I’ve been playing Ghost Recon Wildlands since it released on March 7th. That’s almost two months that I’ve described myself as “working on it.” Several times a week, I’ll be playing a game that’s not Wildlands, while quietly thinking to myself, “I should be playing Wildlands.”
It’s not that the game is that enthralling, but there is so much to do, so many things to collect, and the game lays it all out before you like a cat in heat. Just approach it any way you like. The game can be a completionist’s dream, or nightmare, depending on your perspective. While I can’t quite call myself a completionist in the literal sense, I do love a good checklist. And when games give me checklists, oh boy, do I get a bit stupid.
“There’s a whole world out there, full of barrels, and newspaper clippings, and Narco medals. What are you waiting for?” -voice in my head
I’ve always been a bit OCD. I know that’s a popular phrase to throw around nowadays and I’ll admit it’s not terrible, but it’s definitely there. I have to do a walkthrough of any hotel room I’ve stayed in to make sure I didn’t leave anything. I’ll check the drawers, even though I know I didn’t use any drawers. Because you never know. I also double check things I know I’ve turned off before I leave the house. I’ll put a Gamefly rental in its return envelope, but before I peel off the tape and seal it forever, I have to slide it back out and make double sure I put in the right disc. Because you never know.
And while these are minor annoyances that make sure I never leave a phone charger on a Motel 6 night stand, it sometimes spills over into my gaming habit. Every so often I will get myself mixed up in an adventure that just makes my life one big smattering of quest logs and collectibles, and holy shit help me if there are actual check boxes.
I’ve always been the kind of guy that just had to do everything possible in one area before moving on to the next. What? The entire world is at stake, and the only way to save it is to cross the Mountains of Death before the third night of the Spring Sacrifice Ritual? Well hold on a second, there’s an old lady at the end of the street with a question mark over her head. I have to find her lost dog by blowing her magical dog whistle at each of his favorite pissing trees in the Forest of Woe, so you tell that Spring Sacrifice Ritual IT’S JUST GONNA HAVE TO FUCKIN’ WAIT.
The same was true with the old RARE collect-a-thon games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 that everyone likes to piss and moan over. I loved that shit. Sorry, can’t move on to the next room, Banjo. We’ve only found 99 of the 100 magical notes in Bubblegloop Swamp and you’re not fucking going anywhere until we get the last one.
I do way better with free-form open world games like Elder Scrolls or The Witcher because those things are tucked away for you to find, and my OCD isn’t worried in the slightest about things it doesn’t know about.
Oh, there was a secret boss in Final Fantasy, but first you have to grind for 50 hours and then hold the secret sword up in front of the statue on the same day as the 100-year anniversary of the death of the King, so that he might appear for you to fight in order to get the rarest weapon in the game? Meh, sorry I missed it.
Skyrim? Never came close to doing everything. Didn’t know, didn’t care.
Elder Scrolls Online? Holy fuckity fuck there’s a map with exclamation marks everywhere and multiple crystal shards to find in each zone and there are checklists on top of checklists and it’s all on my HUD and my compass and it’s right in front of me OH MY GOD HOLD MY BEER.
Even simple games like Diablo, which are mindless hack-n-slash RPG’s that reward you on a sickeningly frequent basis. But my obsession isn’t with the rewards or the armor and weapon sets. No, it’s the map. That damn blacked out map. See the map in the corner is black until you walk over that part of the map, then it fills in. And the first time I visit a map, I cannot leave until the entire map is filled in. Yeah i know it’s just one small corner on the opposite side of the map that’s barely blackened out, but it might be something cool and I might have to kill it! Thankfully this only happens the first time I visit an area, after that my curiosity is satisfied and I can make any subsequent trips through quick and painless.
Game developers know people like me exist. They thrive on people like me. Hell, Microsoft introduced Achievements to the Xbox 360 in 2005, which is basically one giant checklist. I still remember that god-awful MTV announcement, when Frodo was trying desperately to convince me that video games were cool and that hot girls would play games with me in my basement. Sorry, Frodo, it was only 2005, we weren’t there yet.
Thankfully, the silver lining to that giant over-bearing thundercloud is that I only get obsessive over games if I enjoy them. The only time I will bother with a game I loathe is if I only started loathing it after I got about halfway through it, and I’m basically just hate-fucking my way to the end. Then I can part ways and know that I at least stuck with it long enough to see it through.
If I hate the game from the start, then I just hate it. I move on, and my OCD is cool like “Whatever, we’ll just write about playing games instead of playing games.”
Then it just sits and waits until the itch starts creeping back in again. The itch always comes back, it’s just a matter of time.
Because if Gaming OCD is anything, it’s patient.
If you liked this bit of incoherent rambling, consider supporting our site by contributing to our Patreon page. Not only does that let us keep this blog ad-free, but it also entitles you to risque photos of all of our featured pinups, both for Popcult Pinups and The Paintball Pinups of Texas. It’s a pretty good deal, really.
