Mad as a box of dancing frogs. (Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (PC))

Member Name: Donnabroom

Product:	Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (PC)
Date:	17/05/08 (163 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mad as a box of dancing frogs.

Disadvantages: Mad as a box of dancing frogs.

The Shivering Isles, (S.I.), is an expansion pack for the game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For more information on The Elder Scrolls series or Oblivion check out http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.ph, wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Scrolls), or try some of the reviews already on here.

You can get S.I. for the PC, PS3 and the Xbox 360; my review is about the Xbox 360 version as I think there may a few differences between the versions.

(Note: I got the latest version of this game which includes the other Oblivion expansion; Knights of the Nine. If you buy this version it works out the cheapest way to get the game and the expansions. The Game of the Year edition of Oblivion does contain the main game and both the expansions but it costs a lot even if you can find a copy for sale).

I will only be reviewing S.I. for this review and not Knights of the Nine.

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S.I. adds a new "realm" to your game accessible through a "strange doorway". After installation you need to wait 24 hours in game before you get a message and can access the S.I. You can either just carry on playing the game as normal until 24 hours has passed or use the wait function.

The S.I. themselves are the realm of the "Mad God"; Sheogorath. They are split into two sides; dementia and mania and the people and landscapes match these mental states. As such the S.I. are completely crazy and the extra quests, (there are literally dozens of them), reflect this as well.

Playing in the Shivering Isles really is darker and sicker than the rest of the Oblivion game and isn't at all suitable for younger children. The game is rated 15 but as always it would really depend on the child.

Just as with the main Oblivion game there is a main quest and lots of other side quests. You can do them in any order you wish. You get game points, (a gamer score on the Xbox 360), when you complete various parts of the main quest.

The main quests are for the Mad God himself and are actually reasonably easy and quite interesting. You get to learn a bit more about the Deadra, (a race of God-Like creatures from the realm of Oblivion), which I always find interesting. The other quests are pretty much standard Oblivion type quests such as finding things for people, killing people, and generally solving any problems people might have. Once the main quest is finished you have an on-going thing where you need to go and rescue various villages from attack. As far as I can tell this goes on indefinitely and you earn gold every time you do it.

As well as the new quests you get some new races, (these unfortunately aren't playable races), new forts, caves and ruins, new items, new weapons and new armour. The most annoying thing for me is that you can not own any property in the S.I. This is a problem because you haven't got anywhere secure to put stuff that you want to keep but not have to carry round. There are shops and stuff though so you can sell things you don't want as usual although I didn't anyone who could buy stolen stuff.

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Installing the game is definitely easy, (you will need to have a hard-drive for your Xbox). You simply pop the disc in, tell it to install and in a couple of minuets it's done. You don't actually need the disc after this point at all, (unless of course you wish to re-install it).

You can carry on playing your saved game once the S.I. is installed which is great or you can of course make a new character.

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There really isn't much more to say, (I don't want to give away any of the plot). I really enjoyed playing the S.I. but it did at times wind me up a bit as it really is a bit mad. If you enjoy playing Oblivion it is defiantly worth getting and adds literally hundreds of hours of game play.

Summary: An expansion for Oblivion.