The best asset of this game is its combat and how it represents the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e rules. It is a turn based game which gives the player a load of options such as taking a 5 foot step, doing a trip attack, casting defensively, and so forth and so on that it is almost mind boggling. Using smart tactics are often quite necessary, especially in the harder combats at low levels. Being used to the Infinity Engine games and Neverwinter Nights, I was taken back by the difficulty of an encounter of a bunch of raiders my characters had just because I didn't have my wizard memorize the right spell, Sleep in this case. Most would complain that turn based combat goes to slowly, but in Temple of Elemental Evil NPCs that move in between PCs will go at the same time or nearly so which speeds up combat considerably. Another feature that marks this game quite different from the other Dungeons and Dragons computer games is that it sports multiple beginnings based on party alignment and at first this might look somewhat gimmicky, it does have far reaching effects later on in the game depending how you act and react to NPCs and what quests you involve yourself in. Depending on what your party does in the game you would get one of many ending sequences similarly done in Arcanum.