Sucks that no game compares

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it is different
if you play with V.A.T.S off, combat simulation is LIVE it's an FPS
plus general consensus is such that Fallout3 is included to that action rpg genre
no matter how you play BG it is still a turn based combat

 

They are turn-based, but not in the sense that Voy is stating. It's just that the engine forces you to use the Pause button to keep up or you might lose out on a needed action switch. Though ToEE is a better example of a real-turn-based game. The IE games are still limit your ations by turn/round. I would think all games that utilize game engine like the speed increase or attack rate increase is considered "turn-based".

 

I doubt anyone could finish Fallout3 without using any non-combat skills. Speech, Science, lockpicking...

 

I agree. My first experience with PS:T was on Gametap when I was around 14 or so, and I was like "What the crap is this?! My main character is so ugly!"

I actually had to stop myself from going through it again, since games of this type are so rare I don't want to completely spoil one whenever I come across it

I think new DnD games should really take note of what gave this game such a cult following. Flashy graphics and uber-violence will impress for a little while, but what makes a game stick is how it affects you while you play it. Don't get me wrong, i'm a huge DnD nerd, but when playing games like NWN2 I get severely disapointed in the complete linearity of it. No side quests, no depth, paper-thin characters, little atmosphere, and the absolute focus is on murdering everything in your path. I could have wrote characters with more depth than your OC companions

MotB was the single exception to this, though wasn't that created by the same person who wrote PS:T?

 

I've been playing RPG's since 1986, but I somehow managed to miss Planescape: Torment when it came out; I finished the game for the first time just two days ago.

Oh, my god! What an astonishing game! True, the combat is clunky and the interface positively fiendish :-), but the depth, the complexity, and the sheer CREATIVITY of this game are just astounding.

I'm really sorry that they don't make games like this one anymore.

I first read Jane Austen's novels when I was 40; I'd somehow never read her until then. And I was glad that I'd waited until I was middle-aged, because I thought that my younger self would probably have seen only the plot of those novels and would thus have missed everything in them that mattered and made them special.

I feel somewhat the same about Planescape: Torment. I think it takes a certain quality of reflectiveness or a certain cast of mind to truly appreciate this game. I don't know if I would have, if I'd played it in 1999, but I certainly appreciate the hell out of it today.

Games tend to date very quickly, and it's amazing that P:T still feels incredibly fresh and creative a dozen years after it came out.

I've been a serious Witcher fan for the past three years (a serious fan of the FIRST game, not as enamored of the second one), and one of the things that amuses me is that the people who made The Witcher were the people who localized P:T to Poland. So, they translated every line of Planescape: Torment's dialogue, every journal entry, every quest line. I'm wondering if that's part of why The Witcher was so good and was such a breath of fresh air, itself -- because the people who made it were so thoroughly familiar with P: T.

Anyway, hi, y'all. Glad to see there are still people playing P: T and talking about it.

 

I never finished P:T. I started many times, because it's such a great game in many ways, great climate, great story, rich world, significant nonlinearity and so on...but I always grow tired well before the end. I start to skip reading what people say to me very early - only the answers provided, often not all and or not wholly. Later I avoid talking to people at all. And finally stop playing. For me, there's way too much text. And too much running around, but that's true with most (if not all) RPGs that I played.

 

PS:T was awesome for its sheer depth (I remember reading about the planes, and alignments, and the 'multiverse') and I loved the games ability to make you question your moral decisions. It didn't feel linear to me at the time.

I remember playing it as a teenager and exploring almost all the factions and quests, saving at critical junction points in alignment so I could play the entire game.

I have to say that in my 12 years of gaming on my own rig, I have yet to play a game that is PS:T's equal.

And funny that someone mentioned the Witcher, I also thought that game had good depth in it's dialogue. Indeed when a game team has to go through that much dialogue it becomes a part of their personality

I also wish more developers would take heed of the need for good back story. I miss that with today's graphic engines.

 

Ok.....first off, you need to go look up the definition of a roleplaying game. Planescape is the only true roleplaying game to come out in over 12 years, if you don't count NWN persistent worlds.


It's a heavily story driven roleplaying game where you literally play the role however you want, combat is basically the same as Baldur's Gate, but because you're immortal there's no danger as you can simply wear the enemy down till they die, hell you can even outright tell them as much in most cases, and often get more experience for doing so.

Baldur's Gate, as much as I love the series and it is my favorite game series of all time, is a glorified dungeon crawler with a slightly higher focus on story then Icewind Dale is which is a text book dungeon crawler. Nothing you say or do really changes the outcome and alignment is an after thought. Oh I picked Lawful good for the 14 starting rep and now I'm going to lie and cheat my way to riches and as long as I don't murder innocents it's totally cool. Not in planescape you literally earn your alignment by playing it. The same with the story itself, while you can run in gung-ho and murder everything and still finish the game, but you're liking going to get the worst ending since the entire quest is a quest of self-discovery...not saving world, not ascending to godhood, it's just who the *$&^ am I and why can't I die. That's it. By definition you'll need to actually talk to people and reason out things to find the answers and to accept the truths you uncover.


Even stat distribution shows it's a true rpg. In Baldur's Gate, does anyone have higher then 3 charisma unless the game forces them to? No...it's a dump stat that is completely useless and can be replaced with companions. Intelligence or wisdom? Useless unless you're a mage or cleric and even then they're not required. A cleric can get by with bare-minimum wisdom and still do just fine. Intelligence is needed to learn spells but otherwise isn't a big deal since potions can buff it up anyway. You might want 11 for BG2 to help against Mindflayers but otherwise you wouldn't take them. Every character build is always maxed str, dex and as much con as is useable. The rest are irrelevant.

Tormant though is different. Because it's heavily social and philosophical nature wisdom, intelligence, and charisma are the god stats of this game. Literally, str is just there for carry weight, dex for skill checks and con is completely useless since Death is inconsequential. Heck having high mental stats allows you to often boost your companions to make them brutally effective for what little combat you're absolutely required to engage in, I mean you can literally kill quite a few people actually in CONVERSATIONS. Of course you can also play a mix of combat in there if that's your thing and still get a reasonable ending.

Unlike BG or Icewind Dale though ALL your stats matter depending on your playstyle. You wanna be a sage and talk people to death, go at it, you wanna be a big dumb warrior, go at it, you wanna be an average person with a good balance of stats, go for it....there's options there for any playstyle unlike Baldur's Gate which at it's core, social is nigh meaningless and combat is god.