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Searching for cabbages

Written by Mike Holmes on the 22nd of February 2012 at 15:40

The other night I was watching the Mrs drunkenly stagger around Skyrim (I know, I know - how rock and roll are we!). Her character's a battle-mage of sorts; powerful spells on one hand, a big f@ck off sword in the other. More interested in the experience and the story telling, this game is being played on easy. Skeletons scatter and bandits are impaled; there is very little that can stand up to the potent combination of magic and a good sword arm.

You'd think that watching a character like that progress in a world as brilliant and immersive as Skyrim would be, at the very least, exciting. Wrong. My wife has a problem, and it's something that a lot of people suffer from: The obsessive compulsive desire to pick up absolutely everything that comes across her path. From apples to cabbages, shovels to mineral ores, anything that is laying on the ground or in a chest/sack/drawer/desk/cupboard/barrel is fair game for her ever-full inventory.

A normal jaunt through a castle or dungeon is elongated beyond hope by the constant pursuit of the random stuff found in any of the many containers that adorn nearly every room and environment in the game. The temptation to pick up any old junk, just because you might be able to sell it in when you get to the next town, is too much for some people to resist. Add in a variety of skills that allow you to use the junk that you've picked up in various combinations to create new and improved stuff, and soon enough you'll find that you're fully immersed in the trade and item-creation systems that underpin the game that you are actually playing (it was about killing dragons, wasn't it?). At its core this sub-game is all about trade and stock management, but despite this apparent mundanity it keeps some people unnaturally absorbed.

We all do it to some extent. Picking up artifacts and valuable loot and selling it on is an important part of RPGs like Skyrim. It's what allows you to buy the equipment that helps define your experience in the game. I just find it interesting that so many people take so much pleasure in picking up so much junk, perhaps because it is so far from the way that I play the game, where only the most valuable items get scavenged.

Each to their own, at the end of the day. We've all got our preference of genres and game-types, and within that we all have our own methods and styles of play. Each of these is as valid as the next. Watching someone else play a game as interpretive and flexible as Skyrim often reveals things you wouldn't expect, and methods that previously will have never even occurred to you. The other day I watched on impressed as my friend used one of his shouts to send someone tumbling off of the top of some battlements, before swiftly and expertly dispatching the falling bandit's brother-in-arms. It's a trick I've borrowed; I find it is most useful for getting rid of Ice Trolls in high-altitude battles.

Skyrim, Fallout and Oblivion all offer players a vast array of different ways of experiencing the same source material. Watching other gamers go about their everyday business in a game as variable as any of those just mentioned, often reveals just how flexible and individual an in-game experience can be. It doesn't matter if you're collecting Nirnroots or Nuka Cola, the variety and detail offered by Bethesda's RPGs allows gamers to express themselves how they see fit, and to impose themselves on a world so deep that it bends to their style of play. Perhaps that's why we love them so much.

HQ