Rating: 
Summary: If Ever a Game Screamed for a Giant Can of RAID...!!!
Review: Never have I played such a buggy game! I experienced corrupt saved games, both hard saves and quick saves, CTD's, constant slow-downs, freeze-ups, clipping and black screens. I had to completely remove and re-install this game 5 different times because of these many problems. I had all the latest drivers for my hardware so that wasn't an issue, it simply refused to run whenever it felt like it. Both Troika and Circle of Eight have contributed patches, (I'm still waiting on the second promised patch from Troika since December '03 which has yet to appear). Both patches addressed some problems but there have been so many with the weapon/armor/wand creating abilities and others I found playing the game more tedious then challenging. The story is an RPGC based on a Greyhawk D&D adventure so the setting, (only two towns and a dungeon), are consistent with the story but Atari forced Troika to disable some of the quests due to what Atari felt was "inapropriate content" making a short game even shorter. The combat system has been praised for keeping as true to the new D&D 3.5 rule set as any game has come to date. It is turn-based combat. I give the game the extra star because of this combat system which has given the game more replayability then it would otherwise have had due to the many problems I've experienced. It was fun, (for a while), to see if I could build the ultimate fighting team, utilizing all their best skills at the most appropriate times. But this got old after a while and I simply abandoned the game and deleted it from my harddrive for the last time due to lack of support by Atari and Troika. I don't recommend this game for its many unresolved game mechanic issues but in fairness, because it sticks so close to the D&D 3.5 rules, some hardcore D&D fans manage to overlook the bugs and find their own ways to enjoy the game despite them. Proceed at your own risk.
Rating: 
Summary: Most irritating game I've ever attempted to finish
Review: It is difficult to decribe how much I looked forward to this game. Being a hard-core pnp player and DM for over 25 years who only recently discovered computer gaming, I hoped it would be a huge success, since I believed the rumors that if it was, sequels would certainly be produced. You can hardly understand how joyfully I loaded the game up, dreaming of the fun to follow... And the game wouldn't start. I downloaded the patch and installed it. I had more issues. I downloaded the fan-produced patch and installed it. I was greeted by a dull and unedited game which many other ex-players have likened to a first-draft beta version of what the game should have been. Lags, lock-ups, freezes, etc, etc, followed me throughout the game. The dialogue is inane and spelling errors appear on the screen in the boxes (hard to believe, but true). I checked community boards and found my problems were unusual in the apparent sense that I had so FEW of them, compared to many players. And, troublingly, Atari has done little to support this product, to communicate with their fans on their own community boards, let alone fix it the myriad of bugs in the game. Not only is the game buggy beyond my worst nightmare, but many rules are implemented incorrectly or not at all. When a game is so bug-ridden that it's most hard-core fans (yes, there are a few) are forced to proclaim it's adherence to the "rules" as it's strongest point, the fact it isn't as close to the official ruleset as it should be begins to irritate. Yes, combat is a strong point, but I'm sure anyone playing the game really spends less than one-quarter of their time fighting, and most of their time re-tracing endless maps trudging to the next fight. Nevertheless, I wanted to finish the game. Occassionally I found it actually compelling, and that, coupled with my innate stubborness, kept me at it (or am I just a glutton for punishment?). Now I can't play any longer. A few hours from what I know is the end of the game, I've found myself out of six hours of my life, replaying the game over and over again because of desktop crashes. I am, six hours later, exactly where I was six hours ago. Those were six hours I could have spent, well, doing ANYTHING else. Thanks, Atari.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre game - not up to par
Review: This game is below average, at best. Significant performance problems on a 1.5ghz, 1gb Ram machine!!! Compared to Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights (which played just fine on the same machine), this game is boring and poorly designed and implemented. The initial release is virtually unplayable until you download the patch.
Lot's of 'fetching' quests (running from here to there and back again) and very little in the way of a story or interesting character interactions. There are only a couple of places in the whole game where you can buy new items and they are very limited in their selections - hardly any interesting stuff is available. In addition, there are only a few 'safe' places in the game, so you constantly have to run back to them to rest and recover your spells/health which is just a waste of player time. This may be 'realistic' but is just boring! There is a lot of hype about this being the only D&D 3.5 RPG implementation available - I guess this means something to purists but without good design and playability it didn't mean anything to me.
On the plus side, the graphics are beautiful, but who cares since you don't ever interact with them, and in many cases they just get in the way. It's other 'good' features include allowing up to 8 characters in a party. Also, Magic-Users and Clerics can craft items for your party (similar to Morrowind but not nearly as thorough).
The interface is the old style 'Iso' style (view from 45 degrees above) and things get lost (behind walls, under dead bodies, etc.). The player interface is typical with the 'radial'-style menus but as an example of poor design, to 'Use' an item in your inventory you have to drag it over a very small icon at the bottom of the inventory area (right next to the 'Drop Item' icon) and I didn't discover this for quite some time - I never could find 'Use Item' in the manual's index.
Combat was a real problem for me since it is very difficult to see who you are attacking or who is attacking you. Often, during large combat situations the system slows to a crawl and the cursor will jump off of your selection onto another making it difficult to target easily (or accurately).
The bottom line - unless you are absolutely desperate for an RPG to play, don't bother with this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent game
Review: Great adaptation of a classic adventure. Simply download and apply the patch from Atari. Quest driven story line with plenty of opportunities for NPC interaction. Well rendered graphics and animation. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Totally Unbalanced
Review: Being a D & D fan and seeing a PC game with version 3.5 incorporated, I immediately purchased the game. At first the game seems pretty cool. I had to laugh when the big frog grappled one of my halflings with its tongue and then scooped him into his mouth. However, the encounters are absolutely unbalanced for first level characters. As DM I would never pit first level characters with monsters whose hit dice are twice, triple or quadruple of that of the party. The characters no matter what character class all died as monsters, animals, the undead relentlessly sought and destroyed the party. The party itself inept could not barely hit a thing. I do not recommend playing this game. Laughable at first, but evolves into sheer fustration. Ditch this software game and stick with core rule books and human common sense. In this case paper and dice rule.
Rating:
Summary: addictive and fun d and d adaptation
Review: i can sympathize with some of the reviewers here who have experienced problems with the game on their systems. i installed it on a machine that met the requirements but quickly uninstalled it because gameplay was unbearably slow. unbelievably slow. i shelved the game and then when i got a new system last month (2.8 hyperthreaded gigahertz, 1GB of DDR memory) installed it and i've been playing it ever since. my new system doesn't even blink even when the screen is filled with a dozen enemies with spell effects going off right and left. so, buy this game if you have a brand new system. the minimum requirements should be at least a 2 gig processor and lots of memory on a new system. old systems are dog slow. performance aside, i love the game. i wish there were more battles, like pool of radience. the quests are fun and entertaining, but it seems like the game designers had a Baldur's Gate (for the consoles, not the pc) type of template for the game in mind and wanted more quests than fights. oh well. i also hope they come out with a sequel that lets you import old chars. another great thing about the game is that you can play the game multiple times with differently aligned characters. i can't wait to replay the game with a chaotic evil party. pillage and destroy!
Rating:
Summary: Great Ideas
Review: This game has excellent potential. It executes the 3.5 rules nicely, and watching them in visual action provided me with a new respect for the ruleset. Like Icewind Dale 2, you don't have the ability to roam freely and adventure, which is okay, since it is about the temple. Unfortunately, the bugs, even with the patch, are just a little too much. I imagine that it helps if you have a powerful computer system, but from what I've read, it doesn't help much.
If you can pick this game up on the cheap, say $10-12, go for it, as long as you can also download the official and unofficial patches. I hope the Atari and Troika make a sequel or expansion with the kinks worked out. A realatively bug-free version would become my second favorite CRPG, if for no other reason than the rules execution.
Rating:
Summary: Inexcusable
Review: The BG games, IWD games, and NWN games were all wonderful near flawless D&D games. I enjoyed each one tremendously but they were all made by the same company. Then came Pool of Radiance, a D&D game by Ubi Soft, and it was a bug filled unplayable pos. And latest is Temple of Evil by Troika and Atari... buggy and almost unplayable like PoR. Didnt they learn anything?
This games price has already dropped 1/3 and its very new. It will be a bargain binner like PoR in the near future. If you want a wonderful D&D experience then buy the Baldurs Gate, Icewind, or Neverwinter Nights series. STAY AWAY from Pools of Radiance and Temple of Evil. :(
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Buggy
Review: I unfortunately paid for this game, but I at least bought it from a physical store, where it was easy to return. The first game I bought froze during install about 3/4 of the way through. I exchanged it for another one, which froze up about 2/3 of the way through. This is a completely unfinished product which is unacceptable, even for a beta test.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally what I'm looking for!
Review: 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!!!!!!!
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