NEWS: Hit Play with PixelVixen707: Planescape Torment

GEEK: Hit Play with PixelVixen707: Planescape Torment

It's week three and we're still in the "getting to know each other" phase, so now's the time to tell you about one of my favorite games in the history of gaming. I'm a shooter nut and a stealthy killer, so you'd think my top game would be a Half-Life or a Doom. But strangely, the one that's affected me the most over years is a plodding, talky role-playing game. I'm talking about Planescape: Torment, and I still remember the weekend many years ago when it sucked me in and consumed me whole.

10-years young this year, Planescape is brainy and brilliant. But back when I first fell in love with Planescape I didn't appreciate it so much as let it get under my skin. In fact, I wish I'd had it around age 15, because it's self-absorbed, existential, and possibly the most goth game ever made. It plays to the dreams of every teenager who thinks the whole world revolves around their problems. And it does it with wit, brilliance, flexible character development, and the voice of Homer Simpson. (Already sold? It's still available on GameTap, and eBay surely has copies too.)

Here's the premise: you're an immortal, but you're also an amnesiac. You can't die. But every time someone knocks you hard enough in the head, you lose your memories and start from scratch. You've lived hundreds of lives and experienced things most folks can't imagine. But your body's broken, your dreadlocks are frizzed, and your blessing has become a curse. It's time to solve the mystery of who you are and how you got this way.

Planescape takes place in a fringe universe that nobody but the most dedicated Dungeons & Dragons player has ever heard of. Out on the planes, death is beatable, reality is malleable, and the moral becomes physical. Streets can give birth to new streets. Whole cities can slide from one world to the next. Your best friend is a talking skull. In fact, you get to talk to dead stuff all the time. Right around the time I had to take sides between a village of dead people and a sewerful of hypersmart rats, I knew my latent goth side had found a most unholy coupling.

The gameplay is fiendish and subversive. For example, you aren't punished for dying; not only do you bounce back every time you're clocked, but suicide even becomes the answer to a puzzle. One of your sidekicks, a succubus named Fall-From-Grace, carries a diary in her inventory; but while you can see it and take it away, so far as I know, you'll never figure out how to unlock it. Which is a shame, because in this game, words are more fun than deeds. Planescape doesn't have branching conversation trees, so much as a gnarly, evil rainforest of dialogue, where smarter characters get better comebacks and the same answer can be delivered as a truth or a lie.

But more than anything, Planescape: Torment deeply groks the mindset of a moody, Camus-plagued adolescent. It makes you feel like you're grappling with an oh-so-serious personal problem, and the whole world was built to help you solve it. Everything around you reflects your dilemma, from the people you meet on the street, to the giant, endless wars on the horizon. And you can struggle through it any way you please: good guy, knuckle-dragger, bomb-thrower or genius -- there's content for almost any path you take. You can flirt with your best friends -- or sacrifice them to the giant pillar of flesh-eating skulls. Hey, who doesn't have some growing pains? (And 7th grade-style fantasies where frenemies die grizzly deaths.)

Of course, not everyone wanted to gaze at my navel as much as I did. Feeling way too comfortable in the adolescent mind of my character as I played I'd think the world revolved around me -- and just like in real life, I was wrong. Outside of a small circle of friends, my problems affected almost no one. I could be anyone and do anything, but the impact of my actions was nada. And no matter what I tried, the end of the game stayed the same.

I won't give away the ending, except to say that it's a bit of a fizzle. But I'd have it no other way. The finale is the smack in the face we all deserve, when it's time to grow up.

As with so many cult classics, Planescape has plenty to teach the industry. "Hero saves the world" is still the story of most of the games on the shelf today; "anti-hero saves the world" covers the rest. Both storylines try to put you in the shoes of a protagonist and invest you in their fate. But none match the total existential absorption of Planescape, where you are your own worst enemy -- and your only savior. And the only person who even cares is you.


Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

I started playing this game ages ago but never finished it. I realyl should give it another shot.

There are some nice fan patches out there that adjust the resolution of this game to fit todays fancier monitors. That being said its a great game all around! I highly recommend it!

god i love this game. my only major complaint is the bugs. i got capped at level 13 my first time, playing a rogue thief, because i'd maxed out all my thief abilities, and the level up screen wouldn't let me finish until i'd spent all my thief ability points.

i have to disagree about the ending(s), sorta. i mean, it was a fizzle, but it was an appropriate fizzle--and it was appropriate that it was a fizzle.

There's actually four endings to the game, depending on your route.

But yeah, it's one of my favourites. I can't believe it's ten years old.

Funny, I was clearing out my room a couple of weeks ago and found my copy of this game. Never finished it first time around, maybe it's a sign that I should give it another shot?

Redbstrd loaned it to me, but I never got into it; was too busy at the time finishing up Baldur's Gate II.

This is one seriously under-rated game. Thanks for reminding me I really need to play this again.

What an excellent description of the game. Wouldn't it be brilliant if there was a remake of the game with the Fallout 3 engine? That would be some tight shit.

Psyched to meet so many people who love this game!

Viking - No fears, the ending's real. But more important, I'm consumed by the idea of a Rushmore video game. Do you start as a "spotty wee skidmark" and work your way up? Do you get to build the aquarium? Does Jason Schwartzman ever unlock the hand job? Somebody make this! Now!

As to the ending - Motorfirebox, I agree, everyone critcizes the ending as an anti-climax, but think where it came from. And McK, good point, there are four ways to end the game, but so far as I know they all end up on the same final movie. I'll fess up, I didn't get the "best" ending. Maybe my next playthrough!

BTW here's a picture of Morte:

Awesome game. I've started it three times now and never finished it. Maybe this summer I'll finally make it.

Planescape Torment is one seriously addictive game, and I can definitely agree in all parts to the article (seems vaguely familiar ). I'd love to see a remake, but they could very possibly fuck it completely up from the original we know and obsess over. An idea that occurred to me is an iPhone port. Now that would be wild!

Game is one of the best things ever made. Powerful, creative, heartbreaking, and hilarious as Hell. It takes days to beat and at the end you just wish there was more. And if you do replay it... You can make new choices, and it's almost a new story. Albeit, in the words of a wise man, "a grim bloody fable with an unhappy bloody end."

I bought this game when it was first released here in Australia, I loved the hell out of it and I still go back to have a bash at it every now and again, maybe only another three or four times over the last ten years but it has lasted well.

Great review, really does the game a service. Thanks!

You have wonderful taste in games. I look forward to more "getting to know you" as you write. Some day, if you feel inclined, I'd love to hear more about the "classic" games that have been a part of your experience.

I totally agree with you, Torment was such a great game. I lost my original copy and bought another copy a couple years ago at Wal-Mart.
I only finished it once, but always meant to give it another try.
You get a thumbs up from me for reviewing this game...all those years, I thought I was the only one.

I have always heard such good things about this game and been terribly intrigued by it, and now that I'm on an Intel Mac, the thought of playing it is probably within reach. I should probably look into it.

I fell in love with this game when it first came out, but at the time I knew nothing about that AD&D system, so I never finished it. Sadly, I only use Macs now so I can't start playing it again.

I never finished the game, but played it around and around in circles for god knows how long. It was trippy as hell.

Was never able to score a copy of this game when I was younger. Some of my mates reckon that was a good thing considering the level of obssession I had with games like baldur's gate 2 and all that. I am a bit of a D&D geek from what back and I was always fascinated by the idea of those fringe universes.

Way better than baldurs gate, its as involving as the best written novels. In fact, someone did convert the game into a novel, lifting the dialog. I love the darkness of it, barely a quest goes by where something disturbing and unexpected doesn't happen. Anyone remember the bit where you cut open your own stomach to find knicknacks you'd swallowed for safe keeping? Or the diary of the mad incarnation in the lady of pain's maze?
Totally brilliant.

I loved planescape...but eventually reached a spot in the game, where it said: if you save your game too often, the lady of pain will get angry...
so everytime i left the screen from then on, while the game was autosaving, a cut scene appeared where i was killed by her..kinda sucked, so i never really finished the game...maybe i should try to now

I kind of hoped at some point someone would take the infinity engine (baldurs gate, torment, icewind dale etc.) and make some excellent homebrew games.

Best rpg's I ever played on any console.