Its basically a linear sandbox, as odd as that sounds. ToEE is pretty light on plot aside from some vague go kill the Evil Elemental Prince of Something (or free it, whatev) objective that only appears a third of the way into the game. The game takes place in Grayhawk, the original setting of D&D, but thats hardly important. The Temple of Elemental Evil is a computer RPG adaptation of a D&D 3.5 module which is itself an adaptation of a 1st edition D&D module. Theres still something lost in the translation, mind you, but playing ToEE taught me some things about the game system I never knew about, and thats got to count for something. The Temple of Elemental Evil is the second Troika game and the most faithful adaptation of a pen and paper RPG to a video game Ive ever come across. For ToEE, the Circle of Eight site has done wonders, and Im currently using the site-based package patch 4.0 6.1 if you were wondering/wanted to play along at home. However, by being good, intelligent games, Troikas catalogue was picked up by the modding community and fan patches were released for each, greatly improving the experience. Obsidian may get some flak for bugs, too, but trust me, their games are at least Newtonian solids compared to Troika. Sadly, while Troika continued to make good, intelligent RPGs, they apparently forgot to bring any decent coders with them, and each of the three Troika games was released as an unplayable mess. The first time caused it to Regenerate into Troika, while the Third Doctor wound up being Obsidian Entertainment. Back in the day, a company named Black Isle was known for creating good, solid, intelligent RPGs, such as Fallout and Planescape: Torment.

Toee circle of 8