For what it's worth, I'm a guy that likes some action and story mixed equally. ( Unless its an online shooter or role playing game like Unreal Tourney or Ultima Online ). But you are obviously looking at the single player aspect. As far as Planescape went, I really liked it and still do think it is beautiful and well wrought. Therefore I have respect for the game and will give it props. But the volume of text you have to read is just too damn much. I found myself sitting talking to the same NPC for nearly half an hour sometimes, depending on if you want to explore everything they have to say and get all the memory regeneration bonuses and abilities. In essence, Planescape is like a novel ( there is THAT much reading it seems ) and your standard dungeon crawler ( all I remember is walking around whacking things with the nameless one's axe when I wasn't reading pages of NPC speech ). So to cut this short, I got sick of all the reading. If I wanted that much text in my face I'd go read my copy of Moby Dick again. I buy games to get involved and "DO" something.
Now Wizards and Warriors is a different animal. Sure, Junker has a point about WW's shallow story, but it isn't as bad as he said. It's actually done well in my opinion. It gives you just enough to keep the imagination going, while still giving you a general sense of purpose where you need it. You have to remember that WW places alot of emphasis on adventure and exploration, so there isn't going to be this drawn out theater style story sequence that tells you everything,including the feelings of every character involved with visual aids and diagrams and all the trimmings you get with PST.
Basically, if Torment could actually talk it would talk your ear off about conflict and setting and character emotions and what everyone looks/smells like-right down to the pimple on a characters buttocks, then you get to kill a bad guy or ten. If WW could talk, it would say get me that damn shiny holy thingy from the evil place for x reason, and send you on your way to visceral battle as you search out the item/clear the dungeon/kill the bad guy/etc.
Depends on what you want out of your Role Playing Game. Personally I like WW more because it cuts to the action and the character development-in my opinion- is funner than PST. Did you know that your main char in PST gets no armor throughout that whole game and that you cant outfit your other characters? I like to have complete control over my char's look, name, gear, everything! Planescape doesn't allow that level of character customization, although the game touts itself as the best char developing game around. So basically expect only reading and some killing from Planescape with some moderate puzzles to solve. WW provides deep adventure and explorations, exotic locales ( haunted shurugeon castle is cool ) and I love the battles.
But hey, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong ( Dennis Miller closing )
|