Review of Rifter #5 The Rahu-Man
Rifter Article by Peter Finin

Summary
Optional in-depth material on the Rahu-Man. We're primarily concerned with the part impacting N&S itself. This article rates 3 out of 10 possible stars, but only for the material directly impacting N&S.

General Review
The Rahu-Man are given a believable reason for being in N&S, along with workable OCC modifications.

Aslyl Okta. Despite the author's attempt at trying to make this a full blown martial art style, it's a hand to hand combat skill. The lack of anything remotely resembling the N&S style format guarantees this. The lack of initial attacks (to which the author makes the mistake of adding one at first level), lack of coherent combat moves and bonuses, such as the bonus to "pin" when no such combat move is known, the lack of capitalization, lack of understanding of basic combat concepts all work to make this the biggest morass I've seen. The author tries to include new combat moves, unfortunately these aren't thought out and only work to increase the relative power of the style so it can be "kewl." Auto Circular Parry is the prime example of this. I normally would comment on the huge Critical strike range, but since 90% of the Rifter styles all have that super Critical Range, it's kinda moot. This is the stereotypical "style that looks like it was done by a three year old with a crayon" I've referenced many times.

W.P. Zwittentang is likewise practically a hand to hand combat skill instead of a weapon proficiency. Ignore all the additional moves listed and you don't do too badly.

Overall Review

Appearance: Overall the article wasn't bad, the N&S stuff started out good, but went downhill fast.
Artwork: The pic on page 36 was decent, not great since the details are really lacking by the use of bad shadowing. The rest of the pics pretty much sucked, another loss for DSS and their "some really great, some really crappy" artists.
Structure: With the exception of poor combat skills design, this article is well organized.
Editing: This article could have used a ton of editing in two pages, but isn't that bad otherwise.
Continuity: Ironically, this meshes well into just about every setting since thought was actually given to continuity.