D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at Netjak

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(Originally posted by Yerril)

A very negative review of The Temple of Elemental Evil can be found at Netjak. The reviewer complained about many aspects of the game, but the graphics and music were eventually enough to give it a final score of 6.3. Here's a clip:

In addition to obvious bugs, there is a whole category of problems caused by one of the most controversial publishing decisions I’ve heard of. Shortly before the game’s release, Hasbro, the owner of the Wizards of the Coast who holds the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons license demanded that the game’s rating is changed from Mature to Teen. The developers were thus forced to remove all children, foul language and several objectionable objects, such as a brothel. However, they didn’t have the time to remove conversation paths and quests linked to the removed features. This caused several quests to be broken, and a lot of conversations that make no sense are still in the game.

You can read the rest of the article here.

 

(Originally posted by Sprite)

I think this is a very fair review of TOEE and well worth the attention of anyone thinking of buying the game. Virtually all of the negative points the reviewer raises are technical issues, and I'm glad he gives fair warning that this is a very buggy and unfinished game. And other points he raises are very positive, in particular the intuitive radial menu and the skillful way the developers adapted a 1e module to 3.5e rules.

My experience is the same as the reviewer's: it is a fun and well-designed game tarnished by some very annoying bugs and omissions, because it was rushed into production before all the problems were worked out. The patch will probably make a huge difference to TOEE's playability and popularity; here's hoping, anyway.