Like some of you out there, I suffer from motion sickness, which a lot of times doesn’t go well with my desired profession. Fast paced shooters and other first person titles are usually the culprit, but sometimes there’s a few other titles that have a major effect.
Recently, Ninja Gaiden II set me off in a bad way. With a combination of the game’s very bad camera and choppy framerate, an hour long play session had my dizzy and on the verge of vomiting for good bit of time after playing. Ninja Gaiden Sigma on the PS3 gave me no such problems. In fact, I played through half of that game in one sitting. Then you have games like Call of Duty 4, which, although it’s very fast paced, runs at a constant framerate and gives me no problems whatsoever. I’ve had marathon sessions lasting six to seven hours or more of Call of Duty or Halo 3 where I haven’t had a single issue with motion sickness.
So what exactly causes this problem? In most cases, it’s a combination of bad framerate and poor camera issues, which is why Ninja Gaiden II caused such an effect. In many games where the framerate is not locked, the rapid changes in screen updates can cause your mind to get confused. And if the camera doesn’t control the way it should, your perception of the world goes right out the window.
Many people suffer from motion sickness that play video games. Some choose not to play games that affect them, such as first person shooters or extremely fast racing titles. Others opt for very short play sessions to keep things in check. Me? I go for the medicine route. Sure, you can use Dramamine or other over the counter pills, but those just end up making you woozy. A cheaper and, in my opinion, better solution is ginger root capsules. The effects of ginger root are similar to what you could get with Dramamine, but without getting you all loopy. If none of these options work for you, there’s always prescription drugs. But if you need to go that far, you might have to go with option 1, which is avoiding the games that cause issues altogether.
Motion sickness hinders what I play sometimes, but it’s nothing that can stop me from any games that are great and that I really want to play. It took me six months to pick of Call of Duty 4 because I was afraid of how it would affect me, but I’m much happier knowing I’ve played the game (and continue to play).
What about you? Does motion sickness affect what and how you play video games?
Yeah used to get a small amount of motion sickness on games that had very high frame rates. e.g. (half life running on a modern system @ 200FPS) I can’t say I really get motion sickness anymore though. Either I have conditioned myself to it??????? I do play on consoles these days though?????
oh yeah, i just quit though playin when it does, not into popping pills, i heard ginger pills r good
This is a problem that I’ve had for years, but when I tell people they laugh. I have a diving sim game ‘everblue 2′ which I can only play for about 20 minutes before feeling really sick. I also got sick playing ‘portal’ and the ‘half-life’ games, and sometimes I feel woozie after other FPS titles like ‘the darkness’. I think it has to do with the camera flying all over the place, and when I swing it around too much I feel sick. Also, my TV is huge, which may also contribute.
It sucks because I enjoy the games so much. I just limit my play time and if I get sick I switch to another ’safe’ game. I don’t think I would ever take anything for the motion sickness…. although sometimes a few beers help out a bit (oddly enough).
U got through half of ninja gaiden sigma on PS3 in one sitting?! I must have had about 30 sittings on it and I still ain’t half way through, its so dam hard!
I suffer motion sickness from many games. There are a lot of factors that affect it but one in particular seems prominent. If camera motion is constant speed (that is to say when it moves it moves instantly at full speed and when it stops it just stops instantly) I usually don’t get sick. Games with a built in movement and/or camera acceleration/deceleration will get me sick very quickly. Subtle motions cause more problems (the less perceptible, the more sickness).
Wow that must suck ^
I rarely get motion sickness,I think the last game that got me all dizzy was Resi4(I know).
I get motion sickness when I’m really tired and still playing fast paced games half asleep lol. Other than that the Wii should bring head track even though it looks like it’ll take a lot of work to set up.
Happy to know that i’m not the only one ^^, I still can’t play COD4 or Bioshok,
after few seconds, I get motion sickness ):