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From the company that produced Baldur's Gate and Fallout comes Planescape: Torment, set in the bizarre city of Sigil and starring you -- the Nameless One -- in an intricate, involving plot. As much as I would love to give this game an unqualified review, however, some annoying bugs occur a bit too often to make this game perfect.

I'm not going to reveal too much about the storyline here. What drew me in was playing (and learning to play) from the ground up, knowing little about my role and figuring everything out as I went. But know this -- the Nameless One is immortal, and never truly dies. A killing blow leads to darkness followed by waking up on a slab (or occasionally, a strange new place).

Character Creation Process

On the character creation screen, you get a look at your not-so-pretty mug and a chance to raise and lower the standard six attributes. You are a fourth level fighter; this cannot be changed initially, but must be roleplayed. There are several opportunities to change class (multiclass is not allowed) through gameplay.

Alignment is also static: you begin as true neutral. Your alignment develops as you play, making choices that affect the balance between law and chaos, evil and good. So yes, you can turn out to be chaotic evil.

Changing the stats has very concrete effects -- higher intelligence lets you ask better questions, wisdom gives you more experience, and an 18/00 strength turns you into a killing machine (as long as you're willing to fight your way out of a situation more often!).

Interface

PS:T shares a lot of the qualities from Baldur's Gate. Your view is third person, and you click where you want to go. One big advantage here is a new feature, "Always Run," which makes crossing the map much easier.

The difference here lies in the look and feel of the GUI. Right-clicking anywhere pauses the game and lets you attack, cast a spell, use an item or a special ability. Other small differences make it not intuitive for a BG player, and takes a bit of getting used to. But after practice it becomes simple.

Roleplaying

The game is one of the most intricate, strangely beautiful, and character-driven RPG's I have ever played. As one poster on the BIS official message board said, "This feels like a pen & paper RPG." Clicking on anything with a question mark gives you a verbose description. Opening a dialog with another character doesn't just tell you what the person is saying; you're told what they look like and how they react to your questions. Conversations become long, animated affairs that teach you a lot. This is the loving care a game needs in order to work, and it's obvious from the start.

Quests

I won't be giving too much away by revealing that the ultimate quest is to discover who you are. This is a long, winding road that takes you through many dangerous places. But there are *lots* of minor quests to go through on the way. I quit counting long ago. In no way are all of them "steppin' fetchit" ordeals. Many of them shape your alignment.

Like BG, your quests are referenced in a journal. However, your journal also includes descriptions of people and types of people you've met, each with a picture.

The visual and aural setting

The backgrounds, character designs, and music are very well done. Sigil's decay, physically and morally, is very detailed and exquisitely presented. Musically PS:T is far from sounding choppy or computer generated. The landscape is the very definition of "lush."

Problems

According to the box, the minimum requirements for the game are a Pentium 200MHz w/MMX, win98, DirectX6, 650MB disk space, 8xCDROM, and 4MB of video ram. The designers agree that this is *baseline* and the game might be playable, but very sluggish. I played on a PII-450 with a 16MB TNT card, and found it very responsive.

But there are some mysterious bugs hidden in PS:T. Several times the game mysteriously slowed down. (A temporary fix is to save, quit and reload; a more extended repair would be to install all 4 CD's to your hard drive, but I think that's a bit ridiculous.) So far I've had four crashes during combat. I've also encountered a bug in one of the quests: I was told I was paid 200 cp, but it was nowhere to be found. Lots of other funky happenings have been reported on BIS's official discussion page (http://feedback.interplay.com/torment/).

The good news is that the company seems to be taking an active look at what the patch will have to fix, and posts frequently. They also answer a lot of questions. (Avoid *spoiler* if you see a question you haven't asked, and don't need answering.) So yes, this game is yet another symptom of "get the product out by Xmas, and fix it later."

Overall

Don't get me wrong -- I love this game. I wish it were fixed, but I'm willing to suffer. I've played several hours a day for several days. I've yet to finish it, and I have a good ways to go. But it's a hell of a ride. Fans of Baldur's Gate and AD&D should check this out. I'll understand if you wait for the patch.

It should be noted that that official message board fills up *quick*! There's quite a few PS:T players with a real love-hate relationship with this game.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)