Greyhawk: Temple of Elemental Evil previews

I'm not a huge D&D fan but I do love a good role playing game. I love nonlinear gameplay, running around doing lots of involved, varied and interesting quests and I like to feel I've really accomplished something (as in my character has accomplished something) when I'm done. This game let me down totally in those respects.

When I first started playing I liked it a lot. I liked the graphics, the character animations, and I especially loved the turn based combat. The problem is it's very linear. It can be broken down into four basic sections. You start out in a town running around doing some fairly dull little quests. You are then led to a dungeon in a swamp where you'll get your first serious taste of combat. That leads you to the second small villiage where you'll do a few other little quests, then you're off to the Temple which is more or less a dungeon crawl. You fight your way through (note, this is where it starts to get seriously buggy with some infuriating hangs) to the final battle with the Big Bad, and that's it! Finished!

I wouldn't have minded so much if I knew why I was doing all this, but no one gave me a quest or mission or anything. I'm just slogging my way through this temple and I keep wondering what am I doing here?

What's so disappointing is this game could have been so much better. It's fun for a while but it's definately not worth full price and the shocking state of the original release version was totally unacceptable. But if you like D&D and you just want a dungeon romp go for it. But wait until the rumored patch 2 comes out before you play it.

I love D&D games as a rule & was very excited when I got GreyHawk, however as I played it the bugs ruined whatever fun I was having. That said, I downloaded the patch which fixed the game to a playable level – I found the game too short & too easy to finish – one huge dungeon to explore isn't my idea of a great D&D game. Sure there are several areas on the map to complete plus the town you start in but once you enter the main dungeon you can finish the game in the same day. Sorry, I was very dissapointed!

After playing various RPGs over the years this is the game I have been waiting for. As the most accurate encapsulation of the round the table dice and figures feel, Temple of Elemental Evil gives non role-players a good glimpse into what us old skoolers have been into for years. The only gripe that I can see is that some people who are not familiar with DND may struggle with coping with the myriad of rules (hence the 4 stars).

Well done Troika.

Hehe, bet you can guess what that title means. This game desperately needs the promised patch from the developers. But saying that, its good enough that many people, including myself, have played it regardless. On any other game the bugs would be game killers (drastic pauses, occasional crashes), but the developers have at least gotten the feel of a DnD inspired game down perfect.

This is the best DnD game I have played since the legendary gold-box range. Yeah, that’s a pretty bold statement I must admit, especially in such esteemed company as the Balder’s Gate and Icewind Dale series. But where those two series failed, this game delivers. It actually feels like DnD; it makes you feel like you’re back in your school days of playing the pen-n-paper version.

Maybe it's the proper turn-based system, maybe it's the fact it's adhering closely to the DnD (albeit version 3.5) rule base, or maybe they’ve just got the feeling of fighting large scary creatures just right. I’m not really sure, but it works! You’ll see what I mean when you have to actually face the Balor (big demonic guy), that was a very gratifying battle.

Some of the Baldur’s Gate / Icewind Dale fans may be a little disappointed with the storyline. Unlike those two titles where the storylines are in-your-face throughout the adventure, this games storyline is a little more subtle. You can pretty much do what you want, when you want to. If you’re an old-school DnD fan, or just into your RPGs, this title may be what you’re looking for. Just be fore-warned about the bugs however, some of you may not be able to look past them and enjoy the game. In that case you may want to wait for the patch.