Planescape: Torment

Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:19 am

Small review I found for the game

In Planescape: Torment, you play a nameless, scarred, immortal on a quest to discover his past, his identity, and his role in the conflict over the nature of reality. The brilliant role-playing and adventure game focuses on the "Planescape" campaign setting of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, and combines the best elements of gamesas's phenomenally successful Baldur's Gate with an enthralling story line, well-written dialogue, and beautiful artwork and graphics.

In an inspired choice, Black Isle Studios, the developer of Planescape: Torment, has chosen to provide the player, at least initially, with as little details about the story as possible. After viewing a mysterious introductory movie, players guide The Nameless One on a journey through the bleak city of Sigil and its underground catacombs. The story leads from there to the bizarre realities of alternate planes of existence, where belief and thought determine the laws of physics. Through dialogue with hundreds of nonplayer characters, puzzle solving, and point-and-click combat, The Nameless One discovers clues about his identity and the circumstances surrounding his condition.

Gamers overwhelmed by detailed role-playing games will find Planescape: Torment easier to grasp; players can freely switch between three different character classes (Fighter, Mage, Thief) for The Nameless One as the game progresses, and learning the combat and magic system--with a simple point-and-click interface--takes only a few minutes. Literally hundreds of weapons, items, spells, and "tattoos" can be collected and affixed to The Nameless One or any of the several party members acquired during the course of the game. If you're a fan of role-playing or adventure games, Planescape: Torment's engrossing world creates a must-have gaming experience. --Doug Radcliffe

So who here are die hard fans of this game and played it tons of times like me? Image
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Melis Hristina
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:09 pm

"Raises hand"

Maybe not "tons of times" (actually twice) but I absolutely LOVE this game. It's simple a masterpice. An art. No, no, THE Art :)

Too bad it's the first and the last game in its kind (I think...)
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Tha King o Geekz
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:15 pm

I loved this game, but sadly I never finished it. My game got bugged and I didn't have previous saves. I really need to dig that up, and install some of the fan made updates.
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Lucie H
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:11 am

This game was more akin to reading a book where you could change the outcome of events. Some of you may think this describes most CRPGs, but I think it was even more the case with Torment.
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El Khatiri
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:30 pm

I used to play this a lot and it was my favourite of the AD&D style games. It has a great sense of humour that is missing in many more modern games, and the more time you took to read the lore of the game the better the experience became
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Tyler F
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:27 pm

This is one of the few gamesas titles I don't own and wish I did... I loved BG 1&2 and ID, and still play them from time to time... I hear this was a really good one... I guess I missed the boat on this one...
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Lil Miss
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:54 am

I enjoyed the game a great deal, one of my favorites. Very deep and thought provoking storyline and well designed characters, plus some truly great writing. The Nameless One is probably my favorite video game character.

Unfortunately, the game kind of loses its flare once you leave Sigil for Curst and gets bogged down by far too much mediocre combat. However, the last area of the game in the fortress was arguably the best part in the entire game and more than made up for the rest of the boring second-half of the game.

The game was also quite humorous at times to in a bizarre way, like the part where the Nameless One employs the help of a bartender to help pluck out his own eyeball, or how you can have Marta cut open and dig inside of your body to find items that Nameless had apparently ate...
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i grind hard
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:26 am

PS:T is still the tops of my RPG list, but it's one of the least played of the "best" RPGs I own. The low replay has nothing to do with its quality, though. The reason is that after my second time through the game, I couldn't imagine the game being any better and didn't want to spoil it by trying to replay yet again. I wanted to remember it just that way.
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Averielle Garcia
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:56 am

PST is a damn fine game, if not one of the best...computer book...erm, roleplaying games out there.

However, it was not without its problems:
1. Fed-exing - In early game almost all quests were just that, of low reward variety nonetheless.
2. Classing - If you were of class (A) you could get a ton of XP too damn relatively fast.
3. Post-event game - Relative to point 1. you just got a ton of XP, levels for a lot less work after a certain point in the game. Something which made exhaustive questing early on almost completely pointless (xcept storywise, heh...)

:mrgreen:
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Kirsty Collins
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:18 pm

All valid points g5 but the reward for that fed-exing was truly in the story and the great comments some of your "friends" would make. Best NPCs in any cRPG and they don't even have giant space hamsters.

Getting my hands on this game was like pulling teeth but gee it was worth it. It was an awesome game that I should dust off and finish one of these days.
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Rebecca Dosch
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:26 pm


But some don't have legs, others have tails and there are even some with wings. :mrgreen:
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Ruben Bernal
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:14 pm

Now imagine a giant winged space hamster with no legs.

The true reward of this game wasn't the xp, so it didn't matter too much that class A behaved this way. Most people didn't even need to fight TNO.
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Maddy Paul
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:15 pm

I disagree on the lack of a replay value. There's certainly a fixed path through the game - areas, major characters and events - but there's definitely something to be said of the different permutations of character development and story exposition according to player choices.

I'd much rather slog through brilliant character dialogue than the pitiful slew of pointless combat in, say, Baldur's Gate. But preferences are weird like that, I guess.
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marina
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:43 pm

Nah, Baldur's Gate was good too, and the combat usually was meaningful (more so in BG2). But yes, Planescape most certainly had replay value. Unless you play your games following a walkthrough all the way, you'll play it once thinking it's like BG, then once by putting all your stat points in wisdom to try and get what you've missed, then a third time to try and get what you've missed the second time through. And probably go for an evil game at least once. You won't get to try out different party combination too much, but the characters are so well fleshed-out that it definitely makes up for that.
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Quick Draw III
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:12 pm

I somewhat recently caught up with this boat, and I think it's just epic. I loved the fact that combat is (probably) "sacrificed" for more and better NPC interaction & dialogue. It worked for me.
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Austin England
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:35 pm



Well, I disagree, but I suspect that was pretty obvious from my previous post ;)

Although I have grown up on combat-heavy dungeon crawls and role-playing games, I'd easily give up on those in favor of more meaningful decisions and better character development.
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Setal Vara
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:46 pm

What I mean is, everything you fight has a reason for being there and attacking you, wether it be instinct, politics, money, etc. In many case you could choose your fight (i.e. Aran Linvail or Bodhi, fight or charm Glaicas, obey the Drow or not), although to a much lesser extent than in PS:T.The enemies didn't just seem as part of the scenery like in IWD. (Awaiting comeback from either side)
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Danny Warner
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:40 pm

Not quite on the same wavelenght as you, 'm afraid. While the main story paths were obviously peppered with the usual assortment of battles that somewhat supported their own context, I always found the Baldur's Gate series to be glorified dungeon crawlers, in the sense that there is much artificial combat that is shoehorned in order to increase game length. This isn't bad in itself as many games seem to succeed in spite of this - see: Fallout 2's abhorent "monster lairs" - but it always seemed you couldn't walk around for more than five minutes without finding yourself at odds with some creature or mob. The ones that bolster the story elements are reasonable but even then suffer from a need to force character exposition, a primary example being how even the nimblest of rogues could not get around event triggers - meaning situations such as those in the Iron Throne headquarters always resulted in combat, no matter whatever I might be trying to role-play. It's easy to see the game was meant to be developed as an RTS - most of the mechanics are centered around combat and adventuring, but offer little in the way of actual role-playing.

I believe many would (and will) disagree with me on this, and since I'm not looking to ruffle anyone's feathers, I believe that will be quite enough for now. Suffice to say, I enjoyed the series but felt the combat was mostly filler.
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Bloomer
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:10 am

Then again, the same could be said about pretty much RPG (be it the likes of Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls, the Tales series, or the aforementionned dungeon crawlers) or shooter, for that matter, Planescape being one of the few exceptions. BG still had more meaningful combat than, say, Diablo.

I don't mind a friendly exchange of ideas if you don't, otherwise I'll be shutting up on this. ;)
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Richard Thompson
 
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Post » Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:50 am



:look:
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Minako
 
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