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It looks like StarCraft isn't the only classic PC game to be getting a remaster this year, as Planescape Torment is following suit. Created by the same team (Beamdog) who modernized Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition will be coming to PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. The remaster will feature 4K support, better graphics, and "updates" to the game's mechanics, done by the lead director of the original game, Chris Avellone. Other than that, the trailer is light on details and doesn't mention a release timeframe. The recently released Torment: Tides of Numenera is a spiritual successor to Planescape Torment, and if you're interested, you can read GBAtemp's official review of the game here.

 

[banzai200]

huh, and to think i still have a copy of the original game on one of my drawers
neat.

 

[MarkDarkness]

Hopefully they won't add subpar "new content" or a SJW "awesome expansion" like they did before... just remaster the game and release it, simple as that. Is long enough as it is.

 

[random_human_being_]

SJW "awesome expansion"

Uhm... what does that even mean?

 

[Minox]

Uhm... what does that even mean?

Beamdog made a new expansion for Baldur's Gate, a game they made a remastered edition of and said expansion was heavily criticised for pandering to SJW identity politics instead of attempting to make the new content fit the old universe.

 

[sloppycrap]

Uhm... what does that even mean?

It means "I'm a special snowflake and I don't want to believe people have opinions different from mine"

 

[tbb043]

Google baldur's gate sjw and you'll find more than you want on what people hope doesn't happen to PST or other "enhanced remakes"

 

[Foxi4]

...okay, take the IP, give it to inExile and come back in a few years. Don't f*ck with it, no stupid expansions, just give the game a fresh coat, that's all you need to do. Leave it to the professionals.

 

[kevin corms]

I hate the term remastered when it applies to video games, games were never mastered in the first place.

 

[random_human_being_]

Google baldur's gate sjw and you'll find more than you want on what people hope doesn't happen to PST or other "enhanced remakes"

I just did, and I still don't get it; I understand the authors of the Baldur's Gate remaster also made an additional expansion, which was poorly received, but I fail to see how you could blame some hypothetical SJWs for it: the only argument I've managed to find for it (repeated almost ad nauseam in every link I've found) is that some NPC mentions he's a transsexual, but if we went by that same logic Dark Souls and Chrono Trigger would have to be classified as "SJW games" as well.

 

[Foxi4]

I just did, and I still don't get it; I understand the authors of the Baldur's Gate remaster also made an additional expansion, which was poorly received, but I fail to see how you could blame some hypothetical SJWs for it: the only argument I've managed to find for it (repeated almost ad nauseam in every link I've found) is that some NPC mentions he's a transsexual, but if we went by that same logic Dark Souls and Chrono Trigger would have to be classified as "SJW games" as well.

It was a whole lecture about transgenderism that had nothing to do with the plot. You don't hear a lecture like that upon first meeting a person, it was out of character and clearly forced in to meet the diversity quota. The creators even criticised the original for being "sexist" and featuring "jokes at the expense of women", as if they're some kind of a protected class. People play games for entertainment, not because they want to hear patronising social commentary.

 

[random_human_being_]

It was a whole lecture about transgenderism that had nothing to do with the plot. You don't hear a lecture like that upon first meeting a person, it was out of character and clearly forced in to meet the diversity quota.

Are we both talking about this? I haven't played the expansion in question, but this is all I could find, and it hardly qualifies as a lecture (again, Dark Souls and Chrono Trigger both have far more prominent transgender characters, and I'm yet to see anyone complain about them).

The creators even criticised the original for being "sexist" and featuring "jokes at the expense of women", as if they're some kind of a protected class.

I've read that in a lot of complaints, but I couldn't find any actual quote from the developers, besides some pretty tame PR talk.

People play games for entertainment, not because they want to hear patronising social commentary.

Not to be nitpick-y, but older CRPGs could have a lot of that; both older Fallout games for instance had quite a lot of what could fall under the umbrella term of social commentary.

 

[rehevkor]

Sweet, sign me up. I'm all for ports like this as they make the games so much more accessible. I may have never completed games like Baldur's Gate and System Shock were it not for enhanced editions.

If I'm being honest it's just just accessible as in easily playable on modern systems it makes them easier..

 

[VitaType]

I hate the term remastered when it applies to video games, games were never mastered in the first place.

Sure the games just get taken from the old HDDs of the devs newly with new methods and get pressed on this new fancy BluRays. How do you else explain the better graphic quality?

 

[Foxi4]

Are we both talking about this? I haven't played the expansion in question, but this is all I could find, and it hardly qualifies as a lecture (again, Dark Souls and Chrono Trigger both have far more prominent transgender characters, and I'm yet to see anyone complain about them).

I've read that in a lot of complaints, but I couldn't find any actual quote from the developers, besides some pretty tame PR talk.

Not to be nitpick-y, but older CRPGs could have a lot of that; both older Fallout games for instance had quite a lot of what could fall under the umbrella term of social commentary.

There's social commentary that actually means something and then there's biting the hand that feeds you. You've got your transgender cleric with a tear-jerking story, you've got Minsc talking about "ethics in adventuring" to deliberately poke the Gamergate bear, you've got changing Safana's personality from a temptress to a sarcastic bitch, because using sexuality to her advantage was apparently demeaning, (and as we all know, women are smart and funny, deal with it), you've got a goblin shaman basically calling you a racist, you've got the daughter of one of the characters criticising you for your concern regarding her mother along the lines of "momma doesn't need no man", that stuff is sprinkled all over the game and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I happily skipped the expansion, and I love BG - it just doesn't look too competently made, it's not faithful to the source material and judging by the criticism it's preachy, so thanks, but no thanks.

 

[AbyssalMonkey]

There's social commentary that actually means something and then there's biting the hand that feeds you. You've got your transgender cleric with a tear-jerking story, you've got Minsc talking about "ethics in adventuring" to deliberately poke the Gamergate bear, you've got changing Safana's personality from a temptress to a sarcastic bitch, because using sexuality to her advantage was apparently demeaning, (and as we all know, women are smart and funny, deal with it), you've got a goblin shaman basically calling you a racist, you've got the daughter of one of the characters criticising you for your concern regarding her mother along the lines of "momma doesn't need no man", that stuff is sprinkled all over the game and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I happily skipped the expansion, and I love BG - it just doesn't look too competently made, it's not faithful to the source material and judging by the criticism it's preachy, so thanks, but no thanks.

Oh lord. Really? I'm glad I picked up the old versions on GoG before they removed them. If that is how they went with it, I don't want to know about the "improvements" they made elsewhere in the enhanced edition.

 

[MarkDarkness]

There's social commentary that actually means something and then there's biting the hand that feeds you. You've got your transgender cleric with a tear-jerking story, you've got Minsc talking about "ethics in adventuring" to deliberately poke the Gamergate bear, you've got changing Safana's personality from a temptress to a sarcastic bitch, because using sexuality to her advantage was apparently demeaning, (and as we all know, women are smart and funny, deal with it), you've got a goblin shaman basically calling you a racist, you've got the daughter of one of the characters criticising you for your concern regarding her mother along the lines of "momma doesn't need no man", that stuff is sprinkled all over the game and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I happily skipped the expansion, and I love BG - it just doesn't look too competently made, it's not faithful to the source material and judging by the criticism it's preachy, so thanks, but no thanks.

Yeah. Pretty much nailed it. As far as I'm concerned, games can have an all-gay cast, I couldn't care less. But that's not what SJWs really think about. They want a podium in which to congratulate themselves for being so diverse and awesome.

To me the nail in Beamdog's coffin was put in place when the "lead writer" labelled Jaheira as a "nagging wife" and said she had to be rewritten. Funny thing. You take a complex, dynamic, deep, innovative character that has this very interesting role of neutrality (pretty much unseen in any other game), developed across the longest and most intricate romance questline of the series, and you boil it down to the simplest denominator your little gender politics-oriented head can think of. 10/10.

 

[Foxi4]

Yeah. Pretty much nailed it. As far as I'm concerned, games can have an all-gay cast, I couldn't care less. But that's not what SJWs really think about. They want a podium in which to congratulate themselves for being so diverse and awesome.

To me the nail in Beamdog's coffin was put in place when the "lead writer" labelled Jaheira as a "nagging wife" and said she had to be rewritten. Funny thing. You take a complex, dynamic, deep, innovative character that has this very interesting role of neutrality (pretty much unseen in any other game), developed across the longest and most intricate romance questline of the series, and you boil it down to the simplest denominator your little gender politics-oriented head can think of. 10/10.

Remember, women are individuals and can choose to become anyone they want. More specifically they can become strong and independent, because if they choose to be more timid and cooperative, as traditional gender roles would dictate, they don't fit the narrative and as such are just misguided due to ingrained sexism and patriarchy. It's not their fault, but they are setting the cause back by a century, so we'll marginalise them. Be anyone you want, but specifically be who we want you to be, or else.

 

[random_human_being_]

There's social commentary that actually means something and then there's biting the hand that feeds you. You've got your transgender cleric with a tear-jerking story, you've got Minsc talking about "ethics in adventuring" to deliberately poke the Gamergate bear, you've got changing Safana's personality from a temptress to a sarcastic bitch, because using sexuality to her advantage was apparently demeaning, (and as we all know, women are smart and funny, deal with it), you've got a goblin shaman basically calling you a racist, you've got the daughter of one of the characters criticising you for your concern regarding her mother along the lines of "momma doesn't need no man", that stuff is sprinkled all over the game and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I happily skipped the expansion, and I love BG - it just doesn't look too competently made, it's not faithful to the source material and judging by the criticism it's preachy, so thanks, but no thanks.

Those things sounds like bad writing to me: if the "strong independent woman" trope is a symptom of the author's political agenda, wouldn't also most B-movies be categorized as political? If there's something that poor writers often do, is creating female characters that are either damsels in distress or have exceedingly strong personalities, with no in-between; I don't see how you could blame that on someone's political opinion.

I don't know about that goblin's line, but there are plenty of CRPGs where NPCs overtly call you a racist, from Fallout to The Witcher; with regard to that transsexual's story I don't see, again, how you would qualify it as a story, since it is not even three lines long.

The Gamergate one is pretty clearly a joke; I get people on the internet are easily offended, but if I had to, say, take it as a personal offence every time someone makes a joke about Italians, I'd be making a murderous rampage in Hollywood every other weekend.

 

[pustal]

Those things sounds like bad writing to me: if the "strong independent woman" trope is a symptom of the author's political agenda, wouldn't also most B-movies be categorized as political? If there's something that poor writers often do, is creating female characters that are either damsels in distress or have exceedingly strong personalities, with no in-between; I don't see how you could blame that on someone's political opinion.

I don't know about that goblin's line, but there are plenty of CRPGs where NPCs overtly call you a racist, from Fallout to The Witcher; with regard to that transsexual's story I don't see, again, how you would qualify it as a story, since it is not even three lines long.

The Gamergate one is pretty clearly a joke; I get people on the internet are easily offended, but if I had to, say, take it as a personal offence every time someone makes a joke about Italians, I'd be making a murderous rampage in Hollywood every other weekend.

I think the whole thing went south with both sides at the Gamergate discussion. The thing started with, as I see, legitimate acusations against the lack of integrity of videogame (then so-called) journalists and (now so-called) bloggers. Then the news websites fired back, playing the victim card, with either self-instigating harassment cases or with the unrequested aid of internet trolls, and accused the Garmegate community of being purelly sexist.

The problem here is that the Gamergate community went along and turned it into a a sexist thing. Now you have these game news websites that use the trans-community as shield and pressure game developers into create what they want them to create to help them shield themselves and, in the other side, you have the Gamergate community plaged with far-right social views.

I have nothing against the trans community. I admit I don't get it, I don't get the separation of gender and sexuality, and criticizing gender to be a social construct while constructing themselves a whole set of genders, but to each, their own. Now, the real problem is that this exaggerated crying back and forth made a huge disservice for the original causes. It went to the point of ridicule, discrediting the traditional feminist and LGBT social rights movements and the fight demanding journalistic integrity that started Gamergate.