Here we go again. The game that wrecked social lives, converted RPG-haters and had internet forums breaking out in a “how do you cure vampirism?” sweat has returned to claim more victims in 2007. Discard all memories of Knights Of The Nine and Horse Armor and any other Oblivion-related goodies Marketplace has been spewing in your general direction for the past year. This is Shivering Isles, the official money shot and the one download worth grabbing.

Clocking in at a quarter of Oblivion’s size, Shivering Isles is split between two parts, Dementia and Mania. This gives Shivering Isles a whole new flavour that Oblivion didn’t have. While Oblivion sometimes felt like a ‘ye olde medieval times’ patchwork spread across a virtual continent, it never really changed or dared offer anything too different from the norm. Shivering Isles has a little more freedom to play around with the artistic side of affairs and this opens up some truly breathtaking visuals. Sheogarth’s palace, in particular, is stunning. There’s no denying that the visuals are now looking more functional than spectacular, with the graphical flourishes coming from Bethesda’s ability to coax beauty from an overworked engine rendering approximately 8 million different things at once, yet that hardly matters. After all, Oblivion has never been about the graphics and nor is Shivering Isles. Even the aesthetics don’t make Shivering Isles what it is.

No, what makes this an essential download is that Shivering Isles manages to pin down what made Oblivion such a compelling game – you feel as though this is your adventure and not that you’re jumping through the hoops set by the developers from point A to point B to end boss to end credits. If Sheogarth’s jokes wear on your patience, there’s nothing to stop you from attacking him with an axe. If you want to stomp about on top of his palace like King Kong in a man costume, there’s nothing to stop you from stacking boxes by one of the walls to get the necessary height. If you want to draw hostile creatures towards NPCs by using yourself as bait, you can. Everything your mind can come up with is possible. Maybe Shivering Isles doesn’t have quite the expansiveness Oblivion did, where you could complete side-quest after side-quest until you’ve completely forgotten what you were doing in the first place. There are side-quests here but they don’t feel as abundant. Yet despite that, and despite being a quarter of Oblivion’s size, Shivering Isles still manages to feel like a fully blown game, albeit one that’s more streamlined without huge forests to wander around and trip over tombs in.

For all this warm, positive glow emanating from these pages about how wonderful Shivering Isles is, you’ll have noticed an eight nestling in the corner of the page. That’s because what makes Shivering Isles so great is also what holds it back – it’s more of the same. Nothing more, nothing less. If you were one of those rare creatures who hated Oblivion then Shivering Isles won’t change your mind. Not that Shivering Isles has set out with the intention of reinventing the wheel or to show off ambition to hint at what to expect in the future but even so, you can’t help but feel a tiny, tiny bit let down. The same tactics that carried you through Oblivion can carry you through Shivering Isles, which is good news for those who had mastered the deadly conjure creature/turn invisible combo but bad news for those hoping Bethesda would have given the old ingredients a shake, or added something new.

Shivering Isles is a strange beast. On the one hand, it can easily lay claim to being the most addictive 360 game of 2007 and is an extension of a game that had a clear run as the best 360 game released, until Marcus Fenix showed up. Unfortunately, the usual claim of bigger and better can’t be laid at Shivering Isles’s feet. If anything, it’s smaller and the same. There’s still a slight whiff of disappointment buried beneath the new serving of Oblivion. Then again, it’s not strictly a sequel, so what gives? Overall, it’s an eight. Essential for fans of Oblivion and certainly worth digging up a tatty second-hand copy for if you’ve already ditched yours. Don’t expect a revolution and you’ll have a riot – this is still the best RPG on Xbox 360.

Ryan King