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Right in the middle of the Niben Bay of Cyrodiil lies the entrance to the realm of Sheogorath called the Shivering Isles. Here you'll find some bizarre things and even more bizarre people. Shivering Isles is the expansion pack to the brilliant Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Key Features: Two New Armor and Weapons Sets Many new special weapons and magical items About 20-25 hours of new gameplay A good amount of new enemies New conjuration spells New greater power spells Gameplay 7 of 10 As odd as it sounds, the gameplay is not as good as Oblivion even though they are based on the same combat system and the quests are very similar. First off, even though the map is about one-fifth the size of Cyrodiil, it seems smaller. There are only 30-40 places to go. Quests are either found by talking to Sheogorath or seeking out random quests within the realm. There are caves, ruins, homesteads and New Sheoth-the capital and only city in The Shivering Isles. New Sheoth houses both Crucible and Bliss which represent the opposite sides of the Isles - mania and dementia. Side quests are sort of uninspiring. One quest entailed finding calipers and tongs to sell to some idiotic guy who was collecting them. Creatures 7 of 10 Creatures found in the Shivering Isles reflect the essence of it. They are somewhat more magical or otherworldly. Where as you'll find bears, wolves and mountain lions quite commonly in Cyrodiil, here you'll see tree creatures, giant ant-like monsters called Elytra and Scalons which resemble lizards that walk on two feet. Almost everything here is stronger and more ferocious. My only problem with the creatures is I believe I can name off all of them without even playing the game. So in terms of variety, it can get old. You'll be fighting Grummites most of the time. Story 9 of 10 Mania and dementia are the basis of the Shivering Isles; two sides of the same coin. When you first enter the "strange door" you meet Haskill which is Sheogorath's personal assistant. Haskill makes sure you want to enter the Shivering Isles. He has a rather interesting stoicism and indifference to his tone. After this you enter the Fringe. To get past the Fringe you must defeat the Gatekeeper- a 12 foot tall creature with a weapon attached to its right arm. Once you've done this you can choose whether to enter mania-a land which vaguely resembles the inside of Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory or dementia-a downtrodden less colorful version of The Shivering Isles. Note that either side both have the same locations. After this you are sent to see the madman himself - Sheogorath. He asks you to do various quests and what not. It is sort of like being in a guild, but after each quest you end up with a much better reward than you normally would. The story is has a lot more of a plotline to it than the original game. Armors / Weapons 8 of 10 There are two new armor sets: Amber and Madness for mania and dementia respectively. In the realm of Sheogorath, you must find the constituents of the armor to create it as opposed to just buying pre-armor. Amber requires pieces of amber to create both the armor and weapons, just as the madness armor does. The amber is a light armor, while madness is heavy armor. If you happen to find a matrix, this can be used to create a whole piece of the armor. There are also very impressive pieces of armor later on in the main quest line, which are much more powerful than anything found in Cyrodiil. Weapons here are all marginally stronger to begin with than regular weapons. One in particular dubbed Duskfang is very strong and has multiple enchantments. Graphics 6 of 10 At first look the visuals are every bit as appealing and detailed as Oblivion. When you get a little closer, you see it isn't the case. Unfortunately only a few of the weapons and the Amber armor are really remarkable. Amber armor looks like a yellowish-orange glass armor set. New enemy combatants in general appear lackluster-especially the Elytras. It is almost like they left off the last level of 3-d rendering. The landscape of mania is very lit up, vibrant and rainbow colored. It is the only redeeming quality to the graphics. All said, the landscape has very little detail and parts of the trees are not even solid-you can walk right through them. Basically, instead of improving upon the graphics in the Isles, the developers actually took them a step or two down. Parts of it really remind me of Elder Scrolls III What I would have added: First off, you should have been able to purchase a house; though you can inherit one on one of the side quests. Secondly, there should have been a place to enchant weapons and create spells. It got really annoying having to fast travel from the Shivering Isles to the gate, out of the gate and then to the Arcane university. More monsters should have been added and more time should have been spent on the texturing and details of the landscape and creatures. Overall the expansion is a solid 7 out of 10, but has little replay value for me. I was a little disappointed in the general gameplay and also the amount of playing time. I paid about $28 for probably 20 hours of game time, when I got an average of 120 hours for each one of my Oblivion characters. So the value factor is kind of low. Visually, the game has very few things that will wow you. So I wouldn't recommend this to just anyone. You'd have to be a pretty big fan of these types of RPGs or Elder Scrolls in the first place.
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