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Suprisingly Excellent...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 32
Date: April 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was truly suprised at just how good this expansion turned out to be. Not only does it introduce a completly new realm full of fantastical scenery, objects, and characters, but it also introduces a broad range of vibrante and involving quests.

Upon entering the Shivering Isles, you are automatically presented with two sides of a coin - mania or dementia. The manic half of the Isles are vibrantly colored, producing wacky landscape and crazy characters. The dementia half, however, is more suited for the darker characters with its gothic scenery and clothing. As you begin to explore, you'll encounter a variety of new creatures, including an uber-goblin-like creature that makes its home in extensive, bellow ground networks. It is also of note that the newly introduced creatures of the Shivering Isles are really tough to beat, even at a higher level. To some extent, even with the leveling system, Oblivion's creatures had become rote kills - one or two blows and your done. Not so in Shivering Isles - a nice change. New items are also present, including some kick butt weaponry (which are overall much better than those found in your earlier adventures), as well as the opportunity to harvest certain ingredients and have weapons and armor custom made.

The quests are extremely enjoyable. For instance, in one side quest, you have the option of completly trashing another characters home - havok's real world physics made this a real treat. In addition, nearly every quest following the main storyline presents a new and creative opportunity to create a little chaos. In one quest, you're given the opportunity to torture uncooporative suspects, and in another you are able to choose a life of insanity or a 'dead end' for a band of unwary adventurers.

Overall, Shivering Isles introduces a realm that is built upon fantasy - a nice break from the more realistic style of Cyrodil. It is a truly involving game, making for a very fun play. I might even be tempted to say that its a bit better than Oblivion itself...

Shivering Isles is Hot!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: March 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Alright, I only started playing the Shivering Isles expansion two days ago, and I have only been able to play about three hours, but I love it. It's probably not for everyone, since it can be dark and kinda twisted (alright, it's actually really twisted), but I tend to think it's the best thing I've played yet from Bethesda and the Elder Scrolls world.

Don't read any further if you don't want any details revealed.

From the moment I entered the Strange Door in Niben Bay and had to figure a way to get past the Gatekeeper, I was hooked. It only got better. It wasn't long before I found myself in a village where all the residents had each been magically split into two persons, one manic and the other one really out there. Naturally, owing to the nature of Sheogorath's realm, the solution they want you to implement for them is to kill their doubles so they can have some peace and get their work done. Later, you get to direct the progress of a group of adventurers as they make their way through a dungeon. You can kill them off one by one, or make things happen that cause them to go insane. Then, if you last long enough to meet the Duchess of Dementia, if you play your cards right, she will make you her Grand Inquisitor and you get to go through her capitol city and interrogate all the residents and torture anyone who can't answer your questions. Of course, at your command, the torturer will inflict pain on them for no other reason than just because.

If you like Oblivion, especially if you like the Dark Brotherhood set of quests, you will love the Shivering Isles. So what are you waiting for?

Just Excellent!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: May 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As others have said, Oblivion is getting a bit "old" for some of us who have completed most of the quests (163 for me) over the past year or so. Shivering Isles is just what the doctor ordered. Great idea, an interesting and beautiful world, great new characters and many challenges for high level characters (or low level if that's where you're at). Seeing those beautiful Golden Saints (or Aurelans) again takes me back to Morrowind (ES 3). Nostalgia to be sure. New armor (either heavy or light; enchanted or regular) and weapons (all kinds) are available. I found the main quest to be just great. The Shivering Island "world" is relatively small so a horse is not needed (and nobody else has one so there would be balance issues). I only wish there were a few more good and challenging miscellaneous type quests -- especially since there are no factions to join. But I say there's 30 hours here -- at least.

It's basically "The Elder Scrolls Part 5"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 24
Date: April 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It is an expansion pack, meaning that you need the original game to be installed (Oblivion). After loading your saved game, just keep playing Oblivion for a few minutes and eventually you will receive a message telling you that you heard a rumor about something. That is where the Shivering Isles quest begins.

The content on the Shivering Isles dvd is copy protected and cannot be copied to one's hard drive or other media for a later installation or for backup. You need the original dvd to install the expansion pack.

Unlike the Knights of the Nine downloadable content, Shivering Isles does *not* take place in Cyrodiil. It is a whole other realm and dimension altogether. It's like a completely new Elder Scrolls game, but with the same game engine, and you get to keep all of your character's attributes, ammo, items, etc. There are new enemies, quests, vegetation, weapons, armor, you name it. It's such a detailed expansion pack, that there's a whole 176 page strategy guide sold separately for it. Shivering Isles is going to keep me busy for a long time.

Sheogorath's Realm

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Personally, I think this expansion pack is worth it on merit of Sheogorath's voice acting and dialogue alone. Yes, there's more to a game than that. But he's hilarious, and they did a good job giving the madgod a personality that, despite his insanity, he is almost believable. His mood swings mid-sentence, sometimes he rambles on about clowns and butter... or says stuff like "Come back and visit anytime... or I'll pluck out your eyes!"

The people in town are all just as bizzare in their own ways. They're not quite as believable, but you'll meet hypochondriacs, people who think everyone is trying to kill them, and people who collect (and steal) forks.. needless to say, they are also amusing, though I wouldn't say as much as Sheogorath himself. Their quests are often bizzare - there's one orc that's afraid of cats (i.e. kajit), and asks you to get rid of a Kajit, which then gives you several different solutions to his quest.

Gameplay-wise, I'd say it's the same caliber as Oblivion itself. The quests in the main storyline are engaging and fun. The sidequests are fun too, but tend to be fairly short, and there aren't anywhere near as many as Oblivion (that may be expected, though, seeing as this is an expansion).

My only real complaint is that I played through the whole game and only bumped into like one of the small villages. They are not at all essential to the storyline. Sure, you can get like one sidequest from the 4-5 villagers at each town, but if you never find the town, you're not so far out of luck.

Overall, though, I found the dialogue to be amusing, quests entertaining, and the landscapes rather interesting. There's a shortage of sidequests, but the characters are much more fleshed-out and distinctive than in vanilla Oblivion. Granted, they're crazy, but at least for me, that made me talk to everyone I saw. I had a lot of fun with Shivering Isles.

Solid

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

After The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's release last year, Bethesda Softworks has been slowly releasing little nuggets of new content. Most of this content, while cheap, didn't add much to the game. Unlike the previous downloads, the Shivering Isles is an expansion pack filled with content, adding roughly 20-40 hours of new gameplay for those still running around Cyrodiil.

The expansion begins when you hear news about a strange island that has sprouted up in the middle of Niben Bay. Upon inspecting the island, you are greeted by a soldier standing guard outside of a strange doorway. Apparently everyone that has entered the portal has either come back out insane, or has simply not come back at all. Being the brave adventurer you are, you enter to find that you have arrived at the Shivering Isles, the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. He has put a call out for a champion to help him stop the Greymarch; a sort of cleaning that happens at the end of every era.

The world of the Shivering Isles is divided into two regions: Mania to the Northeast and Dementia to the Southwest. Both areas are visually stunning and look absolutely nothing like anything that you have seen in Cyrodiil. Mania is very bright, vibrant, and oversaturated with plants like tall trees and large colorful mushrooms. On the other hand, Dementia is a very dark, foggy, and washed out swampland. The main city, New Sheoth, is also divided into two sections called Bliss and Crucible. The entire size of the Isles is about a quarter of the size of Cyrodiil, and is packed with tons of stuff to explore.

The main quest is pretty epic in scope and is easily on par with the one in the main game. The quests, of which many are memorable, will take you all over the Shivering Isles to complete various tasks. Your first job upon entering the realm of Sheogorath is to defeat the Gatekeeper. He is an extremely large and powerful enemy that is guarding the Gates of Madness, which is the only exit from the Fringe (a holding area of sorts that prevents those unworthy from entering the actual Isles). You can face him as is, but innovative players will find ways to tip the battle in their favor.

Another one of the early quests involves you reactivating Xedilian, which is an old dungeon that was used to deal with unwanted adventurers before the Gatekeeper was created. Once activated, the dungeon magically draws any visitors to it, at which point you can either kill or play tricks on the NPCs that find their way into its chambers.

Besides the main quest, the game offers a lot of interesting side quests, many of which are just as crazy as the people who reside in the Isles. One of the citizens of Bliss will explain to you that while he has perfected getting boats to float on the water, he has had less success in forcing the water to fly through air. Logically, a boat carried by flying water becomes a Skyboat. So he tasks you with searching everywhere for calipers and tongs to achieve the effect of keeping water airborne, and pays you gold for each caliper or tong you bring him. Another resident is afraid to sleep inside because he believes the walls will fall on top of him. So he asks you to find a safe place for him to sleep outside.

In addition to the new quests, the expansion also includes new weapons and armor, some of which you can craft from raw materials found in various dungeons throughout the Shivering Isles. Players will also get some new spells along the way, the most interesting of which are a few summons. Also, those who like to create their own potions will find a huge amount of new ingredients to experiment with.

Overall, the Shivering Isles is pretty good. It features all of the stuff that you would expect from an expansion pack: an interesting plot, a good amount of quests, new weapons, armor, ect. Not to mention that this expansion offers more hours of gameplay then other full priced retail games, making the Shivering Isles a convincing reason to revisit an already excellent game.

A pretty good add on to Oblivion.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When you first start up Oblivion after installing Shivering Isles you get a message that tells you that a strange portal has opened up somewhere.Once you find the portal and enter it you meet a man that fills you in on whats going on and then he lets you in the door to the island.The first thing you notice when you enter the realm is that it's breath takingly beautiful.There is a lush landscape of trees,brush,mushrooms,waterfalls and large hills that seem to go on forever.Even though this game is an expansion pack it is huge in its own right.It can take you a while to travel across the isles and get to Sheogoraths palace.The first thing you notice when you start talking to the people of the Isles is the fact that they are all friggen nuts!Pretty much all the npc's in this game talk to you in riddles and dont make a whole lot of sense.The most crazy of all the people in the Isles is Sheogorath himself,he is the mad God that runs the Isles and he has a bit of a problem(aside from being insane).Creatures have snuck into Sheogoraths realm and he needs your help to get rid of them.Sheogorath is a crack up,he will keep you laughing with his own demented brand of logic.The humor in this expansion pack is dark but not so dark that it offends.The Shivering Isles is a nice add on to Oblivion and is filled with tons of little side quests that will keep you playing for hours on end.If you have done almost everything there is to do in the main Elder scrolls game then you should pick this pack up.

Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles for PC review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: May 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Be prepared to chase Alice down the rabbit hole in this one. You go from the fantasy world of Tamriel to a plane of existence belonging to Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. Madness is the keyword here. Madness as in it will aggravate the heck out of you if you try to do all of the quests, as well as madness in the sense of insanity. Any bipolar persons out there will feel right at home. Don't get me wrong though. This is an official Beth Soft expansion, so of course it's going to be greatly enjoyable as well. "It's aggravating as well as enjoyable? That makes no sense!" Exactly - and that's what is captured by this half up half down world. Get it, play it, then after hours well spent, step back and wait for the `Oh, that's what he meant' moment.

Adding a new spice to an older flavor

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: July 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Oblivion is by no means old, but after pumping out possible hundreds of hours of gameplay many things become old and repeatetative. Fortunately this expansion adds a whole plethora of new areas, graphics, dungeons, amor, and spells to access.

If you love oblivion it's more then worth it. A very interesting story and a beautiful new world. Enjoy and have fun.

A great expansion that surpasses the original!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There really isn't much more to say. The strange environments, exotic creatures, interesting quests and compelling core story all make this expansion an excellent investment for owners of Oblivion.

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