A day after Bethesda launched their various Game of the Year and Deluxe packages of Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as digital copies via Steam, then came the announcement that Bethesda Softworks and 2K Games are teaming up together to provide bundles for BioShock AND The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

We've plugged Headplay before on some of the hottest game consoles, but this time, we're putting it to the ultimate PC stress test. The PC scene loves shooters, RPGs and racers, so we took Crysis, Sega Rally Revo, and old favorite Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and gave them the Headplay treatment. Which worked well and which doesn't suit the peripheral? Find out in the full article!

Bethesda Game Studios has announced a new add-on to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion called Fighter's Stronghold. As the sixth addition to the official plug-ins offered by Bethesda, Fighter's Stronghold adds a new quest and a new property to acquire: the Battlehorn Castle. DLC6 is expected to release by Monday next week (that's October 15) and should be ready for the PC and Xbox 360 versions. Features include:

• A fully detailed castle for you to explore
• Knights of the True Horn patrol the castle and do your bidding
• Secret treasure vault
• Upgrade the furnishings in every area of the castle
• Hire a vintner to create special wines to enhance your fighting abilities
• Hire a combat trainer to spar with
• Hire a taxidermist to craft lifelike trophies for your great hall
• Purchase an ancient Dwemer Forge that buffs your Armorer skill

Those who've beaten back the Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon and have been to The Shivering Isles and back may want to give this new content a go. After all, aside for being free to download in Xbox LIVE for the first week, it's also the developers' last official contribution to Oblivion content. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition will follow shortly, says Bethesda, and a PlayStation 3 solution for downloadable content is coming very soon.

Buy: [ The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC) ]
Buy: [ The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) ]
Buy: [ The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year (PS3) ]

  

A test conducted on ZDNet showed that Windows XP is still the operating system for gamers, even with the new Quad cores that have come out. While most already know this, you might be surprised to find out that Vista actually held its own against the current favorite.

The game they decided to test it on was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, with the highest graphical settings. Before the test proper began the testers made sure that the testing was done under optimal conditions (latest drivers, defragged hard drives, etc) for both operating systems. When that was confirmed they started playing the game.

Loading times and accessing saved games were fast for both units. The graphics under Windows and Vista were smooth and flowing with minimal lag, the game was easily hitting 60 frames per second while exploring and just generally checking out the different areas. However, when fighting on hard-to-render terrain, the difference between the two showed.

Vista's frame rate would sometimes drop to as low as 25 FPS as compared to XP's 34. In addition, it takes longer for Vista to get back up to 60 FPS unlike XP. While this may seem pretty significant, the author did point out that the game is perfectly playable under both operating systems.

The tests have shown that XP is still king of the hill when it comes to gaming. However, this could very well change considering that systems are getting more and more powerful, it's just a matter of time before Vista (with its DirectX 10 support) surpasses XP. The question though, is how long will it take before that happens?

Bethesda has finally sent 'round an official announcement for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition. This particular expanded version of the game was earlier sighted on a GameStop listing.

The Game of the Year Edition, available for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, will include the original version of Bethesda's award-winning RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) along with the Shivering Isles expansion.

The Game of the Year Edition will also include the Knights of the Nine downloadable content. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition will be available in retail stores this September.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been out for quite some time now on the Xbox 360 and PC. And anything outside of the latest Shivering Isles expansion still hasn't been confirmed or announced yet. Today we just might get that, as WorthPlaying reveals. Now it's no secret that Oblivion has indeed been one of the movers and shakers of last year (and well into 2007, too), and in its wake, critics were left praising the game from Bethesda Softworks.

Over at online retailer Gamestop, they've put up product listing for a certain Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition for the 360 and PC. Any details regarding this version of the game is skimpy, and for all intents and purposes, it could just be a re-packaged box with the "Game of the Year" seal stamped somewhere in the front. However, this release could have certain bundled freebies included in it, whether concrete, tangible objects or in-game content.

For now, without any word from the Take-Two Interactive labs, we're going to be doing two things: 1) take out the big red Rumor stamp and 2) update you guys as soon as we hear more word.

 

We've got good news for fans of The Shivering Isles expansion for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the PC and Xbox 360. The new patch is finally out to save you the trouble of permanent death, and best of all, we've got it here for you as well.

The critical bug in question is usually termed the FormID bug. After playing for at least 50 hours, some people will notice that the world slowly moves closer to ending because vendors lose items that were originally sold to them. Eventually, the game will cease to function unless you apply the patch, either by downloading it from Bethesda's Oblivion site (or from us) or getting it through Xbox Live.

Unfortunately Direct 2 Drive users still have no way to get past this problem, so they'll have to wait a little longer (preferably without playing the game) to get everything up and running fine once more on their computers. For computer users, you can also get the fix through us below.

Download: Shivering Isles patch v1.2.0416

Good news for Oblivion: Shivering Isles fans! The final patch for the irksome Form ID problem is this coming Monday.

In an official announcement at the Bethesda Softworks forums, it was stated that the PC's final update and the Xbox360's update via Xbox Live will go live in a worldwide patch due on Monday. The announcement was naturally met with sighs of relief from those players who were not able to play due to the bug.

For those who aren't familiar with the issue, the Form ID bug affected The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion expansion, Shivering Isles. It happens when the game runs out of form IDs for items and objects and strikes after an extended period of playing. The community manager at Bethesda (named Gstaff) had a reminder about the patch's date. "Again, this is our target date, so hopefully all will go well in preparation for uploading these."

Let's hope so.

 

In an urgent call to Next-Gen, Bethesda announced that they have released a temporary beta patch to correct the Form IDs issue that numbered the play time PC gamers would have on their Oblivion installation with Shivering Isles content. The growing problem peaked just a few days ago, when avid adventurers made a ruckus about a "doomsday" countdown in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

The problem with the Form IDs issue was that some IDs were not being properly labelled as free. The bug manifests itself once players notice that items in the game are turning up missing, and it escalates to a catastrophic crash after a defined range of game time passed. The Xbox 360 version is still under investigation and strict monitoring, but Bethesda has yet to receive a complaint about the bug on the platform.

Bethesda warns that this patch is not a permanent solution to the problem, it simply corrects the issue until a more permanent and final patch can be released to address the whole issue. And another warning: the Beta patch could still introduce more issues to your game.

So once you do download the official Beta patch and install it, you must provide information on game anomalies that seemed to have crawled up from the code. This is to help Bethesda correct the issue without affecting other game mechanics or introducing new bugs into your expanded Oblivion title.

Expect a final patch to be introduced soon after the Beta feedback has been compiled. Also be forewarned that the Final patch could require you to uninstall all of your Oblivion content from the computer prior to installing the final fix. Click on the "Read" link provided below to hop over to the official The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion download page.

Attention Shivering Isles (for the Xbox 360 and PC) adventurers: if you haven't known already, then you might want to know that your Shivering Isles' days are numbered. According to reports coming in from the World Wide Web, it seems that Oblivion's 25% additional content pack has also shipped with a game-ending bug.

 

And it doesn't matter if you haven't even gone through the Portal to the Daedric Prince's plane: as long as you install the Shivering Isles, the countdown starts immediately after loading or starting a new game. The bug is heavily rooted in the system's Form ID generation, where it's internal mechanics could force other items to disappear from the world.

Once the symptom is observed from vendors who seem to be missing items you sold them earlier, it's only a matter of time till the game "craps out on you." Preventive solution? Don't install the US$ 30 content, and wait for Bethesda's official fix for the issue. Yes, they are currently at work to address the bug. An official statement from Bethesda...well, stated:

Regarding the issue in which Form ID's are being used at a high rate in the Shivering Isles content; we are aware of the issue and we are currently looking into a solution. We appreciate your patience, especially from those of you affected by this issue, as we carefully work out a fix that will correct this problem without adding any new issues.

The PC community have already addressed the issue with their own versions of patches, permanently fixing the issue from ever happening again. There has been no full confirmation of the bug on Xbox 360, but just to make sure you can find out if the bug is affecting you by doing the following: drop an object from inventory on the ground, save, quit, reload. If the item's not there, it's an indication that the rollover has already occurred.

Also, the performance of the game is an indicator of how long your game will continue to run fine. If the game runs at around 30 FPS, the game will run fine for 150 hours, and that is all. The faster the FPS, the earlier the bug hits.