There cannot be two skies

So Planescape: Torment is probably the best game ever written. An RPG crafted with obvious love and care, set in an utterly unique and wonderful world that to my knowledge has never been recreated since. Though it plays like a traditional isometric RPG - it is from 1998 after all - there hasn't been a game before or since with the intellectual depth, or that dared to leave so much of its plot unexplained. This is not the kind of game where you will visit everywhere you hear about, or understand every riddle and question - what you get out of PS:T is what you put into it.

The initial plot is somewhat cliched - the Hero With Amnesia - but with the twist that your character, The Nameless One, is immortal. Hundreds of lives stretch out behind you, each ending with death, and rebirth on a mortuary slab. Finding out who you are and tracking down who killed you leads you on a tremendously ambitious journey from Sigil, a city where every door could be a portal to another world, to lands where reality is so weak that it can be swayed by belief alone. Playing a pre-built character has huge advantages over games that give you more freedom, not least because it allows the writers to truly embed The Nameless One in the world he inhabits. You've lived and died for a long time, so don't be surprised when echoes of your past lives come back to haunt you - you've been everything from a virtual messiah to an insane tyrant and the game world bears the scars you've given it. Winding its way through your journey of self-discovery is a persistent and seemingly-vital question that will likely have you scratching your head for weeks after completing the game: "what can change the nature of a man?"

The Planescape setting is jammed with evocative and original ideas and blessed with a happy-go-lucky approach to realism. Unlike other fantasy RPGs it isn't afraid to recognise that a fantasy settings means you can do anything. So yeah, Sigil is a giant torus-shaped city floating above an infinitely-tall spire, there are factions who believe ascension to godhood is a matter of self-belief (who knows, they may be right) and there are planes of existence formed entirely of shapeless, ever-changing energies that can only be given form by a sufficiently disciplined mind. The level of detail is mind-boggling, the imagination frankly astounding. I guarantee you will not have encountered anything like this before.

Artist's impression of Sigil (ever tried to draw an infinitely-tall spire?)

There really isn't much I can say without spoiling the magnificent plot (don't go on Wikipedia either, it lays it all out there) so I've come up with a list of some of the random things I love about it. I've stopped at six because the more I think about it, the more I have to add and I don't want to spend all evening talking about it - frankly, now I just want to play it.


1) The chant, cutter. One of the things I love most about PS:T is its refusal to throw you a bone. The new player starts off just as disorientated and confused as The Nameless One, not least because everyone speaks in thick slang; you'll have to explore and talk to people to get the dark of rattling your bonebox in Sigil. Immersive doesn't even cover it.

2) Ravel Puzzlewell. A complex and intriguing character, Ravel plays a huge role in your quest for your identity, and your past. Aside from the wonderful writing, the meshing of humanity and plantlife in her character goes beyond the obvious - her personality twists through the planes like a giant tree, branches reaching out and flowering in all sorts of unexpected places. One of the great, morally-ambiguous characters of fantasy fiction.

3) The Circle of Zerthimon. This curious item, carried by one of your potential companions is well worth investigating if you have sufficient intelligence and wisdom. For me, it represents everything that is different and unique about PS:T. Here, the fluff isn't just something you collect as you go along (as in Dragon Age, Mass Effect etc) but is an intrinsic part of the experience - your character's personal development is tied up in the study and comprehension of an incredibly-detailed philosophical system that reflects on ideas of self-knowledge and discipline.

4) Companions. No elves, dwarves or any of that bullshit. Instead, you will undoubtedly find yourself assisted by mutant tiefling thieves, flame-addled sorcerors, a reformed succubus, a clockwork robot, floating skulls and the ghost of a lawman bound into his armour by the strength of his resolve to dispense justice, to name but a few. Very few RPGs have managed to so deftly sidestep fantasy cliches as easily as PS:T. The whole Modron Maze section of the game is a perfectly-pitched parody of all the things that drive most people away from D&D and other fantasy licenses.

5) The Blood War. An eternal conflict waged between demons and devils over the correct approach to evil: gibbering hordes of insane demons clamouring for an orgy of chaos and destruction on one side, ordered and tidy-minded (but no less cruel) devils campaigning for the disciplined sadism of a classical hell on the other. Think Mephistopheles versus the things from Doom. On the edges, the rest of the planes nervously hedging their bets and hoping that neither side wins out - because then they'll really be in trouble. I personally love the idea of the Blood War but it is woven so carefully into the game that you feel its impact and its importance even though you never directly experience it. A lesser game would have thrown you in at some point and had you fighting in it, but then this isn't an ordinary game.

6) Adahn the Imagined. Though you could probably find out about him on the Internet in seconds, you'll have more fun if you discover him for yourself. Just be aware of the particular metaphysics of the Planescape setting and pay attention when people talk to you about belief and willpower.

2D game world, 3D character development

Torment is a gaming experience without equal, regardless of how you feel about the admittedly out-of-date graphics and the mundane nature of in-game combat. This game isn't about hacking and slashing, but instead is a thoughtful, adult take on role-playing games shot through with dark humour and a beating philosophical heart. I've been playing it for over a decade and I am literally still just realising things about the story, working out plot points, and pondering some of its questions. PS:T has just been re-released and you can get hold of it on Amazon - I guarantee that this is a better Christmas present than that DVD you were thinking of asking for. With the new widescreen mod, which shows off the beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds of the game at larger resolutions, and the various fix packs and tweak mods that re-insert cut content there hasn't been a better time in years.

They don't make them like this any more, and it's a damn shame.

Sigil's ruler, the Lady of Pain. Don't worship her, or piss her off. She will fuck you right up.

Protest narrative

The papers this morning are full of screaming headlines about student mobs and rioting and - of course - numerous pictures of students committing outrage after outrage against National Treasures (tm) like Charles & Camilla, the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square etc. I would have some sympathy for their point were it not so cynically put together.

Anyone who has been to a protest in the last few years can't have failed to notice that "kettling" is a bit controversial. Certainly anyone who's faced a line of bobbies who won't let people leave the protest zone, provide any kind of facilities or in fact do anything to defuse rising tension until it breaks out into violence will know what I mean.

You try not to be too conspiracy-theorist about this kind of thing, for fear of being put with the rent-a-mob anarchists who *always* turn up to protests with their faces covered like they're some freedom fighting heroes instead of middle-class kids with a GCSE-level understanding of politics. Nonetheless, this morning when I look at the pictures doing the rounds in the papers I have to wonder - why aren't any of them mentioning the fact that students were kettled in Parliament Square most of the night without toilet facilities when they bring up the urinating on statues thing? What do you expect them to do, piss themselves? Come to that, why did the police abandon a van in the middle of the kettled area in the first protest? Why, when every wannabe political reporter - regardless of whether they were there or not - gets to have their say in an editorial, are there no stories discussing the twitter postings from people actually in the protests, many of which allege police brutality? Why is the discussion all about students pulling a mounted riot police officer off his horse rather than the appropriateness of charging students and schoolchildren with horses in the first place? The Mail has even whipped itself into a frenzy about it, asking rhetorically "what kind of sick mind would do this to a horse?" I think when you're being charged by a police horse, all bets are off frankly.

Most terrifyingly of all, we're being told with deadpan seriousness all over the news that the students were jolly lucky not to have been shot while they were mobbing Charles and Camilla's car. Personally I find it far more worrying that we're supposed to be grateful that these taxpayer-funded security guards didn't fire wildly into a crowd of teenagers or that, in fact, they showed commendable restraint. "If they were throwing petrol bombs, we could have had a serious tragedy here" one talking head sagely threw in on the lunchtime news. Yes, probably, but they were throwing paint. Paint. Dial it down a bit, mate.

Whether or not the violence was justified, or at least understandable, is another issue and not something I want to write about until the dust is settled a bit. I think it's worth asking some questions about coverage while the iron is hot though, because as time goes by the specifics will fade and be replaced with the standard narrative for all of these protests: "student violence".