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The Impact of Planescape Torment

Posted by Zonk on from the a-talking-skull-as-your-best-friend dept.

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."

5 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Story telling by Thedeviluno · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Story telling by interiot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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, ...)

  2. Try again by swotl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    sig sig sputnik
    1. Re:Try again by toddhunter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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

  3. Re:The Impact of Zonk pimping the Escapist.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

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