Xboxaddict.com Article
The Elder Scrolls IV:Shivering Isles
by WitchKing9Centering around the troubles of the daedric god sheogorath and the greymarch is the Shivering Isles worth a dizzying 2400 MP points?
I won't spend much time talking about the presentation and sound because well, it's the exact same as Oblivion. Only a few general comments about the game to open this up. Once you DL the shivering isles your oblivion will now load extra content every time you load the game which can be sort of annoying, but most will find this excusable. The next point I would like to bring up is the load times during the game are still sort of long and on par with the normal game of oblivion. For a game that is on your hard drive I find that somewhat inexcusable. Sure I know it is using resources from the DVD but to have the same loading times and frequency as the retail game with no add-ons is disappointing.
Much changed from the art style of oblivion. This game definitely screams Morrowwind. Due to the update there are some graphical touches that add slightly to the graphics of environments. However, unfortunately the draw distance in SI is still pretty poor and stuff that isn't all that far away looks like a blurry texture until the game loads the area. That aside, the new art style is astounding and so pretty to look at especially in HD. You guys have all seen the screen shots of the night sky in oblivion and it's sharp contrast to that in oblivion, yes it looks that good. You can stare at the shivering isles sky all day. The foliage also seems to be out of a 60s drug trip with huge mushrooms everywhere in the landscape. It's a nice change of pace from the original game. The best new graphical stuff to look at in oblivion are the new enemies; from the intimidating sewn flesh atrnoauch, to the ravoring hunger, to the elektryon. You can easily tell a lot of time was spent in the visual department fine tuning the look of the new enemies. I also enjoyed the sense of scale of the gatekeeper of the shivering isles. It's not that often if you think about in games you walk up to another character and the sheer size and scale in comparison to your guy makes you feel quite small and insignificant.
Another point of note is the main towns in oblivion which are disappointingly all together. Sort of makes you feel the developers didn't want to spend the time to spread them out across the map is at least 1/3 the size of cyrodiil per the promise we got. The towns themselves felt like just extensions of stuff you've already seen in the main game with a tad different more Morrowwind art style. The only really interesting portions of the main city area is the main palace of sheogorath. On the whole though the graphics in shivering isles are above average and on par with the original title. So if you liked those graphics a year ago, don't expect too much different, but it's on par. However, as with all games, a title is not made or broken in the graphic department but in the gameplay.
