Planescape: Torment - PC

This is a good game, but a few warnings:1) The story is great but I built it up in my head a little too much after reading the reviews. It is well-written, and written with the end in mind. Unlike most games which are kind of written as they go, things will make MORE sense as the game goes on until everything does at the end. Minor complaint: There were a few things that were either continuity issues, or just explained poorly IMO. Mainly to do with what order things were done by past incarnations and when they lived. Major complaint: Without giving away too much, suffice to say that there are a few characters you meet in the first half of the game who have much more information about you than they let on initially, and EVEN after you become aware of this you will NOT get dialog choices to follow this line of questioning much further. People who would know what you did, where you went, why you did it, and you can't ask. That's just dumb and really took me out of the game, I set it aside for a few days and almost didn't finish it. I would have much preferred it if meeting such people was a difficult side-quest with a big payoff in terms of story, instead of just being there but you can't use them.2) The game is LINEAR, it's really more of an interactive novel than anything. Your main form of interaction with the game is choosing dialogue. While the dialogue choices are generally diverse and this is a fun part of the game, it didn't make seem to make much impact on the game. Your choices affect your alignment, but as far as I could tell your alignment makes a superficial effect on the game at best, and NO difference in the ending. So it's not that big a deal. Also I suspect most people will end up being "neutral good" (and I think the game encourages that alignment), so what's the big deal. Compare this to a game like Fallout, where decisions you make are constantly affecting the ending in subtle ways and how people respond to you later in the game.The other thing to consider is that your main quest in the game is figure out how to die. It can be hard to get into character when your goal is so weird. Personally I was far more interested in figure out WHO I was in my first life and WHY I was immortal and made the choices I did. You can't really pursue this goal by itself however. Without giving away spoilers, suffice to say by the end of the game, this is all covered at a high level, but not near what I was looking for. For me the whole payoff of the game was the story, so I was hoping for a little more meat than that and some concrete examples would have made the ending easier to accept.3) Other than the story, the game is pretty bland. I HATED Baldur's Gate and the D&D combat system, which is basically just 1) attack 2) use healing potion/spell 3) use your best spells 4) repeat. 1000 battles later, it's not fun anymore, just a nuisance. Torment uses the same battle system but more like maybe 300-400 battles, so not as bad, but still not fun. Spell effects are cool but freeze the game and take FOREVER which can be frustrating if you're playing as a mage and are playing the same battle over after dying a few times.Overall I really enjoyed the game, but more for the story it told than the game itself. Playing the game will get you into the character and make the story more meaningful, but will also be frustrating since your actions are so limited. Overall my complaints were over implementation, this was a darn good game that could have been one of the best ever.

Planescape Torment is a cult classic and is considered by many to have the best story in any video game ever made. I recently completed it, and I'm here to tell you that the hype is justified--this is an incredible game. It instantly makes it into my all time top 5. Planescape contains one of the most unique and interesting settings and the best writing and plot I have ever seen in a video game. It's possible there are some adventure games that can hold a candle to it (I've heard the story in the game The Longest Journey is mind blowing), but I haven't played them. In terms of gameplay, this game is similar to the Baldur's Gate series, although it does have a few enhancements to the engine such as the ability to queue up multiple actions. The combat here is not quite as tight as found in Baldur's Gate, but it gets the job done just fine. This game is more focused on dialogue than combat, so if you like a very combat heavy game then you might not like it quite as much. That said, it's pretty hard to imagine anyone who enjoys video games and a good story not enjoying this game. You should also not get the idea that this is just a point and click adventure game with no real combat. There is still plenty of combat, and you must do some heavy fighting to get through a number of sequences in the game.Although there isn't a ton of it, the voice acting is another major strong point in this game that I wanted to mention. Another thing I like is that you level up A LOT in this game. You start out as sort of weak, but by the end of the game you are a bad, bad man, and that's something I always like in my RPGs. Graphically, this game looks pretty ragged on a widescreen computer at its original resolution, but this doesn't matter because there is an easy to use mod that allows you to play it in widescreen. Using the mod, it looks fantastic in widescreen. The artwork for the levels is quite detailed and lovely--it made me long for the days of 2d graphics to be honest. I found full on widescreen at 1280 x 800 to be too zoomed out, so I made a custom resolution for 960 x 600 and found that to be just about right. In fact, there are a number of good mods that people generally recommend you get for the game which you can find using google. Most of these simply fix bugs and things of that nature rather than adding entirely new material. A gameplay tip I would like to mention is that most people say that to get the full experience you have to put a lot of stat points in intelligence and wisdom because this opens up more dialogue options and story elements. I am not sure how much is necessary to get everything, but just thought I'd pass that along. I created a mage and had them both very, very high.