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Are you a dedd'er too?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 32
Date: January 13, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Well, if you haven't figured it out yet from the other reviews, the player assumes the role of an immortal searching for his identity. So the game exhibits a dark shadow of death and rebirth.

This fact kind of hits home with me. A little over a year ago, I was in a crippling auto accident (broke my neck/spinal injury) where I could have easily been killed. So the game's theme is a bit creepy to me at times and gets me thinking that I'm not afraid of dying.

But on to game play...with the ability to play your character the way you want (good or evil) and to answer dialogue questions with truths, lies, or playing dumb, Torment will play different every time. Also in Character generation, Want to be a fighter? Gear up on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Want to be a Mage, Gear up on Intelligence, Wisdom.

I especially love the verbal taunts after a 'critical' hit or misses...like "DIE!", "Did you see that?" and "Damn" The special effects are cool too. Spells, healing animations, critical hits and such.

The story line is complex and drawingly addictive. It's nothing to spend a half a day to play thru a relatively small portion of the game with its numerous quests-which provide you more 'experience' than the hacking coming out shortly. We'll have to wait and see.

Surprisingly excellent

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: April 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have to admit, I was a bit concerned at the outset; aside from Lords of Magic, I've never been too big on games where you control only one character in your party, and the lack of ability to select an original class had me a bit worried. Wrong I was. This is definitely a keeper.

The premise is a bit like that of the film Mirage; your character wakes up, with no memory, and has to figure out where he is and what he's doing there. The "where" part comes along pretty quickly; he's in Sigil, the home of plane-hopping extraterrestrials and weird beings from other planes. The "why" is the true meat of the game, and it's quite nice that while the developers were working so hard at tweaking the game's responses to be tailor-made to your character, they didn't forget to include a plot compelling enough to bring players back to the game day after day.

If you haven't picked it up yet, especially if you've played the other games using the Inifinty engine, give it a shot. It's different enough from them to hold your interest but similar enough that your learning curve should be next to zero.

Wow, what an experience!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: September 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I just finished this game after a long time playing it. I haven't really played any RPG's before, but I had heard good things about this game, and it was at a bargain price, so I said "what the heck."

What a lucky, lucky man I am. This game is simply marvelous. The writing (both storyline and dialogue) is simply outstanding. You really start to care for your character (the Nameless One) and his companions. You almost feel his pain when he gets hit, and you can certainly sympathise with his frustration as his past eludes him., yet feel his determination to find out what he's missing.

The companions are more than one-note characters. They are almost three-dimensional, with pasts, motives that may differ from yours and things that they may be keeping from you. They are all related to you in some way, and it's really fascinating to watch the story unfold.

The graphics are suitably dark to fit the tone of the game, yet they are very well rendered. You can almost feel the heat of the Outlands and Baator. The city that you start in, Sigil, is almost claustrophobic (and yes, that's intentional). Everything works.

I can't think of a single thing that annoyed me in this game. Maybe the pathfinding at times, but that's easily fixed by not clicking on a space too far ahead of the party to get them to go there. You can't expect them to find their own way back in a cavern where there's lots of tunnels. I did that once on accident, and they decided to go through the territory I was retreating from to get where I was telling them to go. Needless to say, I reloaded a save game there. :-)

Anyway, buy this game if you have any interest in FRPG's. You don't even have the money excuse, because it's so cheap. Buy it. Play it. And then realize that, as good as some of the other games you're playing are, there is something that tops even those.

A game of games, truly Art.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: April 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

A few nights ago I saw the movie Momento. The movie "borrowed" heavily from Planescape: Torment. While watching, my lost (and treasured) memory of Torment resurfaced (you read right). I was skeptical when I first picked up the box a few years back, it seemed profoundly strange, obscure and the beneficiary of massive drug induced creativity. And in truth it is all those and more, and that's why its so genius and a genuine original. The possibilities and curiosities plagued me and I had to buy it. Not in my greatest of expectations did I expect what ensued.

The game takes place mostly in the dark keystone of an infinite universe(s). Sigil the City of Doors, where any contained space may be a door, from the circumscribed area of table and its legs, to the eye of a needle. Where reality is determined by the popular beliefs of its denizens. The setting, characters and story are among the best I have ever seen in a game anywhere in the last 10 years. Funny, mysterious, engaging, beautiful, touching, and definitely thought provoking. The Immortal One is on an epic journey through time and space, searching for... death and subsequently redemption. Torment is so refreshingly
untraditional and deep. Through the lives of countless beings it is ultimately about one man. A man so Tormented by an unknown past and unattainable future he longs only for the rest and dignity of the grave. The Immortal One moves ever close to his goal as he has for countless times before, discovering who he was and what he can be. And the unspeakable ambition of his original incarnation for which he wanders in damnation.

The ending did not satisfy me at first reaction. A place such as Planescape left my mind wanting to stay. This is how I first reacted to the end of the Lord of the Rings. It was melancholy in LotR and dark in Torment... but so can life be. The more I pondered these endings the more meaningful I found them.
Stephen Crane (The Open Boat) - "Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human,living thing. It was no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the ...of a poet,meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; -- stern, mournful, and fine."

Planescape: Torment is interactive literature. I give it a 97%, 3% off for very unnoticeable tech issues. This is one of the deepest games ever made.

5 stars, 5 stars, 5 stars!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: April 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

actually, i think a previous review (by Michael S Antonelli) has already said it all, but i just can't help sharing my enthusiasm...

normally, i'm not what u'd call a hardcore player, and i play quite "moderately", only once in a while, never neglecting the daily routine of real life on account of pc games, and so on & so forth. but the minute i installed "planescape torment" on my computer i suddenly seemed to fall hopelessly into a trance and all i could do was keep at it day and night and--when somehow i wasn't playing it--thought about it during all my waking hours, only hitting the hay--very unwillingly--when i could no longer keep my eyes open and my head from spinning.

this is really rpg at its most outstanding and ideal, the rpg of ur dream: the landscape--no, the planescape--beautifully rendered, the storyline original and fascinating, the characters unique and, hmm, can i say endearing? really, the dialogue is so well written that i almost feel that they r ppl i actually know (especially morte's abrupt quips often makes me laugh out loud).

well, to sum up, if u play rpg and haven't bought this one--i really don't know what u r waiting for!

Wow, well worth the hype

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: January 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Fantastic game... what you want it broken down? OK

The Infinity engine is fantastic, and they updated it a bit to make it even better. The good? Well, look at it! The graphics are beautiful, the interface is intuitive, and the gameplay overall is great. The bad? Well, the character idle animations (what they do when they have been sitting still for a while) seem to take precident over any other action. Many times I would click on a character and have them perform an action (like attack someone or move) but if they had already started up an animation, they would just sit there and get hit.

Now back to the kudos... The best thing about this game is the story. It is very compelling, involved, and mature. I frankly am tired of games with scripts aimed at 6 year olds (see recent Final Fantasy) and gameplay that is so laughable by todays standards that you think you were transported back to 1985. This game had great game play, terrific plot, and superb graphics and sound. It was a bit linear, but even then it seemed like everytime you opened up a section of the game, it opened up the universe. Side quests were entertaining and often funny. The character interactions were often very amusing. Mort was a great character. I highly recommend this game, and further recommend that players dive right into every aspect of it. If you take the time to develop your characters with the plot, you will not only be rewarded with great story, but great abilities for those characters as well.

Hail to king baby, this game is bringing back RP from the kiddy cosole posers out there!

One of the best games of all time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: February 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Whoever gave the green light for this game to be made deserves some kind of medal. It must have taken a LOT of guts to release a game that seems custom built from top to bottom NOT to aim for the lowest common denominator. The fact that it didn't sell very well is one of the most discouraging occurences in game history, because it means more roleplaying games of this caliber are unlikely.

What's so fantastic about the game? If you haven't figured it out by the posts below mine, I'll sum it up in one word: STORY!

The combat in the game is fairly unsatisfying. The fact that you're immortal takes some of the tension out. Of course, this could be comparable to the ability in a game like Baldur's Gate II to save and reload anywhere, except for one key difference: in Baldur's Gate II, when you reload at full strength, you're opponent is back at full strength as well. In THIS game, no matter how lousy your physical stats or whether you're taking on a demi-god with a pointed stick, you WILL eventually win through process of attrition because they don't heal when you've come back from the dead at full health.

But, to be honest, this is the only Infinity Engine game where I didn't care one whit about the combat. Baldur's Gate II, for all it's NPC interactions and interesting side-quests, was about saving the world and crushing dragons and getting that uber-sword +5 that allows you to crush even bigger and badder stuff. If you're looking for that kind of game in Torment, you're looking in the wrong place.

The dialogue, the setting, AND the characters are what captivated me from beginning to end. There is no major NPC that doesn't have some kind of twist to his/her past. There is no major villain who has a motivation as simplistic as "taking over the world" or "becoming a god."

For that matter, you're PC has to be one of the most intriguing characters to ever appear in any RPG in history, whose goal in the game is to find out who he is, why he is in the condition he's in, and how to fix it and die at last. The conclusion was one of the most stirring, if unorthodox, endings I've ever played through in a game.

As a side note, it should be mentioned that the amount of minute details added to the game is astounding. I've played through the game five times now; every time I've found several things I didn't know about before, minor things depending on what path you take.

I'll end it simply: if you're someone who enjoys an excellent story, and doesn't mind reading to get it, you'll love Torment.

FUI

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: May 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Thought people might like to know that this game was made for Windows 95/98 BUT plays even better on XP! It requires DirectX 6 but recognized I had DirectX 9.1 already installed. I have a 2.5 mgh processor, Pen IV, Radeon 9700 Pro video card.

Get this RPG if you love having an involving, dramatic story told to you while you play.

I miss Black Isle Studios...*sigh*

An excellent computer game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: March 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I admit to stumbling across this game by accident at the local Computer swap market. I'd already played Baldur's Gate, and I'd felt that the AD&D Universe wasn't really for me. So I was pleasantly surprised by Planetscape:Torment.

Planetscape has improved markedly over its predecessor. The most obvious difference is in its User Interface. You can access items, inventory and spells using the main interface. In battle, you can access each character's spells or items by right-clicking each character. In Baldur's Gate, a characters spells and items were displayed on the bottom window, which restricted your view. There's no such problem here.

Another difference is in the graphics. Planetscape still uses the Infinity Engine (ala' Baldur's Gate), but the graphics are much smoother than its predecessor. Characters are much larger, and some even perform actions when they are idle. For instance, Morte (the first person to join your group) juggles his eyeballs when he's bored.

The main attractions in Planetscape are, I feel, the most important elements of any game - characterisation and storyline. The characters are NOT your ordinary AD&D fighters and mages. For example, we have Morte, a floating skull that uses his teeth as an attack weapon. Then there is Dakkon, who carries what appears to be a lightsaber as his weapon. He is also a mage, which means he can cast some impressive spells. Then there is Nordom (who you can find if you embark on an extremely difficult quest) who is a robot carrying crossbows. And Ignus, a chaotic mage made entirely of flame.

The storyline is also intriguing. Imagine playing a character who CANNOT be killed, who is extremely powerful but has lost all memory of his abilities. The Nameless One is probably the most mysterious character to ever be created in a computer game - and his story ranks as one of the best ever told.

There are only two minor, niggling, flaws in this game. The first is the failure to display graphics any higher than a 640x480 resolution. Having the ability to display a much higher resolution would allow more of the buildings to be seen. This would make the map easier to navigate. The other flaw is the failure to implement Aureal 2.0 support (Baldur's Gate had the same problem). Anyone with a Sound Blaster Live! should be able to enjoy EAX support however, so all is not lost.

In summary, if anyone is interested in exploring the AD&D universe, I strongly recommend you start with Planetscape: Torment. The game is much easier for first-timers (like myself) to play, and less frustrating as well. Planetscape is not a violent game, instead, its emphasis is on problem solving, not dungeon hacking. Many situations can be solved through talking with characters, not bludgeoning them to death. I sincerely hope that more games like this are produced.

I can't not review this...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: July 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is without a doubt the finest FRPG I have ever played. You should buy it because:

1. The stability problems from the detractors are much overemphasized. I had to choke down the hardware acceleration on my video card and everything after that worked fine.
2. In spite of the "limitation" that you can only play one character, that character can be whoever you want him to be (strong and smart, charismatic and dextrous, or whatever). Limiting the game to one hero actually allows a much richer and more sensible role-playing experience. The overall plot is much less scripted than either Baldur's Gate.
3. People who complain that the game is ghoulish never got out of the first few scenes (which are pretty ghoulish). I was a little creeped out at the opening sequences, but it's well worth going through them. Initially I thought it was all just shock value, but looking back on the plot it was all justified.
4. Role-playing is emphasized, but not to the exclusion of combat. There is combat here, but there is very little senseless combat.
5. The puzzles, etc., are only difficult in comparison to the usual fare, which isn't meant to challenge as much as it is to delay your finishing the game. No one I knew needed a hint book to finish it.
6. This is the only game I've ever played where the conversations with your companions are as important to the outcome of the adventure as the ones you have with the characters outside your group, and where decisions about who to accept into your party really change the experience of the game.
7. I thought Baldur's Gate was interesting, but after the 300th wandering monster encounter I finally lost interest. This one had me spellbound to the end.
8. I, my wife, and a friend of ours completed the game in parallel, all at around the same time, with different ideas about who we were and why we acted the way we did. The endgame was different (and uniquely satisfying) for each of us.

For the price it goes for now, if you enjoy RPG's at all you really owe it to yourself to try Torment.

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