Any games similar to Planescape Torment?

[Jaime Lannister]

Ps. Not interested in interactive japfaggotry.

and yet you played torment you dirty hypocrite

 

[Oscure Childe]

Irrelevant wasn't the most precise word. To put it glibly, the "what" of the content isn't nearly as relevant as the "how" and "why" of the content (or as you say, "figured and utilized," which do strike me as euphemism for style). I think judgment of content becomes exclusively political, while judgment of style etc. are largely aesthetic (though aesthetics falls pray to politics as well, though it need not). Of course content matters in the construction of any artistic text, but as far as judgment I don't think content has any place beyond providing context.

I find myself in agreement. A few minor nitpicks (Are aesthetics ever outside the political?) but solely parenthetical ones.

I'm sure Mr. Crimhead will pay no mind to our veering. My point about the anti-epic was minor, but anytime you can create dissonance between your text and tradition, you create another layer of nuance (whether it's meaningful tension is another question entirely).

Nuance implies meaning by definition. And 'tradition' is by no means so unitary that dissonance is created so easily. Pastiche is far easier, and what Arcanum modestly aims at.

I thought the criteria were certainly broad enough to include Arcanum. You're right that Arcanum does differ; it has none of the prosaic monologues that PS:T (or MotB) champions, nor does it so bluntly wax philosophy. As there are so few games like PS:T, I think we'd be hard pressed to stay within the confines of any criteria with PS:T as it's base.

Fighting words! But this is the value of this particular discussion, that it is not merely a listing of those excellent games merely sharing a few characteristics, but those 'like' Planescape:Torment in some respect.

This makes me grimace, but maybe I misunderstand you. Within the confines of Planescape: Torment, Shelley and Milton might be good models. However, that literary lineage has been shaped by a bounty of literature that has followed since. (TS Eliot's famous essay comes to mind here, I think). Though you're so vague here, it's hard to know what you mean by evoking Shelley and Milton.

There's a thoughtfulness and subtlety in the construction of Arcanum that reminds me of many literary predilections of the twentieth century.

No doubt, there is much subtle and thoughtful in Arcanum. It is fundamentally a work of conscious pastiche, and post-modern in this respect. But by tracing a lineage and character between the listed games I mean to suggest both a literary lineage (especially obvious in the case of Avellone's writings) which holds a common means of figuring the fantastic and the real, and also a common understanding of gaming's purpose expressed in narrative. Arcanum stands nearer to Fallout in this regard. Neither are so explicit and open in their dealings with broad philosophical themes and engagment with metatext, though both have a particular finesse in their conceit and its execution.

I think that's fair to say, but like I said, given the lack of literary experiences in gaming generally, I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend Arcanum.

My understanding of the initial request was perhaps more specific, then.

For me, it sort of is a question of excellence. For my part, there's a lot that Arcanum does right that makes it far more literary than PS:T. I'm not sure if you're interested in exploring that discussion, but I think it could be interesting.

While I remain skeptical of notions of 'more' or 'less' literary and maintain that my aim has been to locate those games evoking Planescape and its like, I invite you to proceed.

Thanks. But I must sheepishly admit, heck if I know. (No need to explain).

Spoiler

javascript:emoticon ('smug')

 

[themadhatter114]

Did anyone play Lost Odyssey? I read about it before it came out but never bothered to play it. You play as an immortal but for some stupid reason you have to reload if your entire party loses a battle. That sort of turned me off ever playing the game. But the setup reminded me a lot of Torment. If you're a storyfag it might be decent.

"The player takes control of Kaim, a man who has lived for a thousand years and who has no memory of his past. The game is set in a world nearing a "magical industrial revolution." Kaim struggles with the return of his memories and the pain they bring."

 

[Mangoose]

Did anyone play Lost Odyssey? I read about it before it came out but never bothered to play it. You play as an immortal but for some stupid reason you have to reload if your entire party loses a battle. That sort of turned me off ever playing the game. But the setup reminded me a lot of Torment. If you're a storyfag it might be decent.

"The player takes control of Kaim, a man who has lived for a thousand years and who has no memory of his past. The game is set in a world nearing a "magical industrial revolution." Kaim struggles with the return of his memories and the pain they bring."

Do you like JRPG grindtastic combat?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Did anyone play Lost Odyssey? I read about it before it came out but never bothered to play it. You play as an immortal but for some stupid reason you have to reload if your entire party loses a battle. That sort of turned me off ever playing the game. But the setup reminded me a lot of Torment. If you're a storyfag it might be decent.

"The player takes control of Kaim, a man who has lived for a thousand years and who has no memory of his past. The game is set in a world nearing a "magical industrial revolution." Kaim struggles with the return of his memories and the pain they bring."

I've heard several reviewers make that comparison in order to illustrate what is wrong with Lost Odyssey and jrpg storytelling in general. Apparently it misses the whole notion of a 'small-scale personal story', and the immortal amnesiac hook isn't really explored or central to the story.

 

[Pseudofool]

(Are aesthetics ever outside the political?)

Realistically, probably not. But ideally? Certainly.

Nuance implies meaning by definition.

It's a semantical point, but I'm not sure I understand nuance to mean anything beyond a subtle distinction.

And 'tradition' is by no means so unitary that dissonance is created so easily.

I think this is getting closer to where there might be actual conflict in our POVs. Of course tradition is the ubiquitous, ever-changing phenomenon, and I agree that dissonance isn't created easily, in fact, any dissonance from tradition is largely illusory. But there's something of the dialetics at work here that make working against (and with) tradition, however fruitlessly, a worthwhile endeavor for any text.

Pastiche is far easier, and what Arcanum modestly aims at.

I think you're short changing the difficulty of pastiche. Pastiche is no mere parody. And yes, pastiche generally suffers from pastiche for pastiche sake. But I don't see that happening in Arcanum (as perhaps happens more often in F02 for instance). I find Arcanum's use of pastiche typically meaningful (often in the form irony). I'm thinking of HT Parnell's museum of oddities, here, specifically. Although much more comes to mind.

But by tracing a lineage and character between the listed games I mean to suggest both a literary lineage (especially obvious in the case of Avellone's writings) which holds a common means of figuring the fantastic and the real, and also a common understanding of gaming's purpose expressed in narrative.

PS:T aiming for the sublime, while Arcanum sets the bar lower?

While I remain skeptical of notions of 'more' or 'less' literary

Skepticism is always healthy, but I think literariness is already transfixed within a more or less scale by its very nature. Some literature is just better than other literature--the reasons for our preferences is what's useful to explore, I think.

I feel we're at a semantic departure (and I know you'd rather just get back to thread's main task), but I want to follow this thread a bit further. I have the sense (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you'd place the sublime as literature's chief goal. I tend to value literature that attempts to get at the zeitgeist (yes another problematic term). Others view exigency as it's goal, but that's polemical/political notion. I think, and more important for writers than critics.

For me, the thing about PS:T is that the people that inhabit the story are special, they think big thoughts, live with epic tragedy, make bold choices. Their story doesn't typify the human experience it emboldens it. Makes it richer than it really is.

On the other hand,I feel the characterization and setting in Arcanum is much more typifying. It's not that characters are simply every-men, it's that their everymanness is presented with meaning and depth. Probably more than anything, it's the way that macrocosm (economy, spirituality, etc.) intersects with the microcosm (characters and quests) that makes me value Arcanum. For instance, Bates' labor dispute and his feud with Appleby. While there's an easy real-world allegory there, there's also a pretty deft handling of marxist themes. Arcanum rarely acts singularly, for every instance of parody, for every joke, there's often a character getting developed, a theme advanced, or world more convincingly built. Gilbert Bates is not just a Bill Gates counterpart, he's a lonely kid who made some greedy mistakes, an archetype of bourgeoisie sentiment, a beacon to the future, etc.

Sorry to derail the thread, I'm just always interested in articulating these kinds of ideas.

 

[Mystary!]

I was going to suggest the longest journey but someone already did. Don't let the first teen-movie sequence put you off, it gets more interesting the further you go.

 

[CrimHead]

I've played most of these games. None of them are QUITE like Torment, though.

To the poster above me: Yes I've played the Longest Journey. In between loads of insipid, meandering dialouge there's some genuine fun to be had with it, and two very cool settings. I liked Dreamfall better, though. I'm probably in the minority with that opinion though.

I played Lost Odyssey once when I was really bored. Beat it out of the compulsion I have to complete every game I play, whether good or bad. Shit was fail. Nothing like Torment. Never really drew the connection.

 

[Mystary!]

No ps:t is probably unique, but it's as close as it gets setting wise, with the whole hidden portal thingie and bizarre creatures. It's not our fault develepors aren't interested in making something similiar

 

[Konjad]

I want them to finish it!!!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Is there any serious work going on with Purgatio these days? Been a long time since I heard anything about it.

To be honest, I'm highly skeptical of the ability of indies to produce that kind of game. Notice how everyone keeps raving about how cool the yet-to-be-released indie projects look, and how few of them then like the indie games that have actually made it to release? I'm a huge fan of the Geneforge games, and I intend to buy the Eschalon ones at some stage, but most folks here seem to hate Eschalon and can't get past Geneforge's graphics. Yes, Prelude to Darkness was apparently good, but it doesn't work for lots of people (including my current and previous computers), and it isn't a PS:T style game in any event. Maybe AoD will be different, but there's a really low hit rate for indies when it comes to making crpgs.

I've almost resigned myself to accepting that there will never be another crpg like PS:T. Having said that, if you like the story-driven stuff then The Witcher deserves an honourable mention. Just don't get put off by the early stuff in the village - it gets much more open from there. It isn't groundbreaking thematically, but it has a really nice ambiguity at times - though it often isn't signposted in that its easy to miss a lot of the evidence showing that a choice isn't as black and white as it may seem.

 

[xantrius]

Is there any serious work going on with Purgatio these days? Been a long time since I heard anything about it.

Yes there is, but after it changed teams, way back it has turned into a generic planescape game, an seen out from the demo showcase, anyway that's the impression I have of it, and have more or less lost interest, but meh, I just found the games alleged direction and framework more interesting with the initial team.

 

[Jaesun]

Did anyone play Lost Odyssey? I read about it before it came out but never bothered to play it. You play as an immortal but for some stupid reason you have to reload if your entire party loses a battle. That sort of turned me off ever playing the game. But the setup reminded me a lot of Torment. If you're a storyfag it might be decent.

"The player takes control of Kaim, a man who has lived for a thousand years and who has no memory of his past. The game is set in a world nearing a "magical industrial revolution." Kaim struggles with the return of his memories and the pain they bring."

I played it an enjoyed it actually. The story isn't bad, it was ok (for a jRPG). And has turned based combat.

It however is no where near a game where the world is so interesting and fun to explore as say Planescape or The Longest Journey.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Are you guys literature students or something like that?

 

[Admiral jimbob]

And has turned based combat.

Isn't it standard JRPG synchronised line-dancing? Why is that praiseworthy?

 

[Jaesun]

And has turned based combat.

Isn't it standard JRPG synchronised line-dancing? Why is that praiseworthy?

It was enjoyable jRPG turned based combat, with the addition of the whole "Pull the trigger at the right time" to do extra damage. And the story wasn't half bad, for a jRPG. I honestly enjoyed this game. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Definately MotB. When you here Gann first tell you his story, you can spot Avellone's PST style right from the bat.

 

[Pseudofool]

Are you guys literature students or something like that?

I'm done being a student. I imagine the Oscure Childe is as well.

 

[Satori (original)]

Have a go at Bad Mojo, a game which, loosely based on Kafka's Metamorphosis, is about you being a turned into a cockroach and is about the personal relation ship between Eddie and Roger as opposed to anything else; and importantly, like PST, is a personal story, not a story with which characters are a byproduct of the story.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Ps. Not interested in interactive japfaggotry.

That's a shame, because Xenogears has the best video game story ever made.

As for other games, Deus Ex also springs to mind.

Are you fucking serious? Xenogears is shit shit shit. Like, across the board.

You sir, are a faggot.

Got anything to add, or were you just hoping to get by with "lol jrpgs - shit?"

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't know, Dicks. I played until 3/4 of the first CD (turns out you can get stuck if you save after chossing to kill that suspect repair robot before the mecha boss rush vs Drive-enraged Elly and her strike team, becuase you can't go back and grind) and didn't find any story to speak of, just the old "evil empire is after ancient powerful things".

edit: Ah, found it (jump to 4:40)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojpysoseLf0

And I heard the 2nd CD isn't liked because it was rushed because the developers were busy with FF or something like that.

 

[Forest Dweller]

I don't know, Dicks. I played until 3/4 of the first CD (turns out you can get stuck if you save after chossing to kill that suspect repair robot before the mecha boss rush vs Drive-enraged Elly and her strike team, becuase you can't go back and grind)

Are you saying you ran into a battle you couldn't beat?

and didn't find any story to speak of, just the old "evil empire is after ancient powerful things".

It becomes a lot more than that. You should have kept with it.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Are you saying you ran into a battle you couldn't beat?

More or less, the problem is that I killed the suspicious repair dude and he didn't respawn when I loaded the save. And since the mecha doesn't have healing, I couldn't get past the boss rush, because the game didn't let me go back and prepare myself. The fight itself isn't actually hard, it just requires bruteforcing your way with lots of HP and fuel. I could get past the strike team guys with more or less half HP and fuel, but eventually Elly killed me.

Granted, you could say it's my fault for killing him and saving, but I didn't know a boss rush was coming next.

 

[Unradscorpion]

Ah, hipsters having "meaningful" conversations. I guess a bit of diversity can't hurt.

 

[Oscure Childe]

Realistically, probably not. But ideally? Certainly.

Would you consider yourself a Platonist, then?

It's a semantical point, but I'm not sure I understand nuance to mean anything beyond a subtle distinction.

It is a semantic distinction, but then we have already established my fastidiousness. Nuance is defined also as shades of meaning. An implied disregard for meaning and the use of the word nuance are dissonant already!

I think this is getting closer to where there might be actual conflict in our POVs. Of course tradition is the ubiquitous, ever-changing phenomenon, and I agree that dissonance isn't created easily, in fact, any dissonance from tradition is largely illusory. But there's something of the dialetics at work here that make working against (and with) tradition, however fruitlessly, a worthwhile endeavor for any text.

Against which traditions? How have they become prominent? How were these traditions (as all traditions are) constructed? Is a dialectical relation 'enough'? It seems to me that we are discussing the elision of tradition and canon. It's also worth pointing out that not all art resigns itself to a contingency with tradition and aims for a contigency with novel futurity (however fruitless this aim may be), and the various positionings in this regard were some of the dominant questions of the twentieth century.

I think you're short changing the difficulty of pastiche. Pastiche is no mere parody. And yes, pastiche generally suffers from pastiche for pastiche sake. But I don't see that happening in Arcanum (as perhaps happens more often in F02 for instance). I find Arcanum's use of pastiche typically meaningful (often in the form irony). I'm thinking of HT Parnell's museum of oddities, here, specifically. Although much more comes to mind.

The various literature and histories in the game as well, especially some of the anthropological 'texts' and the manual itself. Pastiche and parody are not congruent, though they share many traits. Even facile parody can be difficult to erect. I'd agree that both Arcanum and FO1 use pastiche very purposefully (certainly more purposefully than any of the Fallout sequels), but that this pastiche constitutes an unvarying entirety in a fashion entirely distinct from Planescape's textured pluralities. This is most obvious in the NPC dialogues, of course. Ultimately, the pair are heavily reliant on initial conceits that see limited growth and implementation.

PS:T aiming for the sublime, while Arcanum sets the bar lower?

Hardly, sir. Planescape has very fixed aims with regards to player cognizance that initially take into account many of the conclusions Arcanum stretches along its entire length. Arcanum's discourse of player involvement is limited and static in comparison. The few ironies it dispenses unevenly sustain very little.

Skepticism is always healthy, but I think literariness is already transfixed within a more or less scale by its very nature. Some literature is just better than other literature--the reasons for our preferences is what's useful to explore, I think.

Sure.

I feel we're at a semantic departure (and I know you'd rather just get back to thread's main task), but I want to follow this thread a bit further. I have the sense (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you'd place the sublime as literature's chief goal. I tend to value literature that attempts to get at the zeitgeist (yes another problematic term). Others view exigency as it's goal, but that's polemical/political notion. I think, and more important for writers than critics.

I have great affection for the humanist character of the sublime, but finding a literary sublime in gaming was more the goal of the original post.

For me, the thing about PS:T is that the people that inhabit the story are special, they think big thoughts, live with epic tragedy, make bold choices. Their story doesn't typify the human experience it emboldens it. Makes it richer than it really is.

The foul smelling story teller certainly is, with his intricate and prophetic narratives. The woman prying nails from boards a few feet away is less so.

On the other hand,I feel the characterization and setting in Arcanum is much more typifying. It's not that characters are simply every-men, it's that their everymanness is presented with meaning and depth. Probably more than anything, it's the way that macrocosm (economy, spirituality, etc.) intersects with the microcosm (characters and quests) that makes me value Arcanum. For instance, Bates' labor dispute and his feud with Appleby. While there's an easy real-world allegory there, there's also a pretty deft handling of marxist themes. Arcanum rarely acts singularly, for every instance of parody, for every joke, there's often a character getting developed, a theme advanced, or world more convincingly built. Gilbert Bates is not just a Bill Gates counterpart, he's a lonely kid who made some greedy mistakes, an archetype of bourgeoisie sentiment, a beacon to the future, etc.
Sorry to derail the thread, I'm just always interested in articulating these kinds of ideas.

It seems like you're coming from a cultural studies perspective, which is cool. And your description of socioeconomic complexity in Arcanum is astute. Arcanum always struck me as a biting deconstruction of Tolkien and an attempt to (rightly) reveal how reactionary his understandings of race, history, fantasy, and 'great men' really were, and continue to be in his descendants. However, I feel that Planescape: Torment moves beyond creating a object for critical perusal, and attempts to critically craft a humanizing role for the player and for fantasy.

Are you guys literature students or something like that?

I'm done being a student. I imagine the Oscure Childe is as well.

Not quite, actually. I'm finishing my undergraduate degree.

Also, for those interested in Purgatorio, the NWN2 Planescape mod, the developers have released a version more recent than Oct 2008. Crimhead, you may like to review ghostdog's Dark Earth LP, or Brother None's Sanitarium LP (neither has yet been finished, I think?).

 

[Forest Dweller]

Are you saying you ran into a battle you couldn't beat?

More or less, the problem is that I killed the suspicious repair dude and he didn't respawn when I loaded the save. And since the mecha doesn't have healing, I couldn't get past the boss rush, because the game didn't let me go back and prepare myself. The fight itself isn't actually hard, it just requires bruteforcing your way with lots of HP and fuel. I could get past the strike team guys with more or less half HP and fuel, but eventually Elly killed me.

Granted, you could say it's my fault for killing him and saving, but I didn't know a boss rush was coming next.

Well, I can't recall being able to kill a repair man (or any choices for that matter) but I guess I'll take your word. Was there nowhere else you could go? Did you have Fix Frame yet?

Oh, and if you were fighting Elly, that's pretty early in the game. I'd say about 1/4 into the first disc.