Planescape: Torment
If there is one computer game I’d like everyone to play, it is Planescape: Torment. This game still defines the computer RPG genre in my books and holds the paramount place among it’s fellow genre-mates.
There are quite a few reasons why Torment is so good a game.
- it is based on one of the most interesting fantasy worlds, Planescape (originally published as a source material for AD&D roleplaying game)
- it contains incomprehensible amount of well written dialogue
- while being quite linear, it manages to offer real choices to player that do affect the outcome of the storyline and creates sense of possibilities and actual choices with responsibility attached
- it has excellent soundtrack by genius Mark Morgan
- it is very adult game in a good sense - the concepts are often dark and philosophically complex
- it tells a good story with solid and believable characters that you soon begin to truly care about
The general concept that defines the game is immortality. What it would be like if you couldn’t effectively die? This basic idea manages to bring many interesting and distinct elements to the game. Unlike most of the computer RPGs, fighting is not the most definitive element in Torment but more like a mandatory evil that you run into on your hunt for your own mortality. It is quite descriptive that most of the experience your character gains throughout the game is gained from dialogue instead of killing enemies.
I do not want to give spoilers regarding the storyline, but I have to say that it is one of the best storylines written for any computer game and flows like a good book. You really want to get to that next phase in the storyline because you want to know, what will happen to the characters you get to know better and better as the scenes unfold.
If you enjoy a good story and games that make you think, have a go at Torment, I’m positive you won’t get disappointed!
