I finally finished my first complete play-through last night. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. My life seems more empty now. I can't play any other games, because I know none of them will even come close to the emotional impact and immersion of PS:T.

Everything in life seems slightly different now, too. Somewhat duller. How can a game affect a player this much? All I can say is that my experience with Torment was so beautifully dark and moving. Has anyone else felt lost after completing this game? Or any other games, for that matter?

First of all, let me commend you for this post. It truly is a sight for sore eyes! GOG has a selection of arguably some of the best video games ever made, and yet these game sub-forums only seem to deal with mods, fixes, patches, mouse issues, crashes, keyboard issues, glitches, strategies, max leveling, min leveling, med leveling, THAC0, Taco, Taco Bell, item guides, party configurations, system configurations, running on Windows 7, running on Windows 8, running on Windows 98, running on Mac, running on Linux, running on Android, running on a treadmill, solutions to the game crashing on my cereal bowl, hints on how to use the console to make the eagle face north so my fps don't drop too much and I can use the ring of +7LK some guy recommended to me on some thread.

Threads on these sub-forums live on these subjects, and while I welcome them, it gets kind of boring that no one talks about the games. Fixes and help are much appreciated, but I also want to share the game experience with others, talk more freely about what the games gave me and made me think and feel. That's why I like your post so much.

I haven't finished Planescape: Torment, yet, to be honest, because I'm loving it so much that I fear I'll end up not knowing exactly what to do or play as soon as I'm finished, kind of like what you described so vividly. I love when a game is so much more than a game, but an awesome experience that takes us on this enlightening voyage through a magical world that ultimately ends up reflecting ourselves. It boggles the mind. In a very good way. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy games for their entertainment value alone, there are games I turn to when I want some distraction, fun and entertainment, but the games that offer me experiences akin to reading a great book or watching a great movie are the ones that I really love, and the ones that imprint their mark and end up shaping my personality, albeit subconsciously.

Since I haven't finished PS:T yet, I don't feel fully entitled to talk about it, aside from the fact that I'm enthralled by it and its subject matter the more I play it. I can, however, name some games that left me in a state of sheer awe as soon as I finished them: the Legacy of Kain series (Soul Reaver+Soul Reaver 2+Defiance), Sanitarium, Primordia, Machinarium (it sounds weird, I know, but the story is quite deep if you look past the cutesy steampunk aesthetics), Dark Seed, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, The Cat Lady, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 4: The Room (I know, "blasphemy!", and all that jazz... the game's actually great, if "die-hard" fans cared to see it for what it is), Terranigma, The Dark Eye (the point and click game by Inscape, based on Allan Poe's works, completely unrelated to the German D&D spin-off of the same name)... well, lots of them, come to think of it! Mostly point and click adventures, because I grew up playing those types of games, and I do believe they are the better video game medium/genre to convey excellent writing and story.

Sorry for the huge post, I guess I got carried away, but like I said, it feels really nice to run away from all the technical threads and just enjoy talking about the games we love with like-minded people.

A huge thank you, and happy gaming! :)

I actually keep a number of games on that caliber of emotional impact and overall good storytelling to pull up whenever I have to argue the point that games are an art form; while I can think of a few that tie with PST in various ways of delivering an emotional impact (Silent Hill 2 is the one that comes most readily to mind), I can't think of too many games that surpassed it in terms of the sheer magnitude of an impact it had on me.

Well, there was this one time in [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line]Dubai[/url]...

I absolutely LOVED that first paragraph, it had me laughing so much. Brightened my day up too quite a bit to know how other people are moved by brilliant computer games. I really savored every moment of PST, I had been playing it for months, really taking my time and enjoying squeezing every little bit of detail and story and atmosphere from it, letting my mind wander and wonder with the characters'. What an experience it was, truly unlike anything else in my 25 years of gaming.

I do own quite a number of games that you have recommended, and P&C Adventure sounded like the right genre after playing such a heady but still a little combat-heavy game like PST. I tried to start up The Whispered World, but I couldn't get into it. Either because it was the wrong mood or just because I am still in such withdrawal from PST. Possibly tonight I will boot up IHNMAIMS or Machinarium.

Where can I find a copy of The Dark Eye? I haven't heard of it before, I'm just familiar with Das Schwartze Auge line of games.

Please, don't be in any rush to finish PST, continue to take your time with it and enjoy every little moment and detail. It's a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Spec Ops: The Line, huh? I haven't played it, nor given much credit to modern FPSs to give the player an immersive, emotional, story-driven experience. I will have to adjust my thinking if I get a chance to try this game out at some point. It's a shame that it is not available on GOG, or I would have picked it up based off your recommendation alone.

Let me put it this way: if that's how you view modern FPS/MMS, then let's just say the game agrees with you with the state of the genre in general. Shame it's on Steam only, but it's well worth looking into.

Thank you for your kind words.

If you're going with a point and click game, I'd highly recommend Primordia, out of all the games I mentioned. The co-creator/writer of that title loves PS:T, and there are obvious references throughout the course of the game, down to the sidekick, who is a mix of Morte with Beneath A Steel Sky's Joey (in the sense they're both robots, at least, even though Crispin, Primordia's character, floats just like Morte and resembles him more, personality-wise). Be sure to give this one a try.

Sanitarium is another great choice, it's a psychological thriller set in lots of different worlds and that's all I can say without spoiling it -- though what I'm avoiding spoiling becomes pretty obvious by the end of chapter three. Unfortunately, the game was very buggy, even back in the day, and there's not much GOG can do to make it glitch-free, even though they did manage to make it work on modern systems, so, obviously, the Sanitarium GOG sub-forum is one of the worse in here, when it comes to people complaining and asking for troubleshooting help, instead of talking about how good the game is and the experience it provided them. Oh, and none of the issues affecting the game are game-breaking ones, mind you, at least not for us, who have been playing video games for more than twenty years and had to fix games on our own in order to play them.

If you're going with either one of the two you mentioned, I Have No Mouth... is the better option, if you're indeed going through Planescape withdrawal, as it is more serious, dystopic, well-written and "mature" than Machinarium. Machinarium is downright amazing in its own rights, but it is, nonetheless, just a charming, touching story about friendship and loneliness. It works surprisingly well, for a game with no text whatsoever, and the soundtrack is one of the best I've ever listened to in any video game to date.

A game I forgot to mention -- in a very self-unforgiving fashion -- is , developed by Ice-Pick Lodge, of [url=http://www.gog.com/game/knock_knock]Knock-Knock fame. Pathologic suffers from a very poor English localisation/translation, but, in my opinion, that just adds to the surreal feeling of the world. I'm quite mad at myself for not mentioning it, as it is the most... enlightening game I've ever played. That ending is so... wow. Just... wow. Breaks all fourth walls at once, it's all I can say.

This last one I'm going to talk about is one I don't actually own, but will get as soon as I have the money: the recently released (on GOG) Kentucky Route Zero. If you're as much a fan of literature as I am, give this one a go. It's a minimalist story-driven point and click adventure that's an experiment in magic realism literature translated to video game format. Saw some videos of it, looks and feels great, just up my alley. Unfortunately, it's episodic, and the devs sure are taking their sweet time in releasing the remaining three Acts (that's what they call their episodes). Still, with the two Acts available right now, you should get a pretty good experience -- plus, it's a season pass, so, you'll get the rest as soon as it gets published.

Spec Ops: The Line is a game I neither own nor have played, but I watched a friend of mine go through a huge chunk of it one afternoon and, god!, did I fell in love with it! Great recommendation, there, Jonesy! It's a shame it got such poor advertising, and unfortunately the name doesn't work in its favor... "Spec Ops: The Line" sounds way too much like something similar to Call of Duty.

As for The Dark Eye, it is, sadly, a very rare game that I was fortunate enough to nab at a local video game store when they were getting rid of stock upon closure -- I got it cheap as hell, too! --, so I don't think it will be easy to come by, let alone getting it... there's a GOG Community wishlist page for it, but with only 411 votes I don't think it's likely it will get released here anytime soon.

Well, that's it, I hope I helped a bit in my suggestions for things to do, now that Planescape: Torment is over! Again, sorry for the humongous post.

I'm nearing the end of this great game... I'm anxious to finish the story, but also I'm going to miss it. When I started I wanted to make sure I explored as much as possible, not just to experience the game in its entirety but because I couldn't imagine myself playing through it again when it's such a wonderful, yet sadly one-time experience. However, like a favorite book or movie, I think I'll find myself returning again...and again...and again.

And to think of all the things I haven't done yet, either; several untouched factions, different alignments, some undiscovered quests (or different ways of playing through ones I've already completed)... I know I want to try an evil playthrough someday, but I might have to force myself. Some of those dialogue options are brutal.

I'm honestly looking forward to my multiple future playthroughs, and I haven't even finished the first. Good lord that made me laugh.

Wow, again, such great information! I was just about to boot up a game when I checked this thread again. Looks like Primordia is what I'll go with. I've been very eager for a chance to play, the art direction looks spectacular and well thought out. Now I'm even more excited to know that it is influenced by PS:T.

The horror genre is one that is so filled with mediocrity, that I shy away from it, all while knowing that I'm missing some true masterpieces. I just wishlisted Sanitarium because of your recommendation. You're right about not letting bugs get in the way of my enjoyment. I'm not a complainer on that front. I went through a ton of CTD and bugs just with my recent PS:T playthrough, but they didn't get in the way of my enjoyment and I was able to do everything available in the game, so I don't let them stop me when a game has me gripped and is pulling me back in for more.

Pathologic has also now been wishlisted, and The Dark Eye now has 412 votes ;)

Kentucky Route Zero I've been eyeing with anticipation since I first saw a preview before release and the critical praise that followed. I didn't buy Act 1 since it was only on Steam. I put it on my wishlist as soon as was released here on GOG, however I like to have a complete game available all at once so I'll just wait until Act 3 is released. There's a good chance GOG will run a sale when that happens too, buy Act III and get the first two free. It might end up being the price as the season pass, I don't know, but at least I'll have it all in one chunk. It's just habit from the days of boxed games, to want a whole game and not just a part. About 20 minutes before I entered the Fortress of Regrets, I was thinking about how much I didn't want the game to end, but much like you, couldn't imagine going through another playthrough. This game is not perfect, and its not without a not-so-small amount of tedium. However, now that I'm finished I'm quite confident that I will make it a yearly event. Maybe it'll end up like so many great books and films, where you keep discovering new things with each visit, and new meaning will unveil itself. Also, because the game reflects so much upon the player philosophically, I'm sure there will be much to discover within oneself as we age and grow and approach it again.

Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering where you found out about the developer's love for PS:T. Was there an interview? I'd really like to read it when I'm done with Primordia. I haven't gotten to play much yet because I spent along time mucking about with the settings, and going back and forth between using an anti-aliased filter and just a standard x4 pixel-match filter. I really like the setting of the game so far, though.

I'm browsing the Primordia sub-forums here on GOG because I'm pretty sure Mark talked about it in there... or maybe it was in the commentary to the game? I can't quite remember. I read a lot of stuff on the game when I finished it, I also friended some of the team on Facebook and played the game several times with commentary on, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. As soon as I find anything, I'll edit this post to let you know. :)

...
...
Well... I finished it.
I... think I need a minute. The point of the game I'd reached had me frustrated and eager to finish it all, but going through the end was, in contrast to the seemingly endless combat of Curst and Baator, a hard blow to my emotions. I did a lot of running and dying and wishing I had brought more healing items... but I just feel so satisfied.

Now I can join the throngs of P:T fans wishing for just one more chance to play it all over again with a fresh memory.

But... although the first playthrough was exciting and awesome and it played on my emotions like a fiddle... discovering new things in the next run is usually the best part of anything for me! I think now that I've beaten it, the craving to play it will die down and I can move on to other things for a few months (or years). Long enough to make the game feel almost fresh again. Then... it can start all over again.

Don't need your life to be ruined or ended, just replay the game millions of times since the quest, characters, and dialogues, and choices are so expansive that replay-ability is very high in this game. I can also recommend Fallout 1 and 2, and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 which have several possible choices as well. Also many of the great games on this sight well bring hours of entertainment and some like PST will had something little to life's meaning. If you're still confused and depress, maybe this will make you laugh- Google search PlaneScape Torment Memes. :)

The Fallout games are good, don't get me wrong, but they don't have anywhere near the emotional impact that PST had, because PST's writing and character arcs are downright amazing, whereas Fallout was more of a story about a place than the characters; also, PST is pretty much the only game I can think of off the top of my head that is much more of a character study than anything, which is so far removed from the usual RPG tact.

As for Baldur's Gate... I really wanted to like it, but the story felt amazingly shallow, especially coming off of PST; I might not have minded the fact that it was a glorified dungeon crawler if it weren't for (1) the AI going haywire more often due to far more enclosed areas confusing them and (2) the fact that the game had pretensions at being story driven when the story is largely uninvolving until near the very end, and unless you've spent time doing sidequests to hit the XP cap (which I didn't, because trying to follow which quests I had left to do in my mess of a journal was slightly less taxing than trying to care about doing fetch quests for NPCs that had no characterization of their own and did little to nothing to build up the mythology). BG2 managed to improve somewhat by having the party members actually say something every now and then as opposed to the speechless combat units they were in BG1, but the developers seemed to have confused character development for text dumps that were both overwrought in a failed attempt to be profound and incredibly ill timed, often happening without player prompting (I get one character mourning someone they just found out is dead, but I don't get why my sidekick will not shut up about what they have been through in the dungeon until after we have escaped).

Even setting aside my personal issues with the series, Baldur's Gate as a series just doesn't deliver an emotional impact of the same type or caliber of PST, with PST being primarily an existential meditation of philosophy and the nature of humanity that uses the Planes as a way to get away from standard D&D tropes and revolve around things like conflicting philosophies and more, while BG as a series felt like it was just about the main character setting out and working their way up to being a Big Damn Hero while occasionally wandering into the Planes looking for bigger and meaner monsters to fight.

I think Gabester was trying to be helpful and meant no disrespect, but he largely missed the point by focusing on some sort of replay value and choice exploration in Planescape: Torment. I mean, having not finished the game yet, I may not be the most entitled person to talk about it, but so far I get the feeling PST deals a whole lot with the responsibility and moral weight of choice. I want this game to give me something, to teach me, to provide me with an enlightening experience, so I'm sticking to my choices, as "wrong" as they may be, and I confess I'm not particularly interested in exploring the multitude of other outcomes there certainly are in the game, as I need this to be my personal experience. The Cat Lady director said he preferred that people played his game only once, as that would supposedly be the "pure", non-corrupted personal experience of the player.

The Cat Lady is a beast of a game that did more for my chronic depression than years and years wasted in psychotherapy and psychology expensive sessions. It made me fall down to my knees and cry, made me realize I'm not alone and that I'm not as shitty and worthless a person as I may have thought. I love that game. I love it and I will never play it again, because it will be a different run, since I explored some options and now I would try different ones, making the game into someone other's, instead of my game, the one that punched me right in the stomach and made me cry like a freaking four-year-old. So far, PST has been an identical experience, for me, and I'm not sure I'll ever replay it. I think I may want to cherish and preserve my personal Planescape, instead of dumbing the experience down to some FAQs and walkthroughs and internet memes.

I definitely don't think I'm better than anyone else, I'm in no way "bigger", "more intelligent" than Gabester, I just think my approach to these games is different than theirs. People have every right in the world to experience books, movies, paintings, tv series, architecture, video games and whatnot the way they so choose, I'm a firm believer in that, but I also have the right to approach some video games the way I want, and I think my view is more in tune with vulchor's than Gabester's. What I'm about to say may sound pretentious, and somewhat goes against my previous sentiment, but the problem with popularizing something -- in this case, a video game -- obviously means lots of people will want to experience it. In some cases, there are people that are just not the right audience for the product, even though they try to access it. In Planescape: Torment's particular case, people have a need to say they finished it, they're now a part of something else, even though they fail to see the game for more than it is. Planescape: Torment is so much more than a CRPG, it's not even funny.

Good points that I can understand why you feel about Fallout and Baldurs Gate, but like I said, they're other games on this site that has the impact of Planescape Torment. The Ultima series felt like a growing world over time at the characters involve in there story arc, as the Avatar(the player) explores the meaning of moral through the virtue's system in Ultima's 4-7. Besides that, I can't compare any RPG or most games to the depth of PlaneScape Torment as it is one of the special cases were a game was revolutionary for its time. Can't wait for Tides of Numenera and Wasteland 2. :)

Maybe I can recommend Ultima, and that are the only game series I can think of that can rival and even beat Planescape Torment in moral and feeling for characters in video games. I understand why you feel attach to this game as I love and feel bad for my party and the other unfortunate souls the Nameless one has done wrong in the game. I just like the amount of detail they put in the text of the game, and at times I feel like the game does not need the handful of minutes of voice acting that we hear in the game. But like you said, I was trying to be helpful by stating the fact that this game has a lot of replay value through the choices the player can make in the game.