Planescape: Torment report
Guido Henkel The Producer gave me a presentation
of Torment at the closed Interplay booth.
Character generation screen
-There is 80 points to spread out among the various skills
(Str, Con, Dex, etc...)
-You can not change the look of the character, but he sure
looks good to be dead..:)
Story
The Nameless One wakes up on a mortuary table with no memory.
As the game progresses you find out that the character has lived
10 of thousands of years, and had many lives. You also discover
that someone is hunting him, and have been so for a very long time.
In the beginning he will not know that Mort the skull is actually
an old companion that have been with him for thousands of years,
but as the game progresses more will be unveiled.
In Baldur's Gate we had an epic story line, but in Torment there
is more of a personal story unfolding in front of us as we play.
The main character's alignment changes through the actions made
by the player in the game. As in Baldur's Gate NPC's will leave
or attack if the party takes actions that are against what the
NPC can tolerate. The NPC's in the game are much more alive with
their own agendas, motivation, reputation, and they do not stand
still waiting for the party to show up. We can not just pick up
a character and know the alignment at first glance that will come
over time as we get to know the NPC's in our party.
The storyline
will be affected each time you choose an action,
so the game will be varied from each time you play it,
and that will make for good replayability. The ending
is not generic and will also be changed from the
consequences of your actions you made in the game.
Action menu
They have made it simple for us to check the various screens
in the game. As spells, journals, inventory etc...
This will be a very nice help while playing the game.
Click for description.
Inventory
You drag an item to the character and drop it and it will
automatically show up in the correct slot, and you will
also see it portrayed on the character. There are also
inventory boxes on the bottom like in Baldur's Gate.
Journal
This is well done, and I can't wait to check this out
some more. When you open the journal two skins show up
in front of you. You will be able to see images and
text of monsters that you have killed and how you
actually managed to kill it. This will be great
to have for future encounters with the same type
of monster, for then you will be able to see
what you did the last time to kill the beast.
Dialog boxes
They have taken away the standard dialog box we remember
seeing on the bottom of the screen in BG, and have damage
show floating up from the monster or character that is
being hit. Looks good. You can take the cursor over various
items and click and a description will show up over
the item on the screen. When you talk to someone
the dialog box will then show up on the bottom of
the screen like it did in BG.
Factions
There are 18 factions with various believes, and you
have to be careful in choosing a faction for it will
affect the game in ways you will find out later in
the game.
Spells
are a HUGE improvement from BG, and there are
over 100 spells to choose from and 25 totally new ones
made for the game. The spells are really different from
each other so it will be interesting to see the various
effects they have.
There is a running feature implemented in the game.
So that's a nice touch.
My conclusion
Baldur's Gate trailed a path for many games to follow.
Torment is doing this and making improvements that we who
have played and enjoyed (still enjoy - I had an allnighter
a few days ago) BG will very much appreciate.
The graphics have improved a lot in Torment from what we are
used to from Baldur's Gate, and Black Isle made a new
rendering engine for the spells so they are just awesome
to look at. I believe a wise choice was made when Black
Isle decided to license the Infinity engine from
Bioware, for they had the chance to mold a very good
game engine into the way they wanted Torment to become.
This should be a great game to play!
Look for it in the stores this summer.
Screenshots
Renderings
Fan sites
North Shore
(A fan site by the Torment team..:)
A German planescape: torment website
(A German website)
