Planescape: Torment, the undisputed heavy-weight champion of narrative-oriented CRPGs. You may have heard about it; you may even have played it. In Sigil, the "City of Doors", you won't find your sassy gang of adventurers on a casual stroll down the street. It's a world packed to the brim with grit and ugliness. It's impenetrable and rusty and decaying and it will eat you alive if you don't have the guts for it. As it happens, it is also in this exact setting that you will find a story like no other, companions like no other, and maybe even a few clues to the question of: what can change the nature of a man? On the technical side, the original Torment has not aged so well, the main reason being its fixed full-screen resolution of 640x480. To get the classic version approximately into high-def land, and to fix some of its other quirks left over from 1999, takes the application of a handful of mods and hacks. It makes sense how this approach appeals to some players, as it is not unlike how Sigil itself is maintained: a bunch of robed gremlins ("dabus") pounding on old structures with blunt tools. The good news is that Beamdog had a better idea: let's give this classic a modern overhaul. It's the same game with no in-game additions. They got (namedrop) Chris Avellone on board, had him tweak some text and approve bug-fixes and the new GUI, which pulls off the exact style of the original, only adapted for modern screens. The game has never looked better. My only real criticism is aimed at the default comical sprite outlines for in-game characters. This would have been a deal-breaker, had it not been toggleable in the new options menu. Since it can be switched off, it's a non-issue. Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition is worth your hard-earned jink. And if money is the issue, then update your journal by skipping your next planned trip to the grocery store. You will soon find that going hungry beats waking up on a slab in the mortuary and not knowing who you are.
