[boredgunner]

It's here! A remaster of Planescape: Torment, a 1999 story-driven RPG set in the Planescape setting using AD&D 2nd edition rules.

http://planescape.com/

From Beamdog, who also remastered both Baldur's Gate games and Icewind Dale in similar fashion. This 1999 RPG classic now has native widescreen support and native support for modern operating systems (Windows, Linux, and OS X). It is available DRM free on GOG and also on Steam.

The original game is kept intact, nothing added. The UI has been improved and some new descriptions have been added to various UI and menu elements, but the script and all actual content is unchanged beyond error correction done by Chris Avellone himself. For more information, read the FAQ in the link provided above.

Mods can be found here.

You may notice in screenshots that characters have a strange outline around them, but it can be disabled thankfully so don't worry.

On the official website listed above, you can download Easter Egg Morte and Leprechaun Annah-skins for two companions. Not for first time players.

The soundtrack is sold separately and has also been remastered! Now 320 Kb/s MP3 instead of 192, and also available in lossless FLAC although it is effectively the same as the MP3 but bigger file size.

Tips for first time players:

• 
  
• This game only has two mandatory battles, both are akin to "boss fights." Other hostile encounters can be avoided by simply fleeing (very effective), or using stealth if you are a Thief.
  
• Planescape: Torment has three classes: Fighter (you start as this, always), Thief, and Mage. To become a Thief or Mage, you must learn from others with those talents.
  
• If you plan to fight a lot, Fighter should have decent STR and CON (at least 14, preferably higher), Thief should have good DEX (at least 16), Mage should have good INT (at least 16). These attribute scores don't have to be as high as in D&D 3/3.5 games to yield similar success.
  
• Wisdom (WIS) is very important for combat, dialogue, and recalling memories. It's overpowered really, affecting combat luck too much. Of all attributes, it has the most impact on dialogue and thus quests and storytelling, followed closely by INT and then CHA.
  
• Your health regenerates. Constitution (CON) strongly affects regeneration rate. Getting a high enough CON score will easily make you overpowered.

Some screenshots:

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

 

[Gunderman456]

That game has always been considered a top contender for RPG.

Only reason why I did not get it at the time was because it was not first person, and boy did I regret it ever since as it consistently received praise from the media and the gaming community.

I finally bought it three years back from GOG and could not put it down. I was sad when the experience was over.

 

[Saq]

Gonna get this just for the native widescreen support alone. Here's hoping my game saves properly and doesn't disappear this time.

 

[boredgunner]

I'm glad that so many excellent classics have been remastered or remade, either officially or unofficially. This preservation act going on in the industry today is wonderful, since so many of these classics (including this one particularly) excel over their closest modern equivalents in the most important ways (writing quality, narrative design, gameplay design).

The list of finished remasters/remakes is quite large already. At the top of my head, I can think of:

• 
  
• Planescape: Torment -> Planescape: Torment - Enhanced Edition
• Baldur's Gate -> Baldur's Gate: Reloaded (unofficial remake for Neverwinter Nights 2) and Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (a remaster with some controversy, not as good as Reloaded)
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadow of Amn -> Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (same type of remaster as above)
• Icewind Dale -> Icewind Dale NWN 2 (unofficial remake for Neverwinter Nights 2) and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (a remaster with some controversy, not as good as the unofficial remake)
• Pool of Radiance -> Pool of Radiance Remastered (unofficial remake for Neverwinter Nights 2)
• The Temple of Elemental Evil -> The Temple of Elemental Evil unlocked (unofficial adaptation of the pen and paper module for Neverwinter Nights 2)
• Fallout (Bethesda had it updated, now it works flawlessly on modern operating systems and has native widescreen support)
• Fallout 2 (same as above)
• UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-COM: UFO Defense) -> XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Xenonauts are both remakes of it
• Half-Life -> Black Mesa (remake on Source engine, not yet finished though)
• Half-Life 2 and its expansions -> Fakefactory Cinematic Mod (incredible overhaul/update mod, porting it to a newer version of Source engine)
• Thief Gold -> TFix unofficial patch (which comes with the GOG version) and Thief Gold HD Texture mod
• Thief II: The Metal Age -> Tafferpatcher unofficial patch, Thief 2 HD Texture mod, and Thief Enhancement Pack 2.0
• Deus Ex -> Deus Ex: Revision mod (which even includes DX10 renderer) and GMDX mod (which is getting a major upgrade soon with v9.0)
• Myst -> Many remakes, realMyst: Masterpiece Edition being the best one
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (updated on Steam, not sure if GOG got the update though, now has native widescreen support and better support for modern OS's although DirectSound3D and EAX were removed sadly)
• Turok: Dinosaur Hunter -> Remastered and now available on GOG and Steam
• Turok 2: Seeds of Evil -> Remastered and now available on GOG and Steam
• Serious Sam: The First Encounter -> Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter / Serious Fusion 2017 (the latter upgrades it to the latest version of Serious Engine, adding Vulkan and DX11 and much more, currently in beta)
• Serious Sam: The Second Encounter -> Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter (Fusion 2017 will be released for it too)
• Resident Evil -> Resident Evil HD Remaster
• Resident Evil: Zero -> Resident Evil: Zero HD Remaster
• Resident Evil 4 -> Remastered under the same name
• System Shock -> System Shock: Enhanced Edition
• BioShock -> BioShock Remastered, although the original is probably better (original definitely sounds much, much better, thanks to OpenAL with hardware acceleration support and magnificent EAX 5)
• BioShock 2 -> BioShock 2 Remastered
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -> Remade as a mod for GTA IV, I forget the name though

And then some upcoming remakes or remasters include:

• 
  
• StarCraft -> StarCraft: Remastered
• System Shock is being remade by Nightdive Studios
• Resident Evil 2 is being remade
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn -> Baldur's Gate II: Reloaded (unofficial remake for Neverwinter Nights 2)
• Riven -> The Starry Expanse Project (full fledged 3D remake on Unity engine)
• Pathologic -> A remaster is scheduled for this year
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind -> Skywind mod for Skyrim
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion -> Skyoblivion mod for Skyrim

 

[Gunderman456]

•Planescape: Finished
•Baldur's Gate: Played half way, intend to finish
•Baldur's Gate II: Have in my collection and will play it right after Baldur's Gate
•Fallout: Have in my Collection
•Fallout 2: Have in my Collection
•UFO: Enemy Unknown: Finished
•Half-Life: Finished
•Half-Life 2: Finished
•Thief: Finished
•Thief II: Finished
•Deus Ex: Played half way, intend to finish
•Myst: Finished
•Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: Finished
•Turok: Played but never finished (not in my collection)
•Serious Sam The First Encounter: Played but never finished (not in my collection)
•Resident Evil 4: Almost finished
•System Shock: Finished
•BioShock: Finished
•BioShock 2: Finished
•Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Played half way
•StarCraft: Have in my collection
•Riven: Finished
•The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind: Finished
•The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: Finished

 

[boredgunner]

Icewind Dale II hasn't been remastered or remade yet, but since the first one was done I assume Beamdog will eventually remaster the second. That's one of few isometric 2.5D RPG classics that I haven't played.

 

[Gunderman456]

I recently purchased Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete (thought it was Icewind Dale II) from GOG and after I finish Baldur's Gate II will delve into that game. I figured I'd skip Icewind Dale I and II and just go for the last of the series which is the most touted anyway.

 

[boredgunner]

Icewind Dale is nothing more than a dungeon crawler, all combat, so you won't be missing much by skipping it. Icewind Dale II is said to start off strong but devolve into the same thing as the first.

Neverwinter Nights 2 has more content than multiple RPGs combined, with four official campaigns and even more modded ones including some of the unofficial remakes I listed above.



Beware that the original campaign for NWN 2 isn't anything extraordinary; it is more linear than it should be and the writing is that of a parody sometimes. It is Mask of the Betrayer (the first expansion, which you have) that's all around brilliant, Storm of Zehir shows excellent gameplay design for a create your own party RPG, and Mysteries of Westgate is good. Mask of the Betrayer is an excellent spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment actually. Everyone who played one should play the other.

 

[Gunderman456]

Looking forward to it!

 

[boredgunner]

Interestingly enough, it seems Beamdog converted the game from DirectSound3D to OpenAL. You cannot choose your sound device in the game, it is automatic, but it automatically chose hardware acceleration using my X-Fi sound card. The only problem with this is, it makes it impossible to record sound when recording the game.

To anyone having this issue, the solution is simple: download OpenAL Soft from here (the zip file), navigate to its bin\Win32 file, and copy the soft_oal.dll file into your Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition directory (where the executable is). Then rename soft_oal.dll to OpenAL32.dll. Do this again but instead rename it to wrap_oal.dll this time. This forces the game to use OpenAL Soft as the output device instead of your sound card, allowing you to record sound. This may also work with Rapture3D instead of OpenAL Soft but I haven't tried it.

 

[_LDC_]

did they include some kind of "assisted gameplay"? something that gives you clues/directions useful for when you login back in the game after lots of time?

 

[boredgunner]

Quote:

Originally Posted by _LDC_

did they include some kind of "assisted gameplay"? something that gives you clues/directions useful for when you login back in the game after lots of time?

Such story driven games really shouldn't be played like that, especially open ended ones with many quests and no objective markers. In the journal, they added a Search function. That's the only thing they added for that purpose.

 

[_LDC_]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boredgunner

Such story driven games really shouldn't be played like that, especially open ended ones with many quests and no objective markers. In the journal, they added a Search function. That's the only thing they added for that purpose.

well, I cannot disagree... sadly though real life is eating 99% of my time, and I've been completely unable to go back into gaming (as I would like) especially in games that require a level of commitment just above the "login, run around for a while, logout" threshold

 

[boredgunner]

Quote:

Originally Posted by _LDC_

well, I cannot disagree... sadly though real life is eating 99% of my time, and I've been completely unable to go back into gaming (as I would like) especially in games that require a level of commitment just above the "login, run around for a while, logout" threshold

I understand, we've all had times like that in our lives I'm sure. During such times, as far as gaming goes I will play multiplayer shooters, short single player games, or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Chernobyl on Azazel mode + Ironman mode.

 

[MonarchX]

Can you remind me which build NOT to use to play this game? I recall several guides saying you can actually create a build that will such so bad you will have to restart. Do mods like Unfinished Business work for EE? I am surprised they didn't include all that stuff that developers left off from the original game due to deadlines...

Have you started playing already? Have they truly ironed out the bugs?

 

[boredgunner]

Unfinished Business doesn't work for EE, but Beamdog is actively seeking out the modder to have it added to the game officially. Some mods have been updated for EE already. You can find mods here (added link to the OP).

https://forums.beamdog.com/categories/pst%3Aee-mods

The original game wasn't very buggy before, with unofficial patches at least. The only thing they really had to fix was stability, and with that I have zero issues so far.

Any of the three classes (Fighter, Thief, Mage) are viable, just follow some standard rules. Fighter should have decent STR and CON, Thief should have good DEX, Mage should have good INT. The game only has two mandatory battles I believe (Ravel Puzzlewell and Trias the Betrayer), and fleeing from encounters is actually very easy in Planescape: Torment. Thieves can use stealth.