The Temple of Elemental Evil

First, let's get out of the way the fact there's not a whole lot of plot here, nor a whole lot of roleplaying. ToEE is all about AD&D combat & tactics faithfully reproduced. The combat is very much an excercise in micromanaging every aspect, firing those area spells just right to maximise the effect, attacks of opportunity and so on. As such, the combat and playing takes a whole lot of time, this is a given thing you need to accept and enjoy to be able to enjoy the game. The game is also very hard, and with random rolls even the best plans fail all the time. That's all fine and I enjoy playing the game, the graphics are still beautiful, the music exceptional. But I can't live with the game corrupting the savegames! And it's not something happening once in a blue moon either. I'm talking about keeping a rotation and finding out 3 latest saves all being corrupt. I've now reached the main temple and I've had 3 cases where I've lost a days progress due to having several consecutive corrupt saves. Maybe 20 failed saves all in all. I dont think I'll be continuig, it's just too depressing to see EVERY save you've made in a play session were corrupted. (and that's with Circle of Eight installed)

This game does exactly what it sets out to accomplish and is a classic in that right. If you want a great story like a game in the Baldur's Gate Trilogy or Dragon Age Origins give this game a pass. This game was basically made to relatively accurately replicate the creative combat situations in D&D 3E and that is what it does.

Pros: - shitloads of fighting - past a certain point you can just murder your way to the finish (screw quests: i just wanna kill everything!) - heaps of enemies, weapons, spells, classes and strategy - visually pleasing (but will run on your shitty laptop) Cons: - will be hated by anyone who isn't a big fan of the genre - steep learning curve (from someone whose most similar gaming experience was neverwinter nights) - frustrating and difficult starting at level 1 - lacks refinement (discussed later) - horrible dialogue and quests (skip as much as you can) If you love heaps of turn-based combat and creating/levelling/managing a DnD party, this game is great and i loved playing it (esp. for $6). But know that the quests/plot/dialogue are dogshit and the game lacks refinement (even with mods) in areas like item/skill descriptions, ease of character creation, user interface, streamlined questing etc. This is definitely a cult classic for the hardcore fans of the genre.

By far out of all RPG games TOEE has the best battle mechanics. Clear and easy turned based and the game looks pretty good too. But its a straight adaptation of one of the classic, but not so long campaigns so it doesnt take long to get the end of it. Just keep in mind that the mods put out by the Circle of Eight group are required for stable play.

TOEE isn't the first D&D PC game I've played but it might well be the best. Better than Planescape? Maybe. If I'm playing the PC alone I enjoy the story, but frankly no matter how good the story is, it pales compared to a real life gaming session. So I don't care as much about story in games and focus more on the combat, and that's where TOEE shines. Grab the CO8 mods and don't waste your time on the vanilla game. Lots more combat awaits.