The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The book begins with Kevin Simbeida asking us 'Why aren't there mor fantasy gaming in Africa?'. Well, according to this books, it's because there's nothing there.

The apocalypse demons are creative, but very few adventure hooks are given for them. From what I could gather, the Demons are each meant to be individually hunted down and enough firepower gathered to kill them. More thought should have been put into how to run these beings in a campaign.

Then comes the Egyptian Gods. Just big stats and high numbers. Not that these beings have any great influence on Rifts Earth, it makes a point to say they are thinking about attempting to gain some influence, but Palladium does love it's Gods, so it gives you the lowdown. This section perhaps would have been better places in an Egyptian fantasy supplement.

I would be called racist and ignorant (and rightfully so) if I said 'African people are nothing but tribal, raindancing, spearchuckers'. Unfortunately this is exactly how Palladium paints them. It merely assigned some MDC stats to the raindancing and spearthrowing and put no thought into actually giving certain areas of Africa distinct identity. It paints them as a homogenous people (and Africa is no more homogenous than Europe) with no history and not even the capability towards what would be considered industry. When it came time for an actual 'nation' to be in Africa, it was a supernatural group of monsters who scavanged left over technology, evidently Palladium felt the African peoples would not even be smart enough to even scavange pre-existing tech.

The Phoenix empire, the only real 'nation' in Africa, suffers from a problem of too much diversity. The reader is asked to believe that Rama-set has managed to band together all these monstrous races merely on the fact that they're monsters, it doesn't fly. Rama-set himself is an excellent villain, but the empire needs work.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

Rifts: Africa
Author: Kevin Simbeida Category: game Company/Publisher: Palladium books Line: Rifts Cost: around 20$ Capsule Review by Damon Sutton on 04/06/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Horror Post-apocalypse	The book begins with Kevin Simbeida asking us 'Why aren't there mor fantasy gaming in Africa?'. Well, according to this books, it's because there's nothing there. The apocalypse demons are creative, but very few adventure hooks are given for them. From what I could gather, the Demons are each meant to be individually hunted down and enough firepower gathered to kill them. More thought should have been put into how to run these beings in a campaign. Then comes the Egyptian Gods. Just big stats and high numbers. Not that these beings have any great influence on Rifts Earth, it makes a point to say they are thinking about attempting to gain some influence, but Palladium does love it's Gods, so it gives you the lowdown. This section perhaps would have been better places in an Egyptian fantasy supplement. I would be called racist and ignorant (and rightfully so) if I said 'African people are nothing but tribal, raindancing, spearchuckers'. Unfortunately this is exactly how Palladium paints them. It merely assigned some MDC stats to the raindancing and spearthrowing and put no thought into actually giving certain areas of Africa distinct identity. It paints them as a homogenous people (and Africa is no more homogenous than Europe) with no history and not even the capability towards what would be considered industry. When it came time for an actual 'nation' to be in Africa, it was a supernatural group of monsters who scavanged left over technology, evidently Palladium felt the African peoples would not even be smart enough to even scavange pre-existing tech. The Phoenix empire, the only real 'nation' in Africa, suffers from a problem of too much diversity. The reader is asked to believe that Rama-set has managed to band together all these monstrous races merely on the fact that they're monsters, it doesn't fly. Rama-set himself is an excellent villain, but the empire needs work. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 1 (I Wasted My Money)

Rifts: Africa