» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:28 am
No, it needs to be paused by necessity.
I've played one game that does not let you pause for inventory. In order to use items in combat, you have to attach them to your character's "belt" which appears on the HUD as a vertical column with eight boxes where you can put items and access them with the D-pad (anolog stick is used for movement). However, the game only lets some items go to your character's inventory (healing items, mana regen, buffs, offensive throwable items), while all weapons are sent to an inventory box back at the main camp.
I suppose if you wanted to adapt that to Skyrim, you would assign inventory items to a hot-key bar to use during combat so you don't have to pop open the entire inventory screen while the enemy bashes your face.