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| 11/18/99 | ||||||
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Well, all my art tasks are done. So I've spent the last couple of weeks testing our wet 'n wild game!
I tell you what peoples, I know I'm biased, but we got a pretty kick-ass game goin' here! Let's see, what should I mention first? How about interaction level? There are just so many interesting people (or creatures) to meet in the game. For example: there's this girl running around the Hive and, if you follow her, you can see that every time she gets near a door, she turns and runs away. If you talk to her about it, you find out that's she's deathly afraid of doors. See, in Planescape, any enclosed structure, whether a door-frame, a crate, even a mug of brew could be a portal to another dimension! She apparently, got sucked through a portal once and had a somewhat unpleasant experience, as you can see by the fact that she's missing body parts! Throughout your conversation with her, you constantly hear her teeth chattering. You figure she's just scared, but on closer examination, you notice that her teeth are actually moving independently of her mouth! Creepy! And the level of response from your character is sweet! You may have a total of eight responses at times. Two of which achieve the same result. However, one might be "Thank you for your time, I know how busy you are." And the other "That's enough. I don't need any more information from you!" It doesn't change the results much, but it allows you to further play your character in the direction you want him to go! On the other hand, you may be able to offer aid to someone. You can say (for example) "I'll help you hide from the city guards", or "I'll talk to the guards and see if they'll let you off, legally" or "I can help you, for a price." Guess what, folks. Choices like these can and will affect your alignment! You can do good things in a chaotic way; or Evil things, while following the laws of the land. And it's not always black and white as to which choice is which. I've had times where I had to hurt someone no matter what choice I made! There is also another form of interaction that was surprising to me. The amount of discussion you can have with fellow party members, while they're IN your Party! You can talk to Annah about her friends, her past, her skills. You can talk to Fall-From-Grace about how she Feels about other party members, including you, how she thinks they feel about her, how you feel about her, etc.! You can have members teach you skills! Talk about they're own special talents! Even gain experience from this knowledge! And this information changes throughout the game! These people really feel alive! To add one more level to that, people that you meet will acknowledge different party members, sometimes ignoring you in favor of them. Talk to a githzerai townsperson. Doesn't say much. Now, talk to him/her with Dak'kon in your party. If you can get a word in between them, you might get some valuable information! The amount of sound in the game is righteous too. There seems to be layer upon layer of ambient sounds. For example, in a place called the Smoldering Corpse Bar, You hear tons of voices coming from all over the bar. As you pan the screen around, (or move towards areas of the bar) you can hear more sinister voices near a table full of fiends, laughter, and discussion over by the warriors, and the sound of flames near the big furnace in the front! That's one area! Ok, ok, I know I sound like a total fan-boy here; obviously, I'm going to dig the game. You can't put so much work into something and not feel partial to it. Honestly, though, I'm very impressed with the level of character development and depth of story that Chris, Colin, Dave, and the other designers have put into this. Did I mention, you can meet a woman who offers you money for the experience of allowing her to KILL YOU?? Then there are the memories. You never know when one of the ghosts from your past will appear in your head. You might be watching someone dice tomatoes and BAM! You remember being a gourmet chef! (Or something like that) You might remember treating someone like total crap, once, and relive all the pain and sadness you caused him or her. Well, I've yacked enough for today, Late,
Scampy
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