In case you have not been reading your gaming news you may be interested to learn that another Elder Scrolls will be upon us quite soon. If you are anything like me, your response to this is, "Have we not been punished enough?" I beat Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in the weeks right after it was released and I have trouble believing how anyone could still be interested in this game. Oblivion's hack-n-slash fun last for about 8 hours, after which it become insanely repetitive and the game had very little else to offer. I admit I had a good time at first, but the monotony of Oblivion was such that I don't know how I managed to make it through the rest of the game. In retrospect, it was probably just a failed attempt at getting my money's worth... This game is just too limited to stay fun for more than few hours, let alone it's "open ended" game play. As you get further in the game you become more proficient at the same skills and pick up a few more powerful weapons and spells, but very else changes. The open style of the map is in many ways a good thing, but if early in the game you want to explore a bit there is a good chance that you will stumble upon the same places you will have to go later on so even an adventurous spirit is be punished. I don't know what Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Shivering Isles is going to bring to the table except to satiate the super-fans, but I guess we will all find out on March 26th. This expansion is slated to bring about 30 hours of play time, which probably means that there will be a few new monsters, an few new weapons, and maybe- cross those fingers- some new armor. Even the prospect of new armor is not very alluring because I seem to remember getting brand new dragon scale armor, which I used for about 3 minutes before I uninstalled the game, after beating the final boss. You can play Shivering Isles with your old character so there is no reason to start over, but given the amount of time invested in that one character who would even consider starting over and playing the game again, as we were clearly intended to do. More bad news- if you want to play the game on Xbox 360 you will need Xbox Live and an internet connection, because it is download only. There is a lot of information available in case you want to learn more about the game but after my experience with Oblivion I can't see it being worth the time. I am more open to a good RPG game that the high majority of the gamers out there, but the mindless quests, ridiculously easy battles, and thankless goals of Elder Scrolls IV have killed any chances of me getting into the series again. Lastly, and this is probably just me being overly critical, but could this name be any worse? I'll be the first to admit that Oblivion sounds cool, but Shivering Isles? Sounds like the sequel to Blades of Steel (a much better game)...