Yep, I beat another game during my Christmas break, this one being Planescape Torment:
This is not an easy game for me to assess because so much has been written about it already - so much so it is hard for me to find something new to say. An RPG that's strange and smart in equal measures? A deliberate breaking of RPG conventions? Probably the finest voice talent ever assembled in a game? Writing to die for? Criminally underrated? Now available on GoG for ten bucks so there's no excuse not to have played it?
Well there is something that can be said that hasn't been said before: My own personal experience with this game.
Firstly, yes the combat is stupid but that's not the point: This is a game where the player must discover things through dialogue and interaction. In addition I wouldn't dismiss Planescape Torment as an interactive storybook: Calling it that would insists the player's participation is minimal but here the player has a strong influence in how things shape out.
But it is ultimately the journey through the game itself: Staggering in the life (lives?) of the Nameless One, hilarious in the dialogue and characters encountered, and...no wait I'm getting sidetracked. Personal experience!
Okay start again: I played a game where I saw one's man life play out. I saw a universe where a thought can be given solid form. I saw a story unfold that kept me in it's siren call and refused to let me walk away. I saw truths revealed with sense of poignancy and revelation. I saw moves to go against the grain of RPGs and never once did I question it. I saw genius that has never been seen in any other game.
So is Planescape Torment any good? Damn right it is.
In fact I may have to reconsider my list of best games ever just for the sake of including Planescape Torment. I mean this game made me pay attention to so many lines of dialogue and presented a big-bad that could be overcome without raising a fist. That may sound completely stupid but here it works: and then that surely would be enough to make Planescape Torment one of if not the greatest game ever made. And I've since gone back and played through the climax several times - something that very few games can claim.
Indeed it is a crying shame that this game never got as big as it should've. Sure Portal may have made many laugh but I'll have "What can change the nature of a man?" over "The cake is a lie" any day.
Nothing more I can add except that playing this was a long time coming and a journey I was glad to have made. There is nothing like it before or since.
Go to GoG, buy it and play it. NOW.
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