Scythe
10-03-2006, 02:09 PM
Despite the boom in the gaming industry, there are still very few video games being released that can really compete with a good book in terms of plot, character development and story depth. Planescape:Torment is one of those games. Based in the Planescape Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, Planescape:Torment was developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment, who were both involved in the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale RPG game series, which are credited with causing a popular resurgence in RPG games. Torment is another RPG, although with a distinctly different flavour. Characters still gain experience and become more powerful by killing monsters and completing quests, but the nature of both is distinctly different.
Planescape:Torment follows the story of a man called The Nameless One, a grey-skinned, zombie-like gentleman covered in tattoos who wakes up in a Mortuary with no memory and surrounded by the walking corpses who act as the servants of the morticians. However, unlike those around him, he happens not to be dead. Even more, death seems to be little more than a minor inconvenience, since Nameless appears to be effectively immortal (although not invulnerable). His wounds, even the most serious, heal rapidly over time, and dying in the game results in a brief period of blackness followed by an abrupt re-awakening, rather than having to re-load a saved game. It also becomes apparent that he’s being hunted, although I won’t give away by what. Unlike most RPGs, Torment isn’t about saving the world from some great, overarching threat. While the quest of The Nameless One does take on wider dimensions in its later stages, at its heart it’s about a single man and his journey to find the truth about who he is, where he comes from and why he is the way he is.
Along the way you pick up a variety of companions, some very bizarre, and all with their own agendas, histories and flaws. Despite having no memory, you will discover hints that Nameless has been around for a long time, and has apparently lived many lives, from soldier to psychopath, philosopher to thief. The actions of your past incarnations tie in closely with your activities in the game, and you’ll find yourself being punished, rewarded and blamed for things Nameless has no memory of. It all adds to the feel of a rich and interactive universe that you’ve been hurled into with no roadmap.
It’s almost impossible to quickly sum up the world in which Planescape:Torment takes place. It’s loosely based on a standard fantasy setting, but it takes that standard base and runs with it in some very unusual directions. Most of the story is set in Sigil, called the City of Doors, which is filled with portals that lead to literally anywhere. Think of it as a D&D Casablanca, where creatures and people from everywhere and anywhere can mingle on neutral ground. The world is filled with many strange and bizarre characters, from renegade angels to sentient war machines and well-spoken demons. Outside the city are the Planes, the homes of the Gods. I won’t go into too much detail, as the game itself expends a lot of effort explaining the setting, but suffice to say that, in order to solve the mystery of his origins, The Nameless One will have to travel to many strange and bizarre places, make some very tough decisions.
Graphics
Planescape: Torment was released in November 1999, so the graphics are somewhat dated by today’s standards, but they still remain more than passable. The game is done in the style of the previous Baldur’s Gate games, with mobile characters moving over a static background in an isometric viewpoint. The perspective is slightly different to similar games of the time, since the viewpoint is zoomed closer to the characters, in line with the far more character-driven nature of the game. The magic effects are pretty, and some of the higher-level spells even have their own short full-CG movie animations that are played when cast to add to the feeling of destructive capacity.
Probably the best graphical aspect of the game is the character animations. The closer perspective gives the animators the chance to add greater detail to all the characters, even the background players whose only role is to walk down the street. The main characters are drawn in great detail, with chests moving as they breathe, and their movement and battle animations look very fluid and natural.
The static backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and their alien design very much helps to set the mood and give the sense that this is an alien setting. The architecture varies from mundane huts to bizarre taverns covered in spikes and vines. Once you venture out of the city of Sigil, things look even weirder.
Since this game was released back in 1999, any modern computer will have few problems playing it. Even 32MB onboard graphical memory will be sufficient to run it at the highest settings, although there may be some slowdown in areas where many characters must be rendered at once. The only flaw I encountered was during task-switching. Sometimes, when switching back to the game, the graphics of the characters would be flickering and impossible to view properly. But since they recommend that you don’t task-switch while playing the game in the first place, I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.
Controls
The controls follow the standard established by the Baldur’s Gate series, with a few evolutions that can also be seen in more developed form in one of the later games in the franchise, Neverwinter Nights. The space bar is used to pause the game so that orders can be issued, but the close-up perspective meant that developers didn’t want to clutter the screen with permanently visible menu bars, and instead have gone with a radial menu system. Right-click anywhere on the screen or on any character, and a circular menu will appear listing the options available to the character being controlled at the time. Left click will select any of those options, and left-clicking anywhere on the screen when the radial menu isn’t open will move the character to that location All the standard RPG shortcuts are available (I for inventory, C for character sheet, etc), and their use can significantly speed up gameplay, instead of sorting through the radial menu. The controls work well for the game, and removing most of the intrusive menu bars helps to immerse the player in the game, as well as maximising the viewing area.
Sound/music
The sound and music in Torment is what sound should be in video games. Not intrusive or jarring, just something in the background to help the player immerse themselves in the world. There are actually a fairly limited range of sound effects, but those are employed to great effect. For example, when wandering the streets of Sigil, there is a constant background chatter of sound and voices. None of it is distinct, but it perfectly evokes the background bustle and hum of a busy city.
What really stands out, however, is the music. The battle music gets the blood flowing, but the real standout is the theme song. It’s used during the game introduction, and it also swells during important plot points, like when The Nameless One recovers an important memory. It’s been over 5 years since Planescape:Torment was released, but that song still sticks in my head.
Playability/Replayability
Planescape:Torment doesn’t follow the standard mold of most RPG games when it comes to gameplay. The Nameless One has been around for a long time and, even though he can’t remember them, he’s worked at and perfected nearly every type of character class possible in the D&D campaign settings. In the context of the game, the player can choose between the classes of thief, warrior or mage, and later they can learn to switch between and advance in each at will. Rather than beginning as a rookie, Nameless already begins as a fairly powerful character with the ability to regenerate, and only grows more powerful from there. Each of the characters who joins you along the way has their own unique skills and abilities, many of which can be enhanced by interaction, and by the addition of magical tattoos, which enhance skills and abilities. To start there is only a generic set of tattoos available, but as you move through the game more become available, depending on your choices and how you overcome problems.
Planescape was always the most philosophical of the D&D campaign settings, and Torment encourages players to deal with some tricky ethical issues related to forgiveness, the nature of man, good and evil, and the way people choose to live their lives. Your actions towards those you encounter will shift your moral and ethical alignment back and forth between good and evil, law and chaos, and those choices will directly affect what options will be available to you later in the game.
There is a good balance between battle and conversation, although there is a definite leaning towards the latter. While it’s possible to bull your way through most of the game in a frenzy, giant axe in hand, there are many more rewards to be gained by talking, both in terms of story and in gaining experience.
The ability to play three different types of characters, a mage, a thief or a fighter, adds somewhat to the level of replayability, as does the ability to play as the most virtuous of heroes or the more sadistic of villains. Indeed, in terms of RPGs, Torment is one of the best in terms of truly allowing characters to choose between moral viewpoints. Players can let their moral compass fluctuate as much as they wish, from selfish to altruistic, cruel to kindly, and anything in between, as long as they are willing to accept the consequences. Playing as a good character still results in slightly better rewards than being evil, but Torment comes closer than most RPGs in terms of truly giving players free reign to act as they wish.
While the battles are fun, that’s not what will draw players back to the game. The wealth of plot choices and conversation options presented leaves open entirely new ways of playing the game, but that’s also a relatively minor drawcard. Like a favourite book, what will draw fans back is simply a desire to experience the story again. They may know the ending, but the process of getting there is the fun part.
One more thing. Even for an RPG, there’s a LOT of reading in this game. Conversations, notes, books, philosophical discussions, recovered memories and more conspire to make this an intellectual game. To get the most out of Torment you have to be willing to put in the time to read all the material presented, otherwise much of the game will lack depth and impact.
Multiplay/Co-op
Torment is very much focused on the story of a single character, The Nameless One, and in keeping with that there is no multiplay ability. This is unusual for a party-based RPG game, but as you’ll see if you play it, there’s just not room for more than one player to control the flow of the story.
Overall
Despite being over 5 years old now, Planescape:Torment remains one of the best games I’ve ever played. The story is actually fairly simple when you look back after having completed the game, and i’ll admit I guessed the shape of the ending well before I got there, but that still didn’t stop me playing in order to find what exactly what happened when I got there. Most RPGs are oriented towards thinking rather than rapid-twitch reactions, but Torment takes that tendency much further, and takes on some quite confronting issues. Guilt, pain and forgiveness all play a major role in the game, and the effort spent on character development really pays off. The characters that join The Nameless One in his quest aren’t just cannon fodder, magical artillery or walking hospitals. They have their own life stories, neuroses and motivations, some of which are much more closely tied to The Nameless One’s past than may be apparent at first. You truly begin to feel for the characters, and finding out the mysteries behind them is a driving force in the game.
If you’re looking for monster-slaying action, big explosions and a rapid plot, then give Planescape:Torment a miss, even though the first two do play a role. If, however, you’re interested in a deep, thoughtful game that tackles tough moral and ethical dilemmas in a thoughtful and confronting way, then this is the game for you. I can’t think of a better poster-child to advertise the ability of games to teach people to really think and learn something while having fun.
Planescape:Torment follows the story of a man called The Nameless One, a grey-skinned, zombie-like gentleman covered in tattoos who wakes up in a Mortuary with no memory and surrounded by the walking corpses who act as the servants of the morticians. However, unlike those around him, he happens not to be dead. Even more, death seems to be little more than a minor inconvenience, since Nameless appears to be effectively immortal (although not invulnerable). His wounds, even the most serious, heal rapidly over time, and dying in the game results in a brief period of blackness followed by an abrupt re-awakening, rather than having to re-load a saved game. It also becomes apparent that he’s being hunted, although I won’t give away by what. Unlike most RPGs, Torment isn’t about saving the world from some great, overarching threat. While the quest of The Nameless One does take on wider dimensions in its later stages, at its heart it’s about a single man and his journey to find the truth about who he is, where he comes from and why he is the way he is.
Along the way you pick up a variety of companions, some very bizarre, and all with their own agendas, histories and flaws. Despite having no memory, you will discover hints that Nameless has been around for a long time, and has apparently lived many lives, from soldier to psychopath, philosopher to thief. The actions of your past incarnations tie in closely with your activities in the game, and you’ll find yourself being punished, rewarded and blamed for things Nameless has no memory of. It all adds to the feel of a rich and interactive universe that you’ve been hurled into with no roadmap.
It’s almost impossible to quickly sum up the world in which Planescape:Torment takes place. It’s loosely based on a standard fantasy setting, but it takes that standard base and runs with it in some very unusual directions. Most of the story is set in Sigil, called the City of Doors, which is filled with portals that lead to literally anywhere. Think of it as a D&D Casablanca, where creatures and people from everywhere and anywhere can mingle on neutral ground. The world is filled with many strange and bizarre characters, from renegade angels to sentient war machines and well-spoken demons. Outside the city are the Planes, the homes of the Gods. I won’t go into too much detail, as the game itself expends a lot of effort explaining the setting, but suffice to say that, in order to solve the mystery of his origins, The Nameless One will have to travel to many strange and bizarre places, make some very tough decisions.
Graphics
Planescape: Torment was released in November 1999, so the graphics are somewhat dated by today’s standards, but they still remain more than passable. The game is done in the style of the previous Baldur’s Gate games, with mobile characters moving over a static background in an isometric viewpoint. The perspective is slightly different to similar games of the time, since the viewpoint is zoomed closer to the characters, in line with the far more character-driven nature of the game. The magic effects are pretty, and some of the higher-level spells even have their own short full-CG movie animations that are played when cast to add to the feeling of destructive capacity.
Probably the best graphical aspect of the game is the character animations. The closer perspective gives the animators the chance to add greater detail to all the characters, even the background players whose only role is to walk down the street. The main characters are drawn in great detail, with chests moving as they breathe, and their movement and battle animations look very fluid and natural.
The static backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and their alien design very much helps to set the mood and give the sense that this is an alien setting. The architecture varies from mundane huts to bizarre taverns covered in spikes and vines. Once you venture out of the city of Sigil, things look even weirder.
Since this game was released back in 1999, any modern computer will have few problems playing it. Even 32MB onboard graphical memory will be sufficient to run it at the highest settings, although there may be some slowdown in areas where many characters must be rendered at once. The only flaw I encountered was during task-switching. Sometimes, when switching back to the game, the graphics of the characters would be flickering and impossible to view properly. But since they recommend that you don’t task-switch while playing the game in the first place, I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.
Controls
The controls follow the standard established by the Baldur’s Gate series, with a few evolutions that can also be seen in more developed form in one of the later games in the franchise, Neverwinter Nights. The space bar is used to pause the game so that orders can be issued, but the close-up perspective meant that developers didn’t want to clutter the screen with permanently visible menu bars, and instead have gone with a radial menu system. Right-click anywhere on the screen or on any character, and a circular menu will appear listing the options available to the character being controlled at the time. Left click will select any of those options, and left-clicking anywhere on the screen when the radial menu isn’t open will move the character to that location All the standard RPG shortcuts are available (I for inventory, C for character sheet, etc), and their use can significantly speed up gameplay, instead of sorting through the radial menu. The controls work well for the game, and removing most of the intrusive menu bars helps to immerse the player in the game, as well as maximising the viewing area.
Sound/music
The sound and music in Torment is what sound should be in video games. Not intrusive or jarring, just something in the background to help the player immerse themselves in the world. There are actually a fairly limited range of sound effects, but those are employed to great effect. For example, when wandering the streets of Sigil, there is a constant background chatter of sound and voices. None of it is distinct, but it perfectly evokes the background bustle and hum of a busy city.
What really stands out, however, is the music. The battle music gets the blood flowing, but the real standout is the theme song. It’s used during the game introduction, and it also swells during important plot points, like when The Nameless One recovers an important memory. It’s been over 5 years since Planescape:Torment was released, but that song still sticks in my head.
Playability/Replayability
Planescape:Torment doesn’t follow the standard mold of most RPG games when it comes to gameplay. The Nameless One has been around for a long time and, even though he can’t remember them, he’s worked at and perfected nearly every type of character class possible in the D&D campaign settings. In the context of the game, the player can choose between the classes of thief, warrior or mage, and later they can learn to switch between and advance in each at will. Rather than beginning as a rookie, Nameless already begins as a fairly powerful character with the ability to regenerate, and only grows more powerful from there. Each of the characters who joins you along the way has their own unique skills and abilities, many of which can be enhanced by interaction, and by the addition of magical tattoos, which enhance skills and abilities. To start there is only a generic set of tattoos available, but as you move through the game more become available, depending on your choices and how you overcome problems.
Planescape was always the most philosophical of the D&D campaign settings, and Torment encourages players to deal with some tricky ethical issues related to forgiveness, the nature of man, good and evil, and the way people choose to live their lives. Your actions towards those you encounter will shift your moral and ethical alignment back and forth between good and evil, law and chaos, and those choices will directly affect what options will be available to you later in the game.
There is a good balance between battle and conversation, although there is a definite leaning towards the latter. While it’s possible to bull your way through most of the game in a frenzy, giant axe in hand, there are many more rewards to be gained by talking, both in terms of story and in gaining experience.
The ability to play three different types of characters, a mage, a thief or a fighter, adds somewhat to the level of replayability, as does the ability to play as the most virtuous of heroes or the more sadistic of villains. Indeed, in terms of RPGs, Torment is one of the best in terms of truly allowing characters to choose between moral viewpoints. Players can let their moral compass fluctuate as much as they wish, from selfish to altruistic, cruel to kindly, and anything in between, as long as they are willing to accept the consequences. Playing as a good character still results in slightly better rewards than being evil, but Torment comes closer than most RPGs in terms of truly giving players free reign to act as they wish.
While the battles are fun, that’s not what will draw players back to the game. The wealth of plot choices and conversation options presented leaves open entirely new ways of playing the game, but that’s also a relatively minor drawcard. Like a favourite book, what will draw fans back is simply a desire to experience the story again. They may know the ending, but the process of getting there is the fun part.
One more thing. Even for an RPG, there’s a LOT of reading in this game. Conversations, notes, books, philosophical discussions, recovered memories and more conspire to make this an intellectual game. To get the most out of Torment you have to be willing to put in the time to read all the material presented, otherwise much of the game will lack depth and impact.
Multiplay/Co-op
Torment is very much focused on the story of a single character, The Nameless One, and in keeping with that there is no multiplay ability. This is unusual for a party-based RPG game, but as you’ll see if you play it, there’s just not room for more than one player to control the flow of the story.
Overall
Despite being over 5 years old now, Planescape:Torment remains one of the best games I’ve ever played. The story is actually fairly simple when you look back after having completed the game, and i’ll admit I guessed the shape of the ending well before I got there, but that still didn’t stop me playing in order to find what exactly what happened when I got there. Most RPGs are oriented towards thinking rather than rapid-twitch reactions, but Torment takes that tendency much further, and takes on some quite confronting issues. Guilt, pain and forgiveness all play a major role in the game, and the effort spent on character development really pays off. The characters that join The Nameless One in his quest aren’t just cannon fodder, magical artillery or walking hospitals. They have their own life stories, neuroses and motivations, some of which are much more closely tied to The Nameless One’s past than may be apparent at first. You truly begin to feel for the characters, and finding out the mysteries behind them is a driving force in the game.
If you’re looking for monster-slaying action, big explosions and a rapid plot, then give Planescape:Torment a miss, even though the first two do play a role. If, however, you’re interested in a deep, thoughtful game that tackles tough moral and ethical dilemmas in a thoughtful and confronting way, then this is the game for you. I can’t think of a better poster-child to advertise the ability of games to teach people to really think and learn something while having fun.