Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure

IMPORTANT: The version 1.1 patch can be found at Atari's web site (www.atari.com). There is also an additional, 3rd party patch available for free from Circle Of Eight (www.co8.org) that has even more bug fixes and adds some features. Unlike the Atari patch, this one is updated frequently to address user reported issues.

If you are a fan of D&D and have even a little knowledge of the 3rd edition rules, I think you'll really enjoy it. If you are only familiar with the older 2nd edition rules, you'll probably want to pay extra attention to the manual or review some of the fan sites in order to get the most out of it. If you don't have any experience with D&D at all, I can't say for sure if you will enjoy it or not.


BUGS, BUGS AND A GREAT D&D GAME!!!   March 11, 2004
Michael Monteverde (sussex, NJ USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

If you like D&D on the PC you will love this, If you play "pen and paper" this is probably the best entry into PC D&D gaming. The engine is great and spellcasting could not be easier or more rewarding.

The bugs are real bad:
1) Patch the game before using.
2) If you know little about computers or get easially frusterated look into neverwinter. But patch that one too.


Finally what I'm looking for!   January 22, 2004
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

I started by playing the demo. There was another article by a person who played the demo that I have to somewhat agree with. This game does not make everything uber easy. Your not going to survive every encounter like most games. Resting is difficult, and it should be. If I'm sleeping in a dungeon, I deserve to wake up to a cadre of ghouls or giant rats. But if I think about the situation, find a room with a door, close it, and then rest I'm okay the vast majority of the time. The game, and especially the demo are great once you realize that this game makes you think a little and is not extremely easy. And in my opinion, that's the way it should be.
On another note, I'm completely psyched that someone has brought back the turn style encounters. Time freezes and allows you to choose what you want each character to do. To me this game is more like the table version than any other game I've played in a long long time. Great graphics to boot. Make sure you get all updates before you play the game. Its worth it. Good job atari!!!!!!!


An Awesome Way to Discover the World of Greyhawk   March 11, 2006
Robert Blank (Pocatello, ID)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

First I'd like to say I never had any problems running this game. I popped it in, downloaded it, and played it with no weirdness. Smooth as could be. Also I strangely did not have a level cap, but just kept getting new spells and feats, etc. (I honestly think something went wrong here--but my characters just kept leveling up beyond where I think the game was programmed to prevent me. Hey give me more bugs like that anytime!)

The gameplay feels a lot like Baldur's Gate (which is the computer game that made me fall in love with both the Forgotten Realms and computer RPG's--the best computer RPG of all time) with much of the same freedom to explore and do things in any order you want, and to approach problems from a variety of angles. Most of all, it is a great way to fall in love with D&D's Greyhawk setting if you're like me and pretty much have only gotten to know it in snippets from the 3rd edition core rulebooks. It is wonderful to immerse yourself in, an engaging story that will suck you in for hours and hours.

A couple of warnings. First the game is HARD. You will be challenged to think tactically about every fight you get into, even the random encounters along the roads, and even then you will die horribly a lot. They throw some mean badguys at you without flinching. I loved the challenge of it, but I can see how all the merciless slaughter could turn away someone who's used to games that pamper them a bit more.

Also as mentioned in another review, you'll find that any adventuring companions you run into will get first cut of the loot when looting enemies. I can see why they did it, to reflect the fact that characters who join your party don't automatically become your slaves, but still it can be a bit frustrating, especially when an ally pilfers the best stuff off a body literally on the other side of the map from him and you cannot get him to return it. Also if the comment made is true, and the NPC's will overload themselves, then that's another big headache. What I found as a solution was this: Give the NPCs all the worthless big items you're carrying around (quarterstaves, rocks, arrows, etc) until you fill all their inventory spaces. They won't be able to pick up anything but coins and won't get encumbered. The other easy fix is to kill your NPC companions as soon as they've outlived their usefullness and get your stuff back (gee, any guess what the alignment of my party was?)

On the whole I was impressed by the game. I found the graphics very pretty (a refined version of what you get in Baldur's Gate--a bit of a dated presentation compared to Neverwinter Nights, but very nicely drawn and animated). The dialogue options were great--with four or five responses available at each branch of conversation I was usually able to say some flavor of whatever I would have wanted my character to say. The NPCs were colorful and fun, always worth talking to, and the main plot when you enter the Temple is really absorbing. My one regret is that apparently there is some demon queen ultimately responsible for the ills in the game, but for the life of me I could never find her--though I did run into two gods and fought gobs of uberpowerful devils and demons across the elemental planes before finally submitting to the will of my dark lord. Heh-heh, how often does a game let you do THAT?


True to DnD   October 2, 2003
Jarkko Repo (Europe)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Hello there all of you who visit Amazon.com

I wanted to say few words about this product just because it seems that some people have missunderstood the concept of this game. Some of you might know that the key developers of this game have also been working on games like Fallout and Arcanum - both games with an original world and original quests. But this time Troika (the developer) wanted to create a game which would be true to the original DnD system which was not a computer game at all. yes, other companies have tryed to convert that feeling before but in my opinion they have failed to deliver the "rights" feeling - Troika did it. I'm loving this game, it may not have the great worlds of Arcanum or Fallout, heck I can say that's it's a dungeon crawl, but it has the best such game I have ever played.

So if you're into tactical fighting, DnD and some adventuring this is the game for you.

Bugs, yup there are some bugs, I've not seen any game stoppers (some claim that there are) but I've encoutered few of them - most of the "bugs" are actual the way the game is supposed to be. But there will be a patch any time soon so maybe you can keep waiting for few more days and you will have the game of the year.

Why do I like this game ? Is it the story - I have to say that the story is that great what I was waiting from Troika, but it's because the game is a perfect copy of the original module - Troika put something new into it and also changed the world to fit the new 3.5 ruleset. The story isn't original (it's great, but not an Oscar winning writing). The game world isn't original (all DnD games are alike - more or less). It's the way the game world reacts to your actions, it's all in the choices you can make.

And also I have to say that the game looks fantastic. Don't even try to tell me that the engine is same with the one they used in Arcanum ( yes yes, I know it's somewhat the same engine but gazillion new lines of code).

I hope this was helpfull and I also hope that you would try this game before you judge it.