The Cult of the Game: Planescape Torment

The Cult of the Game: Planescape Torment

February 15, 2009, 11:38 pm
Filed under: The Cult of the Game | Tags: planescape torment, rpg, The Cult of the Game

When Baldur’s Gate hit the PC gaming market it was both a renaissance and a revival. During this time the PC gaming market was in a boom period, as online gaming started to become more feasible thanks to free servers, high speed internet and heavy adoption of the TCP/IP protocol. Thanks to 3D accelerator cards PC games, already usually having a leg up on their console cousins, now looked vastly superior.

Despite this boom though it was odd at how stagnant the PC game market was. While there were definitely exceptions the majrority of PC game releases belong to either the Real Time Strategy or First Person Shooter genres. It made a lot of sense for these two formats to thrive on the PC at the time (and still do today.) For both the Mouse and Keyboard control scheme is optimal for them. They’re great games to play online thanks to their “pick up and play”ability, they were also, relatively new genres with a lot of creativity to be mined from. While the PC was constantly being bombarded by FPS’s gamers at the time didn’t care, because usually for better or for worse, it was 8 different takes on the genre.

However this stagnant problem with limited genres started to show it fatigue by the late 90’s, where another group of a new dominat genres began to take over the PC market and carve their niche. Oddly enough these all stemmed from the classic PC staple from the 80’s, the RPG. Blizzard fired the first salvo in 1997 with the addictive action RPG Diablo. In 1999 Sony would create the prototype for all MMORPGs with Everquest (Ultima Online may have came first, but few MMORPGS model their design after it. In 1998 then unknown Bioware went truly back to the roots, to D&D stat based classing top down RPG-ing in Baldur’s Gate.

Baldur’s Gate was your classic PC rpg slicked up with the brand new Infinity Engine to give it a great isometric view. At its heart action occurred in semi real time action, large parties and a back bone of D&D mechanics games like Ultima and Wizardy had cribbed for years. Despite its deep stat system Baldur’s Gate had enough action and a great story to make it a bonafide hit and pushed Bioware into the stratosphere are one of the premiere developers in the gaming industry.

Obviously when a game becomes a massive success as Baldur’s gate was you’d have to expect more me-too efoorts. Baldur’s gate spawned two direct semi spin offs as they too were based on existing worlds in Dungeons and Dragons. The later spinoff was Icewind Dale a very action oriented take on the RPG but one that didn’t fly off the shelves was Planescape: Torment from Black Isle Studios.

Based in the strange oddity of the D&D world of Planescape, Planescape: Torment is a massive sprawling RPG that stars the Nameless One, a man who is forced to live eternal life for the sins he had done. However whenever the Nameless One dies he is resurrected into a new form that has lost all memory of past transgressions, as such the Nameless One is in a constant loop of regret that as he progresses through the game tires to figure out how to end it.
Planescape: Torment is notable for being vastly different from Baldur’s Gate inspite of similar design and game engines. Whearas Baldur’s Gate is your classic journey to save the world Planescape: Torment is ultimately a more personal journey. The game is designed to explore the notions of torment and regret and has less of an emphasis on combat and a greater emphasis on story telling. Truth be told there are really only 4 sequences of combat one must complete in order to finish the game.

Much of the game’s strength as well as challenging entry level comes from the fact that it’s one huge novel based on massive dialogue trees. Every character in the game has lines upon lines of text, estimated at around 800,000 words. This is important because many of the games quest are not your usually hack and slash slay a group of dragons type deal , more often that not issues puzzles and revelations for the game can be done simply by working through the games lengthy dialog trees. While this may seem tedious the game’s writing is so strong that you’ll be engaged by the backgrounds of the characters in your party and the NPCs.

With its different take on the RPG Torment’s strength lie more in its design and writing than its mechanics. The game is sharply written with moments of real emotional pull with a healthy dose of dark humor. As you explore the Nameless One’s past through encounters with other characters you’ll see how fleshed out his background is and feel for his situation. Your companions also have similar stories playing to the game’s “Torment” theme by revealing everyone’s regrets. The cast is eclectic and hilarious, ranging from a rat tailed sultry thief named Annah, a Demonic Succubus who’s a Cleric named Fall-From-Grace and Morte, you wise cracking side kick who is a floating skull that can taunt enemies with good barbs he’s over heard from your dialogue with other characters.

Probably the thing that Torment does that so many games seem to fail to do is that it balances it’s good, bad and neutral opportunities very well. Often gamers are felt compelled an RPG as “good” because it affords the most side quest opportunities (I know I went through this anxiety recently with Fallout 3.) Torment however provides robust options no matter your alignment choice with full options. Even if you decide to go totally evil the game can end in a satisfying manner.

Out of all the games of The Cult of the Game I must say Planescape: Torment is the one that most needs to be played to “get.” Once you get lost in its amazing story of personal discovery you’ll never look at RPGs the same way again. It’s too bad that we’ll probably never see a sequel to this game its sales were dismal and the Planescape line of D&D products has been discontinued. Still this is worth a pick up if you can find it, few people who have played Torment can ever stop talking about it.

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