The Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure

The Good
Arguably one of the best things one can say about ToEE is that it offers a very good computerization of the aforementioned pen & paper module. Even this statement has to be taken with a grain of salt, though, since the Gary Gygax' old AD&D modules aren't exactly notorious for their immersive storylines. Still, if you liked the old Gold Box series, you'll feel very much at home in the Temple of Elemental Evil. Unlike the rather terrible Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, ToEE actually managed to make me think of it as a worthy successor to the Gold Box games.

The visuals are OK, far from breathtaking, but sufficient. One of the better things about ToEE is also that it's the first to implement the rather new D&D 3.5th Edition rules. Most of these actually work in the game, making it possible to do things like enchanting your own weapons and armor, scribe your own scrolls, brew your own potions and do more stuff like that for the first time in a (A)D&D game.

The Bad
The worst things I have to say about ToEE: it's terribly bug-ridden, and it lacks a LOT of polish.

The interface, having its roots in the not-so-bad one seen in Arcanum, is terribly sluggish. The mouse pointer crawls across the screen, scrolling speed is terrible, occasionally the game even "hangs" for MINUTES (no, really!) until it allows you to go on, there's a lot of issues with micromanagement (for example, if you want to move 10 unidentified potions from your Fighter to your Cleric, you'll actually have to drag and drop each one individually...), etc.

One of the worst things is also that there are NO item descriptions. Remember the ones in Baldur's Gate, where important magic items would even have their own background stories? In ToEE, you don't even get the most basic info, like what the item actually does, if it's not featured in the identified item's name. Some things can be looked up in the manual, others remain a mystery to people not familiar with the D&D ruleset.

As far as bugs are concerned, you'll encounter a LOT of crash to desktop situations, non- or malfunctioning items or spells, quests that can be "broken" under certain circumstances, and a lot more stuff like that.

Furthermore, the faithful conversion attitude has been taken a bit too serious, in my opinion. For example, identifying an item requires a pearl worth 100gp by the D&D rules. Thereby, Troika decided to make the spell consume 100gp, making it cost exactly as much as the storekeepers ask to identify items yourself using the spell. Especially in the early stage of the game, where 100gp is a LOT, this is very annoying.

Another example: all Gold Box veterans will fondly remember the "Fix" command, which made your healers automatically cast and re-memorize heal-spells until everyone in the party was fully healed up. There's no such command in ToEE, so the process of healing up your party can be quite a tedium.

Finally, the original ToEE module was for 1st Edition AD&D, and 3.5th Edition D&D handles a lot of things quite differently, which hasn't been taken into consideration at all. For example, the way creatures like Werewolves, Salamanders or even Trolls must be fought has changed a lot, which will force you to skip a lot of encounters early on and return to them later with most party-configurations. On the other hand, you can beat the final enemy of the game in a single combat round if you use the right tactics, obviously not making it the most thrilling of all showdowns. ;-)

The Bottom Line
All in all, by its heart, ToEE is a lot better a game than, say Ruins of Myth Drannor, the turn-based approach to combat is a welcome change to the RTS-styled battles seen almost everywhere these days.The lack of a "deep" storyline is disappointing, but actually has its roots in the namegiving P&P module.

If Troika get around to patching this one up HEAVILY, I'd at least recommend it to all gold-box-fans, or to fans of Icewind Dale which can stand turn-based-combat. In its current state, it just isn't worth the money, feeling unfinished and all.

The Good
'The Temple Of Elemental Evil' shows its fangs as soon as you start the game: depending on your chosen alignment for the party the beginning changes from psychotic church burning to your regular do gooders on a mission to smite evil.

The graphics are very pretty, prettier than in Troika's previous RPG Arcanum. Music is okay and the voice acting is does its job.

The Bad
Granted, Troika had terrible pressure upon its shoulders after releasing fantastic Arcanum, so maybe everyone's expectations were a bit too high. I know I was a bit disappointed of how mundane the game felt in comparison of its predecessor.

Despite various different ways to start the game, it just didn't feel like the alignment really had such an major influence on the overall gameplay: you still can do all the good things you did when you were good even though you play with evil character. The people don't seem to care: You tell the high priest you've burned down a church of his religion. The effect is, that he won't heal you and will try to smite you down, but no-one else cares.

Also the game world seems a bit desolate in places. Especially the final Temple of Elemental Evil is like abandoned fortress filled with pretty pillows.

Also the gameplay is a bit annoying in places, even though very similar to other isometric RPG's. The biggest issue is, that in the combat situation is sometimes very hard to tell which one of your characters is about to make the move, or even to locate the combatant in question, especially if the battle is happening behind a wall, or there's a large number of enemies scattered around the team.

The Bottom Line
The Temple Of Elemental Evil is a disappointment after Arcanum. That is the only way to describe how I felt after playing the game through. As a RPG the game isn't anything spectacular. And that is a shame.

The Good
If you are looking for a PC game with some of the tactical depth of the better console RPGs, or are bothered by the liberties that Neverwinter Nights takes with the D&D3 rules, you might like this game.

It's also pretty, and it even sports the rules updates for D&D 3.5.

If you try to stay out of the towns, talking to the characters in each building only once to get them to put things on the world map for you, and replace the minor XP you would have gotten from doing their quests with lots of random encounters (just camp in "yellow" areas), you will play to the strengths of the game and avoid the worst of the weaknesses.

The Bad
The UI is terrible and sluggish. The in-town side quests are arranged to maximize travel back and forth within the town, which is painful. The automap doesn't auto-note what's in each building, and if you try to manually note that you will hit a maximum number of notes before you are done. Some of the quests are broken if you don't do them just right. In combat, there is no way to tell what areas are passable/impassable. There is no adjusting the camera angle, so clicking on bodies to loot them is hard. The treasure share distribution for hired NPCs gives them first pick on everything, so if a monster was carrying only one thing they will hog it.

The Bottom Line
Some nice ideas, combat is fun, but overall I'm terribly disappointed. I really wonder how Troika, who brought us the Fallouts (back when they were working for Interplay) and Arcanum, could have made a game that's so unplayable.