Bog standard Space Invaders rip-off
Unless you desperately need another vertical shooter in your life because you have played all the classics like Tyrian or The Reap, then there's pretty much no real reason to bother wit The Rift. There's nothing really wrong with it beyond a simple lack of ambition and it brings little to the table that even the original blaster Space Invaders didn't already do. As you've probably guessed, The Rift is another vertical shooter which sticks to the familiar science fiction theme of rampaging space aliens out to conquer the galaxy and which must be defeated by a lone hero. This of course is where the player comes in and the game is a simple enough shooter which just requires you to wade through a few rounds of similar looking aliens. There really is little more to the game than that, with nothing much in the way of weapons or powerups and it's pretty obvious this was only a freeware release, as evidenced by the lack of imagination that has gone into the visuals or the gameplay. Graphics are unsurprisingly ordinary, with a few relatively decent sprites but little else other than a sort of pseudo 3D effect to help the game stand out. Sound too is likewise limited to the usual crashes and bangs as you gleefully dispatch, or are dispatched by, the aliens but again this isn't really unexpected given the game's origins. The controls are about as straightforward as it's possible to be, requiring little more than a bit of left and righting in addition to the shooting so on the whole this is a typical cheap 90s blaster that is easily glossed over.
