My Favourite Games – Planescape: Torment
Problems with new games: not enough floating skulls.
Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the release of one of my top 5 games of all time, Planescape: Torment. This game, following a trend among many of my top 25 games, never sold very many copies, but has almost universally excellent reviews. Admittedly, these are the same publications that called GTA IV ‘perfect’, so you can take that with a grain of salt if you like.
Unlike most Dungeons and Dragons games that are set in the elves ‘n’ dwarves high fantasy setting of the Forgotten Realms, Planescape: Torment, as the name suggests, is set relatively obscure multiverse of Planescape, where many different planes of existence meet, and the nature of multiple universes can be changed by particularly strong-willed individuals. The game revolves around you playing an immortal, in the sense that you can die and will rise again, not that you are unkillable. You forget the events of your previous lives upon reincarnation, and must wander the multiple planes of the setting to reclaim your memories, often coming across characters who have you at a disadvantage, knowing you, without you knowing them – and a lot of them are pissed off with you.
You can choose to work for a range of factions and with a range of characters you meet, although one character, Morte, a sarcastic floating skull, is with you the whole game, and picks up insults NPCs fling, later to use them against you. I might be easily impressed, but damn, a talking smartarse skull. Niiiiice. The multi-plane setting of the game universe means you come across all sorts of creatres, from demons to deities, although not any of the Forgotten Realms familiars (like elves ‘n’ dwarves).
The game starts with you waking in a morgue (like one of my other favourites, the SNES Shadowrun). Death is a central part of the plot, and often dying is the only way forward. This is a zero-sum resurrection – some poor bastard has to die to provide for you to live again. Through each death, you rely on other characters or notes you have tattooed on your body (yes, this came out pre-Memento) to work out who you are and what you need to do. There’s a line early on in a conversation, after you find the person who made you immortal, that really sums up with the game is about: ‘What can change the nature of a man?’ Without giving too much away, there’s a reason you were made immortal, and you have a notoriety throughout the planes. How you choose to deal with that directs where the game’s plot goes.
PC:T one of the most ‘adult’ games I’ve ever played, and not in the ‘titties and blood’ sense – there’s not a lot of combat, and quests are often better solved by careful thought and the right course in conversation, and there’s no one ‘right’ choice to solve any particular problem – no easy answers nor obvious immediate impact in the choices that you make. It’s one of the earliest RPGs that I can remember where the protagonist is not a font of virtue or a good man in a bad land, the choices you make influence both your character and plot greatly, and the experience is not diminished by choosing to be a ‘bad’ character.
Slow-paced, with combat like a retarded Baldur’s Gate, and mountains of text, it’s not a game for everyone, and I can see why it didn’t grab people browsing on a store shelf or reading reviews – it looks drab, brown and grey – and long existential conversations aren’t exactly everyone’s idea of a good time. That being said, it’s possibly Black Isle Studios’ crowning achievement, and that says a lot when you consider that they also developed the first two Fallout games and helped Bioware with the Baldur’s Gate series. Although showing it’s age now, particularly with a hard 640×480 resolution, if you can pick up a copy on eBay at a non-exorbitant rate, I highly recommend it.
Picture ripped from Gamespot. Yeah, I do that.
