Planescape: Torment

[Compass]

This is one of those very special games that, if you were lucky enough to play it, you never forget, if for no other reason than it possibly shipped with the worst cover art of all time, giving even the original Megaman a run for its money:



Released in late '99, it uses the popular (at the time) Infinity Engine. Resolutions clock in at a paltry 640x480, but every screen is hand-painted; there are no tiles to speak of.



The graphics are not the showcase here, though. It's the writing, the characters, and the setting that steal the show. I'm not much of a marathon gamer, but this one had me glued to the screen for seven and a half hours straight one sleepless night (more than any game save Xenogears). Receiving huge sums of experience, accompanied by incredibly satisfying sparkly sound effects, for using your brain (or, more frequently, your patience in repeatedly reloading), and solving problems through dialog, rather than combat gives this game a unique, and welcome feel compared to its Infinity Engine sister games, Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate.



So, let us take this thread to reminisce about this strange and wonderful CRPG that captured our hearts and minds in a way that few, if any have, before or since.



Here's an interview in two (1, 2) parts with Lead Designer, Chris Avellone (Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights 2), and "second designer" Chris McComb. It's an interesting read, revealing, among other things, two other Planescape games in development around the same time, one of which was a sort of King's Field clone for PS1:

Then there was the game I was working on. They asked me to play King’s Field – a first-person Playstation adventure/combat game – and I was thrilled to play computer games for a living. Then they asked me to make a game similar to but not copying King’s Field. My original concept was to start in Sigil, because it’s the quickest way to get into the Planescape feel and it’s the safest place for a low-level adventurer. The lead character was a young Harmonium recruit commanded to help his squadmates put down a riot in the Lower Ward. This first area would have been the get-acquainted-with-the-controls area, and after some low-intensity combat, the player would have been funneled into some burned-out buildings, where he’d find clues to the rioters’ motives, and this would lead him into a story of intrigue, upper-planar meddling, and a story that may have involved (at least) the scion of a power. You know, basically a police procedural with spiky armor and the actual incarnations of corruption and evil. I hadn’t gotten incredibly far into it before they pulled the plug on my game and Zeb’s, but I still think it would have been lots of fun.

There's a link at the end of the interview's second part. This is really cool. It's a vision statement used to pitch Torment to management back in 1997. The developer's passion for the project really shines through here. I can only imagine how exciting it must have been to read this before the game had a line of code written for it.

[Frogacuda]

This looked so generic I skipped right over it. I've heard nothing but good things in the years that followed and now I regret not playing it.

[FirstBlood]

What a game. What a cast. What a story.

The setting is what makes it. So glad I picked it up on a whim when it came out.

[NeoZeedeater]

I borrowed this game years ago. I found it much more appealing than Baldur's Gate and similar RPGs of the time but I never beat it. It's a big time investment but I have been meaning to play it again.

[Thief Silver]

Same, I would like to give it a shot but there's probably no way I could stomach it now.

[Kidnemo]

Always wanted to try it, never did.

I never really got into the planescape mythos.

I liked the Dark Sun universe better back in the day.

[FirstBlood]

it's still very playable. the graphics suffer somewhat, but the quality is really in the writing.

[Compass]

I thought more of you guys would have played it. Let me warn you then that there are some spoilers in the interview and vision statement docs. I'd say it's still worth it to check them out, though. Just skim over the spoiler-heavy parts. And there's so much cool detail to the game that you'd still have tons to discover on your own even if you read all the spoilers.

[Nick]

I asked for this for Christmas the year it came out and played it briefly. It is one of the star members of my Pile of Shame and will get beaten one day. Right now, though, I'm busy with Diablo II. Talk about living in the PC gaming past. (I've beaten Diablo II several times, by the way. )

I blame the Dreamcast.

[Yoshi]

Nick, you need to get Hellgate: London next month.