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 A Shivering Isles Review February 7, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
In the land of Cyrodil I found a new Aelied ruin near port town of Anvil it looked like a huge broken, white wedding cake with a great statue in the centre. I tried to enter past the first room that had two sacrificial alters, with two Deadra guardians but was unable. A carved block with a crystaline centre is unmovable. After wracking my brains and examining everything, even shooting at the chandaliers, I decided to give in gracefully and see what I could turn up by gathering information.
Which led me, in a roundabout way, to find a new portal had opened off the coast of Bravil. A portal to the Shivering Isles. I went through it and within a few days had:
Seen a room turn into butterflies.
Collected several tons of new and slightly disturbing alchemy engredients.
Explored a dungeon peopled by fish people. Looted it and killed them all. Picked up some pieces of Madness Ore, along with some strange weapon moulds.
Found a hamlet of strange people, one of who was kind enough to help me against the huge construct gatekeeper who guarded the gates of madness, so that I could get through the gates and into the main body of the Island. He made us powerfull arrows out of a dead gatekeeper which we found in The Garden of Flesh and Blood.
Killed the gatekeeper and took his keys.
Stepped through the gate of Mania and was rewarded with a gift-power of casting the spell of frenzy on my enemies.
Was attacked by a bandit dressed up as the dead Arch Mage of the Imperial City's Arcane University.
Discovered a labarynth of caves used by ant creatures. Picked up a lot of pieces of amber and potions. Caves became a ruin where I found more fish people and some tasty items of armour before emerging into the sunlight. (I have a feeling this amber and madness ore will be important)
Found The Hill of Suicides and tried to talk to the spirits that haunted it.
Was attacked by moving trees
Reached the main city where I bought a georgous new black silk crinoline dress to wear to the palace, and several other items.
Went to meet the mad god, Sheogorath.
I will be finding out what he wants this evening. I can't wait to get back there.
 Shivering Isles: What's really that different? October 30, 2007
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
It would seem that Bethseda is begginning to follow suit of the sims by releaseing expansion pack after expansion pack. The only difference is that nothing much changes that you got in Oblivion.
At the start of the expansion, you have a vague talk with quite possibly the most boring NPC made who explains where you are and what's going on then dissapears in a cloud of butterflies with the room around him.
From there you wander aimlessly around trying to figure out where to go next and after enough walking through oddly shaped landscapes and some basic effects you end up pairing up with someone to escape the little starting village by killing what appears to be a large mass of muscle and plastecine with a sword arm.
From there, escape into a whole new island and make your way to the other side of the island whilst fighting off some new enemies with no new AI (which I honestly believe Bethseda needs to do prior to anything else as most Oblivion players will know how frustrating and stupid the "radiant a.i" made NPCs do stupid things such as run into burning flames or off ledges and yes, even lava pools) for the actually nicely crafted enemies.
If I could, I would go further in this review about the content of the game itself, but for me personally, the game content was rubbish and was just another pointless extension on what already exists. The only reason I bought it was the blurb on the back of the case which mentioned "...Weapons to be forged..." and personally, if there's a game out there which allows bespoke creation of weapons, to suit the personbal taste of whoever plays it, then I'll get it. I love making things but as I was dissapointed to find, you can only run around the new game world, find ore for two different types of weapons, then take it to a blacksmith...usually on the other side of the map who then creates one weapon or piece of armour depending on how much ore you have.
It leaves much to be desired for my tastes and simply didn't work.
If you're wondering why I keep flaming this game yet gave it two stars, I must admit that the new enemies were well made and original. The storyline itself in this game is a little hard to follow first time around as it's based entirely on madness. But still, if you follow it hard enough, it's actually a unique storyline compared with other games out today.
That's really it. The game only adds a little to what could actually be a very successful game. Unique ideas, poor execution, same boring NPC voices with no emotions. Don't buy this game!
 Refreshing! July 4, 2007
29 out of 29 found this review helpful
After playing Oblivion, a game with such sheer scale and depth, ultimately flawed by the poorly constructed main-quest but bursting at the seams with side quests and great visuals, I hoped for an expansion pack to do it some justice.
This does.
Firstly, we'll look over the visual stuff: The island is big, not as big as Oblivions, but around 25% of the size, which is still very big. The scenery is amazing, the island is essentialy split into to sides; Mania and Dementia (Happy and Sad). On Mania's side are bright sporing mushrooms with autumn trees and bright starry nights, whereas things are a little darker on Dementias side (swamps, dead trees and gloom) Both are carried out beautifully in design and visuals.
The story: Very much like the island, the story is split in two based on your decision to follow either the Golden Saints (Mania) or the Dark Seducers (Dementia). Both sides are fun and each choice has its own benefits. BUT you can't play both quests with the same character, you'll either need to save and go back, or start with a new character (which is frustrating as you need to have either completed the main quest or be arena champion or something in Oblivion).
The Main Shivering Isles quest, regardless of which side you choose is fun filled and interesting enough to keep you hooked!
Extras: New weapons, my only gripe with this is that the unique weapons you find along the way in Shivering Isles are too low-powered to be of any use to a high level character. Another point to make is that you can't (by default) have a horse in Shivering Isles, so be prepared to walk a lot! Oh and another thing is you can't (again, by default; there are mods to fix these) buy a house in Shivering Isles, so you'll pick up lots of heavy loot and have to go back and forth between realms to stash it! (irritating)
But seriously, put these little obstacles (all of which can be fixed with pretty simple mods) aside and you have a gem of an expansion pack which if you take your time over will easily cost you 50 hours of your life :)
Hope that helped :)
 Refreshing, but still flawed April 27, 2007
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
This pack expands the game of Oblivion to add new scenery and some new locations. This is a refreshing addition, as the landscape of Oblivion has been criticized for not having enough variety. There is certainly a lot of fun to be had from the extra locations and missions, and the pack was worth the 20 I spent on it (including P&P).
Unfortunately, the longevity of the game still suffers from the poorly implemented "level scaling" system. The expansion does nothing to fix this. The idea behind the system is that there is a "constant challenge" (read: almost nothing is too hard for you to beat from the start of the game). For a great many gamers, this simply means there is no reward to the investment of time in your character - no obstacles to overcome in the future. This makes the game more of a hack n'slash sandbox instead of a true RPG.
That said, there is still fun to be had, but like FPS games your long term achievements will be sacrificed for short term goals and mindless action.
One important issue that should be noted here is the massive bug that can destroy your game. The patch to fix this should be available within a few days of me posting this (go to the developer's website). The issue actually goes back to the original game, but the expansion accelerates the effects of the bug (causing more people to encounter it earlier). The game uses "Form ID's" to record information, but these are not recycling properly, so you will eventually run out of Form ID's for the program to use. This means that eventually, new items (and perhaps characters) will not save and vanish upon reloading your game. If you are going to buy this, make sure you get the patch!
Yes Indeed! April 16, 2007
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is, quite simply, the best expansion for any game I have ever played. The sheer depth of the story - which, if you are a TES affectionado is actually quite surprising - and the awesome beauty of the envieronment and characters is really impressive. Get it, and if you like that sort of thing get the guide too (the Oblivion guides are also excellent) and get stuck in. There is so much new stuff, so many new enemies - as as per with TES games, once you've completed the quest there's still loads more to do. A true must-have.
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