Others say...

"One of my favorite RPG's"
Even though this game is many years old, it is still among my favorite RPG's. It is truly an example of substance over style. While it doesn't have flashy graphics and sound effects that one expects from games circa 2006, it makes up for this with a unique and deep plotline.

In a nutshell, you play a character who wakes up in a mortuary without any memory. You must explore your world in order to piece together who you are. Learning about yourself is like peeling back the layers of an onion; every new fact you learn creates new mysteries for you to explore.
Along the way, you meet a group of travelers each with their own complex backstory which only adds to the intrigue.

The other thing to mention is that, even though the game nominally uses the D&D-style RPG system, the game itself in no way resembles anything dungeony or dragony. The world in which the game is set is totally unique, but it obeys rules which are internally consistent within the parameters laid down by the game designers. The depth of the setting and the attention to details really brings this world to life.

There are some of your typical "dungeon crawls" and "messenger quests", but much of the plot is advanced through conversations with various characters. This is one of the few D&D-style RPG's where traits like Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma are actually more valuable than Strength and Dexterity. You can accumulate a lot of experience through conversation. If you like slasher-type games, though, this may not be to your liking.

The other thing is that you have a lot of control over character development. You have the ability to evolve the character's profession, stats, and even alignment as the game develops. Alignment is based upon the choices that you make in the game, which is pretty cool, and much more realistic than other games.

Overall, this is a very unique and enjoyable game that takes a more cerebral approach to RPG's.

"Best dialog I've ever seen"
This game have by far the best dialog I've ever seen in a game period. You can tell the devs thought out almost every option you might want to say to anyone in the game. You can even have conversations with your party members and learn more about them. The combat is fairly tactical, but it's no Fallout. Combat overall is good, but not the strength of this game. The story, characters and atmosphere are near perfect. If you are into more than slashing beasties, and are interested in depth, buy it.

"Brilliant story, but with a few serious flaws"
Let me say, first off, that this is without question the most absorbing, immersive computer game I've ever played. It's very close to being my favorite game of all time, but it has a few nasty flaws that keep it from being as amazing as it probably should be.

Torment allows you to make real choices about your character's personality.The player has the same freedom of choice in conversation that they do in Fallout, but with greater complexity befitting a later, more advanced game. The Nameless One's alignment (moral character and ideology, for those not familiar with Dungeons and Dragons) begins as neutral, and goes in the direction of good or evil, law or chaos, based upon the player's actions and decisions. This is a real breath of fresh air after Baldur's Gate 2's ludicrous 'choose an alignment at the beginning of the game and stick to it or lose experience' system. There's room for real character development here, and as such a real sense of involvement with the Nameless One.

The other characters are very deep and complex as well, and almost universally have their own agendas. Even the most trustworthy have something to hide, and one really gets the sense that these are people, characters with depth. The story, for its part, is fascinating, sophisticated and dark. If I were to say more, I fear I'd give away something, and this game has some very interesting twists and turns.

The combat is simple but fun. It's a lot easier to get into than the gameplay in the Baldur's Gate series, but also less interesting to master. The dialogue is where the real meat of this game is located, so players who are interested in RPGs for the battle tactics may be disappointed. On a related note, the six character attributes are much better balanced than in Baldur's Gate. Unlike Baldur's Gate, intelligence, wisdom and charisma are not useless dead weight. Instead, they are critically important in dialogue and various special encounters. If anything, they're a little over-powered, but they're still much closer to fallout's well-balanced attributes than Baldur's Gate's are.

Unfortunately, this game isn't all wine and roses. It suffers one serious flaw in its gameplay: combat is far, far too easy. As I've said, combat isn't the main focus of the game, but it's still kind of disappointing to be taking apart abishai (powerful lesser devils) easily with my low-level party. Even without taking your immortality and ability to raise the dead into consideration, the combat is still too easy, even with a diplomacy-focused character.

Also, despite the amount of choice given to you as to the development of your character, the game is actually rather linear. You can do a lot of interesting things on the side, and make the nameless one into a sadistic monster, a saint, or anywhere in between, but the basic thread of the story remains the same. Of course, this may not be a problem for some, but I still found it a bit disappointing.

The game's last major weakness is the last third or so. With the exception of the final dungeon, it feels very unfinished. The areas you go through have nowhere near the number of interesting characters or sidequests. There's very little new information to learn about your companions, especially compared to the wealth of information available in the early game. Certain characters have huge amounts of hints and foreshadowing surrounding them, then go nowhere. And the stages of the main quest all start looking pretty similar, too. Every time you talk to an NPC who is supposed to be the be-all-and-end-all fount of knowledge about your past, they send you on to someone else.

I may sound a bit harsh here, but I really do love this game. It's just that it's easier to talk about the faults without giving too much of the story away than it is to talk about how brilliant it is. I urge you, though, discover the latter for yourself.

"What can change the nature of a man?"
This is one of the best CRPGs ever made. It's great plot is undoubtedly the best plot ever been in a computer game, challenged only by Fallout 2.

In the game, you play as The Nameless One, an unfortunate person who woke up one day in the mortuary and have lost all of his memories. You have no idea who you are, and what were you in the past incarnations. As the game moves on, you discover more and more about your questionable past. The plot could be a top notch movie or book.

Although you can be a thief, mage or fighter, the game clearly pushes you to be a mage with high non-combat stats: charisma, intelligence and wisdom. The combats in the game are few, and since you are immortal, death is not an issue.

If you choose to play this game, I'll have to warn you that you will not be able to leave the computer until you finish it. Use at your own risk.

"SUPER NICE GAME!"
I loved this game!
I played it about 4 years ago. Black Isle strikes again
with a fantastic game ...

You can only play one character (the nameless one) but he is
super cool. He NEVER dies! lol ... well he can but then he gets back up again and ready to fight again. So, you can't actually get killed for good in this game.

You can join up with several NPC's, one being a floating skull
named, Morte. He is very cool to have around and is very powerful in high levels. There is even a somewhat romance for
the main character ... she's got a tail (laughs) and she is very neat to have around.

The graphics are superb, the storyline is one of the best I've seen and the combat system I just loved. Very easy to use controls and has dungeon crawl galore.

It's been awhile since I actually played it, but if I remember right, you can play 3 different classes. A fighter, a thief or a mage. The fighter class is by far the best one to go with.

You basically start out in a dungeon, lying on a hospital table, and then are greeted by Morte who will help you get started with how the game works, your fighting, journal, etc. He will then join up with you and help you escape the place. There is much to do right from the beginning, trying to escape. I don't wanna give away too much, because it is a very awesome storyline.
I will add however, as the story unfolds your character finds out more about himself. Why is is there and what lies ahead for him. It's hard to explain, but I am sure you will love it.

Give it a try, you will not regret it.

Also has a nice modding community on sorcerers.net.

BUY AND PLAY THIS GAME!

Ciao.