Planescape: Torment - Retrospective @ Thunderbolt

Thunderbold looks back at Planescape:Torment and brings back memories of it flaws and greatness.

Somehow, despite its flaws, Planescape feels more endearing than most every big budget title made today. While almost every modern game feels so focus-tested they never leave players any doubt as to how to progress, and feature perfectly crafted difficulty curves to climb, they are also so slick, shallow, and risk-free as to risk losing all sense of emotional connection. By not challenging us to do anything other than sit and follow a straight line of breadcrumbs from opening tutorial to three-stage last boss, so many games have lost their sense of adventure, of risk, of discovery and accomplishment. And while Planescape is not, by any means, perfect, it is something more interesting than almost every game found today. In not doing all of our thinking for us, by not rushing ahead, by not laying its entire story out in front of us from the opening scenes, Planescape feels less like an interactive movie, as most games of today are trying to be, and instead creates the feeling of wading through a dense, dusty, 1,000 page fantasy novel. It meanders and sprawls and hints at two dozen paths before finally working its way back, brilliantly, to an answer that’s been staring us in the face the entire time.