Oblivion junkies in North America don’t have to wait any longer for some extra action thanks to today’s release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles. The official Windows expansion will arrive in Europe March 30.

With more than 30 hours of new adventures, the expansion is one that’s been long awaited by many fans of the rich, single-person RPG game. The additional content lets fans explore a brand new plane – the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness.

In true expansion form, Shivering Isles simply adds to the content, so players can continue on with their existing characters.

“The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides - Mania and Dementia - filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. Players will encounter more than a dozen new creatures including hideous insects, Flesh Atronachs, skeletal Shambles, and amphibious Grummites. Throughout the adventure, players will discover all new items, ingredients, spells, and much more. Or, they can have the talented craftsmen of Crucible and Bliss forge new armor and weapons just for them,” says the official media release.

Sounds like a worthy expansion for the game that took the gaming world by storm.

There’s no official word on when an Xbox 360 version of the update will be out.

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Labels: elder scrolls, oblivion, windows, xbox 360

It wasn’t really a question of if Jack Thompson would counter sue Take-Two. It was more of a “when” kind of situation.

Well, here it is. The notorious anti-gaming Florida lawyer has officially filed a counter suit against Take-Two’s preemptive legal maneuvering. Take-Two wants a U.S. District Court judge to stop what it deems as frivolous suits from the lawyer who just can’t seem to win an anti-gaming lawsuit. Thompson wants Take-Two brought up on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, charges. He claims Take-Two has tried to violate his Constitutional rights since 2005.

According to GameSpot, Thompson seems to be requesting federal court approval for Take-Two games prior to release. "All Take-Two would have to do is submit each game to a court of law to see if it contains material harmful to minors or if it does in fact constitute a nuisance of any kind under Florida law. The games are finished. There is plenty of time to submit the games, and doing so will not in fact impede their release--unless they are in fact harmful to children."

This also from GameSpot: “Thompson's defense also appears to contain a number of factual errors and misrepresentations. He claims the Entertainment Software Rating Board found that Take-Two Interactive failed to disclose objectionable content in its role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The ESRB said it found developer Bethesda Softworks was at fault in that matter, not Take-Two.

"Thompson also said that Bully was found to have 'homosexual sex' hidden in the game, about which Take-Two 'forgot' to tell the ESRB and the judge in last year's suit over the game's release. The homosexual activity in that game was limited to kissing, and the ESRB said shortly after that game came out that such scenes were considered in issuing it a rating of T for Teen.”

As if the factual errors aren’t enough, Thompson has laid out his own version of a conspiracy theory: “According to Thompson, Take-Two had still more help in breaking the law. The countersuit mentions a number of companies and media outlets--including the ESA, Penny Arcade, and GameSpot--as having collaborated and conspired with Take-Two to commit racketeering activities.”

It sounds as if Thompson’s simply up to his old tricks again. This will be one heck of a show to watch. It’s just a shame the court system’s time has to be tied up with such nonsense.

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Labels: bethesda, jack thompson, oblivion, take-two, video game lawsuits

The news isn’t surprising, but it’s still kind of a downer for Nintendo fans who thought they might have a chance to get lost in Oblivion.

Bethesda Softworks has officially said creating an Oblivion port on the console is “not possible.”

The word comes from Bethesda’s Peter Hines in an interview with Games Industry.biz. While Hines is enamored with the Wii, he says it just doesn’t have the right stuff for a game as visually demanding as Oblivion.

“It's something we'd like to do, but unfortunately it's not a very good fit with Oblivion. Oblivion is a very demanding game hardware-wise and in terms of graphics processing and raw horsepower. It's not something the Wii was designed to do. They decided not to make the focus on raw horsepower but on interface and so forth. It's a great console and many of us at Bethesda have one but I know that bringing Oblivion over is not possible - we'd have to do a whole new game."

While I’m a huge Wii fan, I have to agree with Hines. The console just isn’t made to support games as driven as Oblivion. Still, it would be nice to see what Bethesda could cook up in terms of a different Wii title. It sounds like that’s not out of the question either.

"It's something we've talked about, but I don't think you could say we're considering it. It's not in our immediate future - maybe something we'll look at somewhere down the road.”

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Labels: bethesda, Nintendo, oblivion, Wii