (how can there be a universally accepted currency ("credits") without an economicly stable state to back those up? They'd be virtually worthless, and the entire world would have resorted to the barter system since the beginning) the general idea is a cool one and is worth running, perhaps with GURPS or another rules system.
Rating:
Summary: Top-notch Role-playing game
Review: Rifts is one of the most creative, different, and fun RPGs on the market. Sporting simple game mechanics and amazing character diversity (30 classes in this book alone!), I strongly recommend it to any avid role-player. I do not, however, recommend it for beginners because it includes no general introduction to role-playing, and could be very confusing. Also, be sure to check out a couple of the supplements, like Warlords of Russia, or England, they're extremely good. One more thing: although the first book may seem a bit drab, later volumes are significantly spiced up with Ramon Perez Jr.'s amazing artwork. This guy is the best black and white artist there is.
Rating: 
Summary: A near perfect Techno-Fantasy RPG
Review: RIFTS offers pencil-and-paper RPGers a chance to create adventures to suit their wildest dreams, from sword and sorcery to suits of power armor. The RIFTS world is increadibly differse, and the palladium books RPG rules and combat systems are better than most out there, including Dungeons and Dragons. The only flaw is the M.D.C. system and it's conversion. If this book peaks your interest, but your looking for something more medieval, try Palladium Fantasy (5 stars in my book) or if you like comics, try Palladium's Heros Unlimited!
Rating:
Summary: Simple to use but needs an advanced GM to do really well
Review: Rifts uses a very simple system for guiding gameplay which is common to all Palladium games. I like it a lot better than the rather baroque AD&D (2nd and to my knowledge, 3rd) rules. With a little personalized tweaking by the GM, this system can be fast, believable, and a lot of fun. One caution: it is very easy to go overboard on weapons. PCs can get a lot of flexibility on what weapons and vehicles theey want, so if you want a relatively low-key group of 1st-level adventurers and vagabonds, set ground rules ASAP. Otherwise you'll have an armored company of robots with MIRV nuclear weapons. You may think I'm exaggerating, but stuff like this has happened to me before. While it can be abused, the powerful, fascinating combination of magic, psi, and technology turns Rifts into very fertile ground. This system is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.
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