Graphics

Bigger is better

The first thing that Baldur's Gate fans will notice is that the characters in Torment are pretty huge. They're about twice as large on screen as they are in BG as a matter of fact. This gives the animation artists a chance to really go to town on each character. Early indications are that players will definitely not be disappointed with how each of the individual characters look and how they move. You'll be immersed even more with your party (up to five) in Planescape and how they move about the beautiful 16 bit color(and non tiled!) map screens, which Kenn calls "the world's biggest sprites." Elaborating more on the non-tiled part, the playing surface in Planescape, as in Baldur's Gate, is not tiled as in most RPGs, giving every area a unique and fresh look. You've got your run of the place, and you're free to walk around as the lighting system accurately illuminates (or hides) the characters on the screen.

The Iron Maiden..I mean Golem

Now that is disturbing!

Other Tweaks

Another thing that's different in Planescape is that floating text is enabled. As you move your cursor around the screen, it can change into query mode when you run over an item or area of interest. Clicking will bring up a short description of what there is to see there. It's a nice feature and all but at some points it seems that too much text over top of the world can take away from the immersiveness of the game. We'll see if this useful aspect of the engine gets refined a bit to give the player more utility but at the same time not detract from the overall experience.

oooh! Floating text

The Washington Monument?