The Elder Scrolls IV: The Shivering Isles
A wonderful place! Except when it’s horrible. Then it’s horribly wonderful!
Tags: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Categories: Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Apr 13th, 2007
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Role-Playing | No | ||
 |
When you think about it, a game like Oblivion must be difficult to make an expansion for. The game was so incredibly humongous that you could play for hundreds of hours without exploring its entire breadth, and yet somehow, to sell us on an expansion we would need to be convinced to buy more of the game when so many haven’t even come close to seeing everything that’s in the game to begin with.
Bethesda’s solution to the problem seems to be quite literally going batshit insane. With the expansion taking place in the domain of Sheogorath, the daedric prince of madness, this expansion actually manages to provide Oblivion players with something completely different. While the lands of Cyrodiil presented a realistic paradise full of serene forests and grassy hills, The Shivering Isles is a fantasy land full of the surreal and the bizarre, and if you thought that Cyrodiil was a feast for the eyes, the Shivering Isles will seem like the “special” brownies you have for desert.
 |
After an initial “entrance” area (which you enter via a bizarre door, a quiet room, and a spectacular explosion of butterflies), most of the Shivering Isles is split between two sections – Mania and Dementia. Mania is a land bursting with color, filled with giant mushrooms and peopled by looneys and kooks, while Dementia consists of damp, smoky mires inhabited by psychopaths. Both of these areas are quite beautiful to look at, in their own different ways, and each has a few nice visual touches as well. The night sky in Mania is an absolutely gorgeous display of purple stars, while the twisting trees and roots of Dementia look straight out of some gothic horror film. Furthermore, even the architecture of both areas is quite intricately-designed and original, and dungeons in the Shivering Isles look completely different than those in Cyrodiil, as well.
Another one of The Shivering Isle’s strengths is a cast of memorable characters, led by Sheogorath and his right hand man Haskill. Sheogorath seems to be a “love or hate” kind of character with a spotty Scottish accent and an overly-enthusiastic but volatile mood. Some will find his loud, even childish outbursts a welcome break from the norm, while others will find the character to be abrasive and tiresome. Haskill, on the other hand, is hard not to like, with his dry wit, condescending attitude, and veiled contempt for the player. The rest of Shivering Isles’ cast of crazies falls somewhere in between, with its people representing a wide variety of mental illnesses – one man swears the walls are out to get him, another claims bones talk to him, one is obsessed with completely pointless factoids, and… well, I could go on and on, but meeting them for yourself is a large part of the fun.
 |
In addition to the new scenery and memorable characters, The Shivering Isles has many lucrative new features for players to explore. The island is full of new monsters, with a plethora of new alchemy ingredients. There’s also a wide variety of new weapons and armor, with entire sets of equipment that can be crafted from amber (for light weapons and armor) and madness ore (for heavy equipment). It also bears mention that quests in Shivering Isles are some of the most fun and inventive in the game, with your first task involving finding a way to get past the seemingly invulnerable gatekeeper, and later quests ranging from helping Sheogorath secure the island from sane (read: unwanted) adventurers to helping the townsfolk with their eccentric needs and desires. Plus, for those that care about achievement points, Shivering Isles adds even more achievements for players to unlock. All in all, the folks at Bethesda estimate there’s about 30 hours of new content in Shivering Isles, although depending on how much you explore or let yourself get lost, your mileage may vary.
While there’s a lot to like here, this expansion is far from perfect. You know that “Loading Additional Content” descriptor you get when you fire up Oblivion after downloading an expansion? Get ready for that message to stay on-screen for ten seconds or so… every time you start the game. Furthermore, while the expansion does allow you to travel back and forth between Cyrodiil and the Isles at any point in the game (after a day or two in-game for your character to “hear a rumor” about the door between the two realms), the expansion doesn’t really have much affect on the land of Cyrodiil at all (beyond the items you’ll be bringing back), and the way you travel between the two areas makes it almost completely separated from the content of the previous game, rather than a natural extension of the original title.
 |
Add to this the fact that you can’t buy a house in the Isles (although after a few quests you can reign as Duke or Duchess of Mania or Dementia) and you’ll have to sit through many annoying loading screens to travel back to your base of operations to unload your loot. Even using map shortcuts, you’ll still have to walk out of the dungeon you’re in, warp to the door between areas, step through the door, warp to your house and step into your house – potentially five loading screens just to get home.
The Shivering Isles are also a bit unbalanced – There’s lots of nifty new equipment and goodies to find for low-to-mid level characters, but higher-level characters may find much of the loot they snag is a bit underwhelming. There’s no less than four or five new varieties of arrows for archers to use, but the selection of other weapons added here seems a bit slim. Alchemists will jump with glee at all the new ingredients for them to play with, but spellmakers and enchanters will find little to amuse them. Warriors and magicians will find enemies that pose new challenges to overcome, but thieves and assassins will be disgusted at how few options they have here – enemies seem just as inept to detect someone skilled at sneak as those in Cyrodiil (if not more so), there’s no local fence, no one to bribe to shed your bounty, and in fact, crimes in Shivering Isles incur a bounty that’s completely separate from crimes in Cyrodiil, meaning that even if you make it back to a guild contact in your homeland, you still won’t be able to bribe your way out of your indiscretions in the Isles.
 |
Still, while the Shivering Isles expansion may not be quite as balanced as one would hope, even if your character class happens to be one the game doesn’t cater to, you’ll still probably enjoy much of what the expanded content has to offer. If nothing else, the change of scenery hits Oblivion like a breath of fresh air, and the odd cast of characters makes for a very amusing change of pace. Any fan of the original game would be remiss not to add the Shivering Isles to their map.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Beautiful scenery that’s completely different from anything else in Oblivion + Original and extremely memorable characters + Clever and fun quests that are some of the best in the game + Lots of new loot, alchemy ingredients, and other items |
8.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- The new content doesn’t do a good job of catering to every type of character, particularly thieves and assassins. - I hope you like those loading screens – you’ll be seeing them a lot more often now (even if you never set foot on the Isles) - New content doesn’t really change the core game |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| The Shivering Isles is far from a perfect expansion, but it still gives players some completely new ground to tread that’s unlike anything else in the game, which makes it a must-have for anyone who enjoyed the original game. | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Posted by Jake McNeill on Apr 13th, 2007 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
