If you don't like the verbose style of the game (ie you read a lot) then you probably won't ever be amazed by the game. It's really made for the old school RPG gamer, mostly over 30 now. The concept of the RPG has changed a lot in the last decade or so and there's no failure on your part for not loving Planescape.

That said, it's easily one of the best story-driven RPGs ever made. If you really like that kind of game, then it's worth it to stick with it until it starts to really open up. Should take, oh, five to six hours.

Also, dump a lot of points into Intelligence and Wisdom. A lot. There are quite a few ways to get through the game, but an intelligent and wise character will really get the most out of it.

These are by no means accurate figures, but they might help you estimate the gamelength, depending on your playstyle and average pacing. It's all quite relative, of course, as you can see some managed to finish it in 16 hours while others had 60 hours of fun with it. ;)

Like other have said, it starts off a bit slow. But god damn does the story pull you in. Even now at 25, I still sit down and go through the conversation with Dak'kon with interest, exploring his mentality and that perception of the world. I'd even say it effected me as a kid as I saw value in his words and they stuck with me.
Oh, and as the guy ahead of me said. Play as a mage and put all your points into Wisdom and intelligence and a few in Charisma. Otherwise much of the conversation isn't open to you.

Edit; jumped ahead of my self, still 24 for another month. Oh god I'm getting old.

I completely agree. Your own mood actually plays a big part. I just seem to get into any games with great difficulty. My fav RPGs, for a long time, have been Final Fantasy VII and VIII. The stories sucked, not because they were that bad, mainly because they were really chaotic. But the battles, man, they drewn you in like a drug addiction. I used to go to sleep early in the morning after spending hours trying to find the ultimate items and weapons.

Then I tried all the subsequent Final Fantasies, never got into any of them for more than 2 hours. Then tried Morrowind for a few hours. It was like total lack of aim. Many people hate linearity in a game, but I think that a lack of it is also really bad, simply because nothing leads you or motivate you to do anything. I am not saying that Morrowind was a stupid game, I just , again, could not get into it.

Same thing happened later with Oblivion and Fallout 3.
Fallout 3 , I thought it was very interesting, but I just hate that style of first person battle thing. I don't know.....that old Final Fantasy really kicked butt in the battle department. You would always gain special moves, you could cast crazy magic that slows down the opponent's movement to a snail's pace, or transform it into a frog, or , if nothing else worked, as in some really though bosses were you had to fight like 30 or 40 minutes (I kid you not) , you could play an amusic 'russian roulette' to the death where either the boss died, or your whole party got wiped out.

I am just mentioning a few things about the game. I am not saying it's 'the best' as it too had flaws, but I just don't understand why RPG games for PC generally have very dull combat systems.

The only PC rpg I really played until the end, was Dragon Age Origins, but even that one has a combat system that sucked.

Again, I am not saying FF is the best and all PC games suck, not at all. The FF games that came in the last few years are really thrash. I did try out FF XII for a couple of hours and I was nauseated. I'd rather play Fallout 3 or something.

One thing, though.....why the heck they did not make a complete remake of PT with a great battle system and modern graphics, it's beyond me. It would probably be an enormous success. (now that I saw a bit of the ending on youtube, I think so.

But yeah like you said, it depends on your own mood, a LOT. I agree

It's all about the story. If you're annoyed by the gameplay (which is not that bad IMO, but I can see why it puts other people off), you probably won't like it. Still, try sticking with it for a few hours more. The beginning may be a tad confusing 'cause you don't know much about the Nameless One yet and there's lots of exposition regarding the world and the setting. But it gets better as it goes along and the ending is very much worth getting to.

For me, personally, Planescape: Torment has been one of the best and most emotionally affecting gaming experiences I've had. The story is easily the best one I've encountered in a video game and really in a class of its own. And this isn't nostalgia talking, 'cause I played through it for the first time just a couple of years ago. Do you mind sharing your faves? It's always interesting to get recommendations from people with high standards. :)

actually I am in my mid 30's although I don't play games hardcore. Verbosity to me in a game is ok if it's good. Yeah got lots of wisdom and int points as I had read such a tip somewhere.

Five or six hours only to complete it? Then I probably will play it. Yeah I agree about the story, it really seems to be the best found on any rpg.
man, I wish I was still 24 like you.....I am 34. I only play a game once in a while, maybe once or twice a year. Don't know who's Dakkon yet but seems interesting

My favorite RPGs? Hm, I've played a lot of them and also enjoyed them for various reasons, but frankly none other came close to Torment, regarding the plot, setting and storytelling.

The closest candidate would probably be the <span class="bold">Prophet</span> series for Neverwinter Nights, so not even a commercial RPG, but a community module. For me it's the CRPG equivalent of a page turner, and like in Torment the plot is involving, thought-provoking and a bit on the dark side. I can recommend checking out community modules for Neverwinter Nights in general, in my experience the courage and creativity of passionate hobby writers often surpasses that of professional RPGs who have to cater to the masses without offending anyone - resulting in ultimate boredom, like the official campiagn for NWN. But the NWN community itself offers a great variety of high quality fan-made campaigns for different tastes.

Apart from that, I also liked the story and writing of Baldur's Gate 2, despite the more traditional setting, but I'd assume you're already familiar with that, right?
I guess he was referring to the slower Hive part, until the really interesting things start to happen. Good luck on finishing the whole game in such a short time. If it's possible at all, you probably have to refrain from reading any text (and where'd be the point in that?). ;)

Also, that would probably make it one of the shortest commercial CRPGs ever released. :D

I really need to get NWN one of these days. I have the second, do you know of any equivalently awesome modules for it?

Sadly, I haven't even finished the official campaign of NWN2 yet. It didn't really run that smoothly before and since my graphic card died last year or so and my rig is just using the onboard card, it's even worse. Most community modules are pretty sluggish for me and it's not much fun for me to play the game, so I haven't been able to explore what the NWN2 community has to offer.

I know there's a Planescape series available for it, that seems to be quite popular, but like I said, I didn't get the chance to try it and judge its qualities. This one looks interesting, too.

Is Mask Of The Betrayer better than the vanilla campaign? Because I played the vanilla for a bit and found it kind of meh, but I may not have given it enough of a chance.

That Planescape one looks pretty awesome, thanks for the link and I'd actually discovered the other and had been meaning to download it.

Anyway, sorry for derailing the thread. Carry on. :)

In my books, the vanilla campaign is alright. It's not very imaginative or anything, but I didn't hate it either. MotB begins where the vanilla ends, so you'll at least have to read a plot summary to understand some of the things the characters are talking about. In any case, the plot is way better than that of the vanilla campaign - I might even call it gripping.

Then the bad news. You begin at whatever level you were in the end of the original game; 20 in my case, or 18 - I think - if you don't import a save. This might sound brilliant, but it quickly becomes a burden as companions are added to your party, all of them of high level and of a class you may never have heard of before. If you're half the D&D nerd I am, you'll spend ages trying to figure out their abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Then a level-up occurs and all hell breaks loose when you try to choose a new spell (naturally, there are more of those) and feats (epic-level ones available). You could just click "recommend", which I can't do. Anyway, it doesn't really matter since you have to prepare spells yourself.

The vanilla campaign suffers from the fact that the first act is waaaay to long. So much padding that it isn't even funny. And aside from a point in that first act where you need to choose between two factions, it's also highly linear. Once you get through the first act, it get's better.

MOTB, however, is great in terms of roleplaying, story telling, characterization and atmosphere. One of the best RPGs I've played. If you can live with the really dark and depressing story and atmosphere (and a certain gameplay mechanic), MOTB is for you.

Ah, those're both good things to know. I am a D&D nerd, but I like when there're a billion confusing character options, so that's nice. :D Good to know about the Vanilla campaign too, I'll get around to sticking it out past the first act at some point.

EDIT: Started on MOTB, the beginning is already more interesting than vanilla. Also it's nice to be able to start with a high level character for once, rolled up a Swashbuckler/Duelist/Wizard Moon Elf.

The story is gameplay. Instead of getting xp and rewards for just combat in Planescape: Torment you get xp for making dialogue choices. I don't think Planescape; Torment would work nearly as well as just being a novel. The graphics and sound create a holistic effect, and the pontential experience points and rewards makes the conversations even more fun than they are intrinsically.