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Addictive and Very Creative

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 100 / 102
Date: December 28, 1999
Author: Amazon User

This has to be one of the most creative RPGs I've ever played. The graphics and animations are impressive, stylized, and original. The plot is relatively non-linear and effectively rests in the hands of the player with multiple endings. The alignment and attributes of the player character affect game play. I played a character with high intelligence and wisdom, and I enjoyed outwitting people in the game. Although the game is VERY dialog driven, I felt there were enough graphics and action to make it feel relatively balanced and seamless. The NPCs are highly original and interact with the party to a much greater extent than in Baldur's Gate. Talking to your party members can be integral to being successful at a Succubus, who has given up her past; a sarcastic, floating skull who can taunt enemies with profanities; a wild and unpredictable Tiefling (part human/part lower plane) thief who seems to have a thing for you . . . Guest voices include Dan Castellanetta (Homer!), Sheena Easton, and Michael T. Weiss (The Pretender). The game is very dark and somber with appropriate music that really added to the mood, yet has very effective comic relief via. Morte the sarcastic skull. I was genuinely surprised by the plot and character development. I was always kept guessing. Your immortality allows for many creative developments. Dying becomes a method to be taken to a place you want to go. Limbs are taken off and reattached. A woman pays you for the privilege of killing you. The magic and magic items are phenomenal. Many items have almost a voodooesque feel to them (roach charm, blood charm, cranium rat charm), while some magic items can actually talk to you and try to seduce you to the ways of evil. Many magic items are appropriately alignment and class restricted. Spell effect animations effectively add a distinctive style to the already rich substance of the game. The animations on the higher level spells can sometimes involve amazing cut scenes! This game could best be called a Fallout 2 on acid with a twist of Baldur's Gate. One moment you're in Hell talking to a pile of skulls, the next you're trying to save a city about to be destroyed by a deranged angel. It's almost as though at least five writers with years of pent up creative frustration exploded into this game. The result is creatively brilliant. I also appreciate the replay value of this game. I just played as a lawful good mage, now I'm going to I'm expecting a totally different kind of game. The latest issue of Newsweek (Jan 1, 2000) declares that "in the century to come, the medium producing the most dynamic, vital and exciting new art will be . . . videogames. . . . Eventually, we'll have artists who realize that videogames are technologically advanced enough for real story telling. . . the closest I've seen to this aspiration. It breathes like a novel, astonishes with great visual art, and allows for more realistic role-playing than in most other games that have ever been on the market. It is definitely a ground-breaker in this genre.

This game consumes...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 25
Date: December 29, 1999
Author: Amazon User

This game is way too cool. The premise is you wake up on a mortuary slab with amnesia. You have to figure out: who you are, where's your stuff, why do you keep waking up after each time you die, and what do you want to do about it?

The locations in the game stay constant but what your character does and says *greatly* affects what happens in the game. I had to restart the game after moving it to another PC, and there were different interactions with the characters in the game. (In one the main character was able to talk his way out of a lot of trouble. In the other, he had to fight his way out.)

The tone of the game is very *dark*. You are in an afterlife and it's not a very pleasant place. There is lots of creepiness: the music, the visuals, even the written descriptions.

Philosophy plays a big part in the game and story line. Your character can succeed by talking, making helpful observations, or verbal argument (if you know something about your verbal opponent's point of view). And when diplomacy fails, there is always force. (Violence is not much of a philosophy but having other options is a nice change from the traditional Hack and Slash RPG where the choices are: hack violence or slash violence.)

But the game also needs a lot of system resources. 600 meg of hard drive minimally. To get faster play you can copy the CD's to your hard drive (roughly eating another 3 * 600 meg - described at a very cool game web site: plus as much free space for page/swap file as you can spare. And it will run with 32 meg of memory but it's choppy when you enter a new area. It does better with 64 meg (and even better with more).

But you get some great effects for all those resources. You watch little characters move around, talk to each other, and fight each other in some pretty amazing detail.

And it's been eating all my goof off time for the past week.

RPG of the Year

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: December 29, 1999
Author: Amazon User

An excellent game. It takes the best elements of the AD&D Universe and merges them with Black Isle's writing style. If you

Another great Black Isle game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 29 / 31
Date: January 03, 2000
Author: Amazon User

For the last couple of years people have been patiently awaiting the release of I found out that the same makers of those two great games where releasing an RPG in my favorite campaign setting, I almost soiled myself with glee.

Torment uses the Baldur's engine, but don't be the setting is not the sword and sorcery genre you are used too. In fact to me, it seems to have more of the quirkiness of Fallout2 than the straitforward D&D elements of Baldur's. There are few weapons choices and I've never even worn any armor, but, you won't miss any of that.

The main PC is a recently resurrented immortal and his first ally is a floating skull. I have almost finished the game and my weapon of choice through most of it was my own severed arm! How can you not love that?

The only reason I'm not giving the game 5 stars is because, for my system, I found it quite buggy. I suffered lots of lockups and assertion errors, as well as the occasional graphics glitch. The third disk had trouble loading at times as well.

I still highly recommend this game, and I commend Black Isle for putting the RP back into RPG. The setting and story are compelling and unpredictable and the party members are rich and interesting instead of just someone to hold your treasure. So, if you are biting your nails in anticipation for Diablo 2, give Torment a try (and if you haven't already, try Baldur's and Fallout2) you will be glad you did.

WOW! Have you died yet today?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: January 03, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is so incredible. I already played Baldur's Gate and Fallout and I would never have thought, that a RPG could get any better in the near future... but here it is! This game is keeping me out of bed! And when I find an hour or two to get some sleep, I find myself workin' out a way to get through the catacombs or how to solve some quest given to me by some weird lookin' characters... So much for Dale... Hurry up Guys!

What can change the nature of a man?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 29
Date: January 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

There are games, and there are good games. There are good games, and there are great games. Every once in a while, you falter and fall flat on your face and drool slightly as you witness the birth of an epic.

If you want to speak technically, I'll get that out of from every deep dark corner. The crew at Black Isle have used the Bioware engine to create effects never before seen in a two dimensional game, and some of the spell effects have the intense drama Hope) The graphics are, as usual with Black Isle, crisp and stunningly real, not to mention incredibly beautiful. Also, I'd have to say that the web to look for a patch or to read through pages of ranters and lunatics posting their off-topic and non-sensical ramblings on the Torment-ed planescape-torment.com boards.

THE EPIC THAT IS TORMENT I've only played three games in my life that I would consider epics, with Torment being the newly added third. It just happens that all three are RPGs, mainly because I believe this is the only type of game that can create these rarities. In order to create an epic, you must first find a story that deserves to be told. It is here that Torment brings to light the story of an immortal who does not *know* himself, and is therefore lost, both to the Planes and himself.

The game _is_ the story. The story is the heart and soul of Torment, and what you do as The Nameless One will shape his destiny -- which in this case is his enigmatic past. Brilliant voices, heart-felt music, and a story which is one of the deepest, most enthralling I've ever experienced in a computer game all contribute to what has got to be one of the most endearing RPGs ever made.

This game sets itself apart from prior both, and I liked both, but I _loved_ Torment. A fantastic story is what most games today lack (*cough* Quake *cough* Tomb Raider). An epic brings not only the story to the player, but the player into the story. In the end, as I watched the last scenes to the epic unfold, I felt as if I had been there, acting as a caretaker to guide this lost soul to his destiny.

true freedom

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 09, 2000
Author: Amazon User

if you lik rpg's this is one of the best, and you can read the other reviews to see why. the newest feature i want to point out is true character freedom. in most rpg games you are given moral choices, but within the gaming peramaters you have to answer a certain way to win. now i perfer to play good characters, but i like the option to be "pure evil" once in a while. in this game you can do whatever you want and you won't be punished like in balder's gate when the towns people will attack you if you have a bad reputation. in this game no answer is wrong, some choices may be harder than others, but at least they're your choices.

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.

You need this game, cutter.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: January 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is the game to get. The story is very detailed and allows you to become your character. Your character is immortal and can become a thief, fighter or mage and can switch off between classes. Need to bash someone's head in? Fighter. But then you want to cast spells? Just find someone to train you in the art of magic. The graphics are awesome and spell animations are superb. But my favorite part of the game is that you do things that no other game has touched. To join you you can get a floating skull with an attitude problem, a pyromaniac that pissed off some people and so now is constantly on fire, and a suit of armour that carries a big axe. If experience cap so 9th level spells are all there and experience is plentiful. Just make sure you are on the right side of the tracks.

A BIG hit for the new year!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: January 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have played many RPG/Strategy games, and so far, is completely dynamic, and is different each time you play. Sometimes, you can be an evil mage, bring chaos and mayhem to every street and every slum, or you can be a saintly fighter, helping damsels in distress. The graphics are stunning, to say the least, and the music and sound FX are up to the usual Black Isle productions standard, which is stunningly high. I ordered the game directly from Interplay, before it was released, and I am very glad I did. If you Planetscape Torment. It is one of the few RPGs that I will happily call a "must have".

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