Videogame you’ve probably never heard of based on an RPG you probably haven’t played gets a remake

I learned yesterday that there was a Rifts video game called Rifts: Promise of Power released for the Nokia N-Gage back in 2005. It was a tactical RPG that was apparently quite good and is receiving the remake treatment, according to Palladium Books. I thought this was pretty interesting; I love seeing RPGs that aren’t D&D get the videogame treatment (I like D&D video games too, but they’re not exactly uncommon), and it’s a nice surprise to come across one I hadn’t ever heard of. However, it occurred to me that there are two questions that many of you may be asking: what is Rifts and what in the fuckity-fuck is a Nokia N-Gage?

Rifts is a venerable RPG from 1990 and the flagship of the Palladium Games line. It’s a post-apocalyptic genre gumbo with fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, and other elements smooshed together in various combinations thanks to the titular interdimensional spacetime portals that pepper its future Earth setting. Some of them connect to the settings of Palladium’s other games, allowing Rifts to act as a backdrop for crossover campaigns. It uses a d100 system, it has something called Glitter Boys in it, and it is still available today in a virtually unchanged form (there was an Ultimate Edition published the same year as the original video game, which Palladium’s website emphasises is not a second edition.) I only know any of this because I used to own Palladium’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, and also all the adverts the company used to run in old RPG magazines.