Waking up in a dark mortuary, "The Nameless One" finds himself a complete mess. He is immortal, which under most circumstances would be something to be happy about. The real problem is that he has no memory of what he was, and who had sent him to this mortuary of the dead. The Nameless One's mission is to find out who he is, and what is going on.

While many of the main story elements do have some cinematics, most of it is presented in wonderful text. I am not being sarcastic at all, sometimes things can just be presented better in written form. All the little details and personality quirks of characters are represented so well in the written dialog that I am happy they decided to just stick with this story telling device rather than trying to expand where they didn't need to.

I don't know if I can stress how deep the story, let alone the universe Torment takes place in, is. The concepts used in the story, and shared by this universe are so different, that it actually takes a few minutes to get a grasp of how things work. Throughout the town of Sigil are invisible locked portals, which can be unlocked by anything. When I say 'anything', I mean the potential key for the locked portal can be ANYTHING. A spoon or a pile of junk, it is all the same to space/time. As you meet the inhabitants of this town you will find people who are completely lost, and are so frantic about their situation they have nearly gone mad.

Not only is this universe deep in the sense of the character's surrounding environment, but there is actually a sort of sub-culture in Sigil. Some allies follow practices that follow some rather complex philosophies, and they are sometimes available to teach it to the player. The advantage to learning new ideas and practices, the player is often rewarded with new abilities, or experience points. There is a lot to get the player absorbed in Torment, and that is a level of detail that more RPGs need to try and attain.

I had expected an extremely dark setting for this title, since it seemed to have so much to do with death. Which is the main reason I was completely caught off guard by The Nameless One's sidekick, which is a smart talking floating skull. His wit is sharp but he is also a constant aide in helping the player unravel the many mysteries that make up this little corner of the universe. Not only can this guy talk, but he is also a fighter that can carry his own weight. This is mostly because he has a list of resistances as long as my arm. This proficiency has a fighter allows your sidekick to stick with you through even some of the toughest situation. As confusing as this universe can be, a person needs all the help they can get.

The atmosphere of the rest of the title is appropriately peppered with enough variety to keep most RPG gamers happy. While there are many characters like the two heroes at the beginning of the title, there are many others with their own personality types. The player must carefully deal with all of these NPCs since the main character's characteristics are shaped by how NPCs are dealt with. The games dialogue must also be carefully navigated, as a wrong attitude could lock out a possible quest or just get the party into a nasty fight they can't handle.

The visuals are still some of the best I have seen. The attention to Sigil's pre-rendered cityscape is a testament to the town's inhabitants as well as their culture. While the town is sectioned off into areas that are rather easy for a person to memorize, it manages to capture the sense of chaos. The building's designs are chaotic, and the way people behave, and how things are arranged just keeps this town so in sync with the universe it sits in. The Planescape universe is just bizarre, and a person should never expect to understand how things work completely.

Another difference between Torment and Baldur's Gate, is Torment's focus on quests. While quests used to be something that could be done by the player on the side, Torment has made them almost the main focus of the title. Interaction with the citizens of Sigil is key to actually gaining levels and getting anywhere. The quests are not completely linear either, there are some quests that can gain you more than one bonus in experience and money, as well as open new quests or gain friends. The player's actions are important when trying to find a quest. During conversations with NPC's it is not uncommon to lock out a quest completely, or even open up a new one that wasn't there before. While I suspect a person could level up solely by running around Sigil killing NPC's, the process would be an extremely long one.

The technical systems used during the actual gameplay should be quite familiar to Baldur's Gate fans. At any point during a battle the player can stop the action and organize attacks and spells against they enemy; think of it as a selective turn-based battle system. When it comes to the smaller enemies, simple point and click actions will assign the selected characters to attack that enemy with their physical weapons. Spells can be copied to a book for future use, and memorized at the player's discretion.

A lot of people have argued with me about the real value of EAX compared to simple 3D positional audio, and I think Torment's use of environmental audio is one of the better examples I could point out. Although it doesn't get as much of a reaction as maybe the sounds of System Shock 2, I think the sounds of this title accurately represent the sounds of a busy town, haunted catacombs, or noisy bars. While the ambient noises and sound effects are ever present, the music is somewhat lacking a solid performance. It occasionally picks up whenever a battle scene is about to take place, but for the most part it is a little forgettable.