Planescape: Torment Gets A Facelift

A series of mods for the classic RPG Planescape: Torment has been released, giving both RPG veterans and gaming newcomers a good reason to take a look at one of the finest games ever made.

Posted at Spellhold Studios, the latest versions of "Qwinn's PS:T mods" enhance and fix the game and also add significant amounts of content that was unfinished when the game originally launched, including quests, characters, items and banter. The first mod, the Planetscape: Torment Fixpack is an update that fixes "literally hundreds of bugs and thousands of typos, thereby restoring a lot of lost and inactive content." Changes range from small errors in spelling and grammar to wholesale modifications to items like Dak'kon's Zerth blade and even entire areas like the Tenement of Thieves that cause them to function more like they were originally intended to.

The second mod, called Planescape: Torment Unfinished Business, restores the "not-quite-finished" content that shipped with the game, polishing and completing it so it can be fully integrated into game world. All-new citizens, characters, items and even complete quests that were contained in the code but not available in the final game have been brought to life in 18 different components.

Qwinn's Planescape: Torment Tweaks, the final mod in the set, adds "ease of use" tweaks to the game, including some improvements to gameplay mechanics, user-selectable settings for maximizing hit points during level-ups, a banter accelerator that lets players experience all 78 fully-voiced banters that shipped with the game (rather than the dozen or you'd normally hear), some outright cheats and more.

Developed by Black Isle Studios using BioWare's Infinity Engine, Planescape: Torment made use of an unfamiliar D&D setting, came packaged in one of the ugliest game boxes ever conceived and, perhaps unsurprisingly, tanked horribly. Yet the game itself was, and is, one of the finest fantasy RPGs ever created, earning near-universal praise from critics and worshipful adoration from those who have actually played it. Ten years later, despite being the weird little brother of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, it remains a high-water mark for computer RPGs.

The only downside to these mods, according to GameCyte, is that they won't work with the GameTap version of the game. Forget about eBay unless you're a recent lottery winner, as the few copies available there are selling for around the $100 mark. A jewel case release made the rounds a few years ago and is likely still available with some hunting, or if you have any old-school gaming friends with good taste in what they play you can always take the "mooch and play" route. It's an effort worth making for any RPG fan.

Download links for for Qwinn's PS:T mods, along with a full list of fixes and updates, are available here.

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Holy S***, my copy of Planescape: Torment is worth a hundred bucks???

On another note, is it cool if we start establishing that not playing this game is the equivalent of some cultural standard? I dunno...like a book everyone should probably have read at some point if they want to claim they like books. It's on GameTap now...

*Rapidly dusts off his old copy* Mods you say? Now is as good a time to replay as any.

just a few months back i was looking for stuff like this. Well at least its here now.

I keep yelling hoping someone hears this but....PUT THIS GAME ON GOG.COM!

This is great - I'll try installing this tomorrow. Just have to find my copy - I know it's around here somewhere.

I wonder if this also includes the resolution tweaks for other Infinity Engine games that went around a few months ago. I'd love for the game to also run at 1680x1050 ;)

ElArabDeMagnifico:
I keep yelling hoping someone hears this but....PUT THIS GAME ON GOG.COM!

Yeah. I love the concept of GOG.com, but they don't really have anything I want to play (that I don't already own and have installed). The Interplay/Black Isle games would definitely get me interested.

L.B. Jeffries:

On another note, is it cool if we start establishing that not playing this game is the equivalent of some cultural standard?

Seconded, but if you've played both the Baldur's Gates, you can be considered semi-cool and be put on probation for cool status.

L.B. Jeffries:
Holy S***, my copy of Planescape: Torment is worth a hundred bucks???

On another note, is it cool if we start establishing that not playing this game is the equivalent of some cultural standard? I dunno...like a book everyone should probably have read at some point if they want to claim they like books. It's on GameTap now...

But you can't mod it if it's on Gametap. So that defeats the purpose, now don't it?

Virgil:
I wonder if this also includes the resolution tweaks for other Infinity Engine games that went around a few months ago. I'd love for the game to also run at 1680x1050 ;)

Checking the notes they dont seem too. However, http://www.gibberlings3.net/widescreen/ is a very good mod for resolution tweaking. Works on Buldars Gate and Icewind Dale games too :)

This is pure, rich, delicious awesomesauce.

Very cool. I'll have to give this a shot. Thanks for the info.

I immediately hit my CD graveyard to try and find the game discs.

All I have is disc 4.

Shit.

I'm all over this... As soon as I finish Fallout 2 :)

Suppose, torrent is justified in this case seeing how BIS is long dead and the game is very rare...

I always wanted to play this and pixel-rape is one of the things that always scared me. HD MODS HERE I COME!

You can't mod it if it's on a digital distribution service with DRM.

Your only hope is either to own it (I got the 3-pack with Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2 and PS:T <3), find a digital distribution service without DRM or to pirate it.

Anyway, you can just mount disk images if you got them - I made them from my packages ages ago - and the DRM won't bother you any further.

Also, seeing it's on SHS, get it *now*. SHS is known for it's bad stability and downright psychotic administrators.

... and I'm known as a SHS troll that has been around longer than any of the current admins and having been a moderator during the reign of the old ones, but so what? :P

xitel:

L.B. Jeffries:
Holy S***, my copy of Planescape: Torment is worth a hundred bucks???

On another note, is it cool if we start establishing that not playing this game is the equivalent of some cultural standard? I dunno...like a book everyone should probably have read at some point if they want to claim they like books. It's on GameTap now...

But you can't mod it if it's on Gametap. So that defeats the purpose, now don't it?

What? Fixed typos, unlocked grunts...looks like the game experience is still intact either way.

I should never have sold my copy. And I sure as heck didn't get $100 for it.

Ten YEARS?? They should give that game away for free.

Seeing as how I never finished this game .. way .. way back when .. but loved it .. this can only be good news. *goes to download mods after dusting off his old jewel-case*

HobbesMkii:
Ten YEARS?? They should give that game away for free.

Baldur's Gate 2 and the x-pac is on sale for $10 at the local store. I wish they would actually box a few of those old RPG classic in the same package. I would gladly pay $50 for Baldur's gate and Planescape again, considering I missed those, or rather, didn't feel like playing them years ago.

Praise be! Just when I was moping over getting nothing to play for christmas and being bored out of my mind I find out the best game ever has mods to make it even better.

This game was beyond awesome... I need to hunt down my old roommate that ran off with my copy. He still owes me rent money come to think of it...

Milkman Dan:
I should never have sold my copy. And I sure as heck didn't get $100 for it.

Wow, you did what?!?!

I found a 2-disc version of PST a few years ago at gametraders(not Robina) for $12, so i stuffed my old 4-disc edition in a postpak and mailed it to a friend*
time to dust off an old classic and revisit the glory days CRPG's

Urgh, it feels like i've been strained through somebody's bowels

*does this make me a pirate? i mean apart from the other stuff of course

L.B. Jeffries:
Holy S***, my copy of Planescape: Torment is worth a hundred bucks???

My thoughts as well--I still have the box and everything in very good used condition--no, it's not for sale, either, so don't ask! :p

Ten years doesn't seem like such a long time--but look how games have changed, not to mention the hardware we play them on. Amazing.

I think this baby's due for a replay soon -- especially with the addition of more mods. I'd play System Shock 2 as well, but I let a friend borrow it and I believe it was swallowed up by the unwholesome nature of his flat.

Perhaps a replay is due sometime in the future when I get the time...