Although it was dark, I could see that I (that is, my in-game avatar) was on a platform made of hexagonal tiles that I thought looked naff and plasticky. The Last Castoff looks like an ordinary young man (or woman) about to start training as a nurse.Ģ. Yeah, the Nameless One was an ugly old bastard, covered in scars and tattoos, dressed in nothing more than a pair of boots, a loincloth and some odd bits of bone, and Black Isle Studios made a terrible mistake making him the focus of the box art, but at least he looked exciting and dangerous. I thought the Last Castoff's character model looked rather crude and uninteresting. However, that first glimpse wasn't promising, for a number of reasons:ġ. I saw no reason why the creators of Torment: Tides of Numenera couldn’t make something that looked just as good. A much more recent game, Pillars of Eternity, did the same thing as Torment: Tides of Numenera - it was made to look like one of the old isometric RPGs, with deliberately retro graphics - and I thought it looked beautiful. Planescape: Torment has a nice aesthetic and some interesting, detailed character models. I loved Baldur's Gate 2 and I thought it had some very pretty painted backgrounds. I know, Torment: Tides of Numenera is modelled on the old isometric RPGs and it has deliberately retro graphics so that its creators can focus on story and gameplay instead of cutting-edge visuals, but… uhh, I'll try to explain why I felt so disappointed. When I awoke, I got my first glimpse of the game's character models and backgrounds and my first thought was, 'ugh, this looks horribly ugly.' I crashed into a building, smashed through its roof and fell… into darkness. I slowed my descent as much as I could and was hit by a ray of pretty lights that slowed my descent even further, but it didn’t matter: I was still plummeting at nearly terminal velocity. Reluctantly, I chose the sensible options. But then it occurred to me that this might be part of the character creation process I didn’t want the game to permanently lower my intelligence stat or give me traits labelling me as an impulsive idiot because I’d picked the obviously stupid options here. I was tempted to go for the third option, to accept my fate and splatter myself across a wide area, just to see what would happen and if the writers of this game really had the guts to kill me off before I’d even finished off the introduction (later, I was surprised to find out: yes, they did).
Then, I had to decide whether I wanted to try to slow my descent, waste precious seconds thinking about how I came to be in this situation, or give up and dive towards the ground. When part of the cocoon was ripped away, I discovered that I was falling from a stratospheric height. Symbolism-tastic.įrom there, I had to play through a little choose-your-own-adventure sequence, choosing various options to find out more about myself (that is, my in-game avatar) and my current situation.
Apparently, I’d woken up inside a moist cocoon, with no idea how I got there. Someone with a deep voice and an American accent was narrating at me. In the lower part of the screen, there was dialogue box made to look funky and high-tech like the screen of some futuristic notebook computer. (I chose male, that time.) Then, a black screen, with flickers of light rising vertically like speed lines, and a noise like the rushing of the wind. Then I was given a choice as to whether I’d be male or female. (And why did you click on this thread in the first place?)Īnyway, the first time I tried to play Torment: Tides of Numenera went something like this:Ī loading screen. If you don’t want to know anything about the sequel to Planescape: Torment until its final release, then I recommend you not read this. Oh yeah, there will be spoilers from hereon. At first, I resisted the temptation to buy it, telling myself that I’d enjoy it all the more if I waited until it was properly finished and polished, but a few weeks ago I tired of waiting and succumbed to temptation. In January 2016, an Early Access version of Torment: Tides of Numenera was released on Steam. Anyone who’s read my Hedge Maze quest knows how much of a debt I owe to the writers of Planescape Torment it’s inspired a lot of my writing and I’ve stolen a lot of story ideas from it. Planescape: Torment is one of my favourite ever games, so I’ve been very excited about the sequel, Torment: Tides of Numenera, which was Kickstarted in 2013 and apparently will be released in 2017.
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