The first of these two games is Planescape: Torment, a three-year old title I didn't bother picking up when it was first released. A heavy RPGing friend of mine had been pestering me to play it for months, and when I finally got sick of his nagging, I decided to get myself a copy. Easier said than done; Planescape sold rather poorly, never earning a second-run release, and trying to find a copy through the normal retail channels proved fruitless. Several people had copies for sale on eBay, but most of them were missing the box, manual, or whatever - and being somewhat anal when it comes to my games collection, that just wouldn't do. I finally found a dealer in Toronto who was selling a single copy on eBay, brand new, and for about twenty bucks Canadian, it was mine.
Reviewing a three-year old game is redundant at the very least, so I won't get into that here. Suffice it to say that this is an early incarnation of the immortal Infinity Engine, with all the greatness and flaws inherent in the pedigree. Personally, I love the Infinity Engine - my feelings for it can be pretty well summed up here - and the prospect of one final fling with it's meaty RPG sweetness put a spring in my step and a song in my heart.
I'll say right up front that PS:T is a weird game. I'm what you might call an "rpg traditionalist," goblins, elves, shit like that, so leaping into the whole Planescape setting was a bit tricky for me at first. It was just... weird. Which, I must admit, is a good part of the reason I didn't buy the thing when it was new; I'd just wrapped up Baldur's Gate, and anything non-Forgotten Realms held no appeal at that point. The first few days I played it, I remained doubtful that I'd ever be able to really enjoy it. The game's environment was about as far-removed from Tolkienesque fantasy as you can get, my party was a traveling freakshow, and the quests I was undertaking typically involved not killing stuff. An RPG where most of your problems can't be solved by cracking somebody over the head with a sword was downright foreign to me.
But before too long, I began to notice something. I found that when I wasn't playing the game, I was still thinking about it. I began replaying earlier in-game conversations in my head, trying to make sense of them in the context of facts discovered afterwards. Suddenly, the relative lack of combat, the fact that I was playing a dated, three-year old game, and the absolutely weird-ass nature of the game world no longer mattered. I was in.
(As had been predicted by my RPG'er friend, by the way.)
Because lemme tell ya, kids, this game has story. Most RPGs are driven by a desire to advance in levels, collect l00t, and kill the bad guys. In PS:T, it's all about the story. The writing is brilliant, the plot is meaty, and the characters are deep, complex, and wonderfully realized. Crucial plot details are fed to you at just the right pace, keeping you coming back for more while preventing you from figuring the whole thing out before you're half-way finished.
The endgame, unlike so many RPGs, is a worthy payoff. It is, in fact, one of the most moving, well-produced endgames I've ever seen. When it was finally over, I found myself staring at the screen, just trying to take in all that had happened. The emotional impact was surprisingly strong; like the Nameless One himself, I was stunned that it was actually over. It was a surprising mix of emotions; satisfaction, elation, and a slight, lingering sadness.
This, to my way of thinking, is a prime example of what can be accomplished when a developer decides to put the quality of a game ahead of other considerations, including what may be hot at any given moment. Planescape was not a well-known realm when the game was released - I'd never even heard of it - and it wasn't the sort of thing a casual gamer was likely to leap into feet-first. But the effort put into it really shines through, and those of us fortunate enough to have played it are well-rewarded. If you haven't played it, and you're any sort of RPGer at all, I urge you to dig up a copy somewhere and fire it up. Ignore the odd setting, and forget about the power-gaming; just play the damned thing. By the time you're done, you'll be crying for more.
The second experience I want to share with you is, shall we say, a little different.
A few nights ago, I was hanging out in the Warcry staff irc channel, and somebody threw up a link to a new MMOG called Blade Mistress. It's free while in beta stage, and given that I hadn't played any sort of MMOG since Meridian 59 was in beta, I decided to have a look. So did a few others.
I feel like I should preface this whole thing with a few upbeat words about honest efforts and learning experiences and all that sort of thing, because I've had some first-hand experience in game development, and I know how much time, money and work goes into creating even a relatively simple multiplayer game. It's not an easy thing to do.
Nonetheless, it's a universally-accepted truth that there's a fine line between "Nice effort" and "What the fuck is wrong with you?" and this game goes waaaaaaaay over that line. I mean, if you were to go to the spot where that line exists, get into your car, and drive two counties over, you'd still be a lot closer to than line than this game.
The first hint that something was up was the fact that the whole thing was a 1.25 meg download. I remember downloading the Anarchy Online client, which I never played but downloaded mainly just to shut Landslide up; it was, as I recall, between 500 and 600 meg. And this thing was less than two meg? Curious.
Installation was simple, as was logging into the... game, we'll call it, for lack of a better term. And then I was playing.
I spent about 15 minutes absolutely transfixed by the sheer awfulness of the thing. I won't even bother explaining the game mechanics here, because who cares? It was so stultifyingly bad that any explanation of any part of it at all is just a waste. Perhaps not the Worst. Game. Ever. But certainly the worst game I've played in recent memory. This thing makes Dungeon Siege look like a masterpiece.
I switched back to the irc channel and managed to talk Landslide into coming in with me. (He waited until I installed and ran the thing, because he thought it was a trojan. It was only after the fact that we realized if it had been a trojan, at least it would've been more entertaining.) He logged in with me, and away we went.
Things were a bit more fun for a short while, because laughing at such utter shittiness is always more fun when it's shared. But even that wore thin after, oh, about ten minutes. We made a genuine attempt to play the game, which I think was more of an endurance contest between us than anything else, but we gave up on that when we realized the only thing stupider than the game itself was the people who were playing it. We warped back to town - quickly accomplished by letting ourselves be killed by a giant Listerine man - and spent the rest of our time online hurling obscenities at the game and the players. Landslide managed to slip in a cheap plug for Warcry, telling people that we were from Warcry.com and not Something Awful (at least, I think that's what he meant) but by that point it was pretty hopeless trying to say anything rational. It was rather like stirring up a shit-flinging contest in the monkey cage at the zoo, and then trying to strike up a conversation.
After about 20 minutes online, we disconnected and immediately uninstalled the thing. I had to fight down an urge to reformat my drive, just to be certain there was no taint remaining. Land and I exchanged platitudes about how maybe this will be the first learning step for developers who may come up with something brilliant in the future (mainly to make us feel better about all the terrible things we said about it, I suspect) and we haven't spoken of it since. Nor, I think, shall we.
But hey, don't take my word for it. Here's a link, go check it out for yourself. Maybe you'll like it, if you're a fucking moron. Either way, you've been warned.
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