The Impact of Planescape Torment

The ever interesting Escapist has a piece up examining just why Planescapes\ Torment is such a perennial favorite among gamers and designers alike. From the article: "The strangest, and one of the least successful RPGs from Black Isle (the company that brought you the Icewind Dale series), Planescape: Torment, which was released in 1999, took a risk by using the alternate Dungeons and Dragons campaign of Planescape, a not-really-fantasy, not-really-futuristic world that's mostly defined as unstable and bizarre. Strange and unruly dimensions intersect at the city of Sigil, where most of the game takes place, and your character, portentously called The Nameless One, wakes up in a mortuary with amnesia, a battered shell of a body that cannot die, and just one friend: a flying, talking skull. And the game gets stranger from there."

Story telling

[Thedeviluno]

The best video games always have the best story telling. The writers make the game. Bloated characters and an exciting journey are remembered longer than omfg best grfx evar.Think about it.

Re:Story telling

[interiot]

Ooooh. So that's why Pacman and Super Mario Bros were such memorable games. (and pong, and commander keen, and chess, and mario kart, and baseball, and poker, ...)

Try again

[swotl]

I had the same problem the first time I sat down with it, and delayed it for a couple of years. When I found the time to actually play through the thing it was the most intense gaming experience ever. The end will make your back shiver.

The game is still relevant so load it up on a laptop or something, since it has almost no system requirements, and play through what will probably be the last computer RPG with a real story.

Re:Try again

[toddhunter]

and play through what will probably be the last computer RPG with a real story.
I really hope this isn't true..but yeah I fear it is the case as well. There are a massive amount of people out there with great rpg stories...but the effort (ie money) to make something like happen just looks more unlikely when the latest EA franchise can just be churned out and make the cash

Re:The Impact of Zonk pimping the Escapist....

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't paying as much as 1up.com, that's for sure.

No, you are wrong.

[BlightThePower]

Sorry, the majority are not always right; if they were there would be no such word as "overrated" yes? Anyway, Planescape bombed commerically compared with BG/IWD so don't be so sure. The people who are still talking about it now probably did think it was amazing.

The plot of Planescape is somewhat trite and predictable. The dialogue writing is average to fair. The setting is the same-old same-old with a few cosmetic changes.
This sort of thing had been done countless times before.

Let me explain to you why "over rated". When people talk about Planescape they discuss things like the plot and the quality of the writing. Words like "literate", "dramatic" and "philosophical" are used. These are people who clearly know nothing about good writing or drama; ie. computer nerds who if they do read anything other than programming manuals only read paperbacks with pictures of spaceships or unicorns on the front. They overrate the game because it far outside their expertise to assess it in the terms they are using. These are, for example, the same people who consider the FF VII theme to be a great piece of classical music and thought the Matrix was stunning philosophical statement.

Another specific problem is if you aren't blinded by the Shakespearean prose (LOL) you'll notice that a majority of the missions are basically FedEx jobs. People who do that in real life get paid because its tedious. I don't pay money to be a glorified mail man.

As an RPG it wasn't bad, I much preferred Fallout but thats just my opinion. But people don't restrain themselves to just considering a computer game, they get all flowery and at that point I think they are indeed overrating it.