I just played Modern Warfare 2, and by the time I got through the tutorial, I felt like I was gonna hurl. Had the same problem with Mirror's Edge and Metal Gear Solid.

I haven't had any issues with Arkham Asylum, but maybe that's only because I was creeping around so slowly in 3rd person. Mario Galaxy and Aggressive Incline on Gamecube also made me feel queasy. Now that I think about it, I think I even had very mild issues with Mario 64 on the DS, so small screens don't even save me.

What can I do? Am I doomed to 2D side scrollers for all my gaming?

This Penny Arcade shows that I'm not completely alone:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/11/3/

One of the reasons I never got good at FPS games is due to motion sickness.(it's also one of the reasons I never got into the genre like a lot of people did) The effect is most prevalent in FPS games, though it occasionally occurs in other titles. If the world is open, I tend to be fine(which is probably why I never have the issue with dogfighters and flight sims). Start throwing in tight corridors and things could get ugly. Heck, back when I played Everquest, I sometimes had issues while dungeon crawling, even though I could run around the Desert of Ro for hours with no ill effects.

I think the cause is twofold. The primary reason is that your eyes tell you you're moving, but your inner ear says you're not, confusing the brain. Additionally the camera is wrong in most, if not all FPS titles. They generally put the focus point and the rotation point at the same spot, which just isn't natural. The focus point should be slightly in front of the rotation point, due to how the human head is designed. The difference is subtle, but noticeable.

I could never play the original Doom because of this. I can't take more than 10 seconds of it before I'm nauseous.

I don't tend to get it on any other title that I've played, but watching others play a FPS, especially where you can't see your character makes me ill. I can only watch them for about 30 seconds to a minute at a time - because I have no control over it, I believe that's what makes me feel ill.

Randy

I got motion sickness from older FPS games. The movement was just so sharp and jarring. I guess with smoother graphics comes smoother movement in-game, so it's not as much of an issue.

I don't get so much motion sick, but I do get a sense of vertigo in some games, and anytime I am falling a vast distance, the pit of my stomach lurches as if I was falling. It is a very disconcerting feeling.

Never had this issue personally, but about the time of Descent II it came into play in my favour in high school.

It's always fun spelunking in mines like that at a mad pace when your opponent is moaning pitifully.

When I started playing Borderlands I had a problem with this. It'd been a while since I'd played an FPS so it took some readjusting. Now, I'm fine, but I have several friends who can't play FPS' for longer than 10 to 15 minutes before their head starts pounding.

the only game that ever gave me this problem was sonic 3D blast. honestly, i think my system was trying to save me from playing a terrible game

muahaha.

now i know your super weaknesses!

A lot of first-person games use really exaggerated, motion-sickness-inducing "head bob" effects. They're supposed to simulate the effect of your viewpoint being jostled around a bit when you move, but are often overdone and wind up making you feel more like you're on a boat and don't quite have your "sea legs" yet.

I'm not certain, but a *lack* of head bob might also be able to induce motion sickness--implying you're on a quickly-moving platform panning to follow something. That might also translate over to third-person games.

Arkham Asylum and other games with the "over-the-shoulder" third-person perspective may be more tolerable for people susceptible to motion sickness simply because you've got a character in roughly the same place on-screen at all times, serving as a "fixed point" to focus on.

</spitballing ideas>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7PsNuHzUKQ...feature=related

Only game to ever make me feel ill.

Descent on the PC killed me. Always bobbing and weaving and going upside-down and such. Blecch.

Descent was *Awesome*.

Me too! And that was... 15 years ago. Wow. My dad took his work PC home over a the wintery break with Doom installed, and I was happy to be able to play what was then a cutting-edge game at home. Well, unlike I feel sick, nauseous, and about to topple over.

I haven't, to my current knowledge, had any problems with FPSs since, but I dislike the genre and could count the FPSs I've played since Doom on one hand (GoldenEye, some of Perfect Dark, two of the Metroid Primes, which may not technically be FPSs).

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 also gave me nausea and twitchy eyelids, back when I borrowed a Mega Drive (Genesis) for a week when I was a kid. I haven't experienced any of those effects since with Sonic games, and assume it was because I was using a cheap, small TV and connecting the console using crappy composite, with the unpleasingly flickery picture.

Speaking of 3D games, I've just recalled my first 3D experience. Didn't induce motion sickness, thankfully.

Huh, I've never had this problem, but then again I can go on the Mad Tea Party at Magic Kingdom or Mission SPACE right after eating with no puking. Sooooo... Heh.

As much as I agree with this, you shouldn't have to drug yourself to play video games.

I love being more or less immune to any form of motion sickness. even to the point I can read while riding in a car(which apparently causes alot of people I know to get seasick, so to speak).

I can't even imagine getting nauseous from a video game's 3d...

I had this problem with the original Dark Forces game... I chalk it up to the horrible look of the 3d environment, I haven't had a problem since.

Well I don't have this problem & I've got no depth perception. (Lazy eye prevents my eyes from working together, so I use other visual cues to determine distance & depth.)

Anyway, while it might not help, it couldn't hurt to try playing the games with one eye covered. It might not do anything, but its worth a shot.

(Besides, it'll help you get into the feel of Metal Gear Solid. That, and everyone else here will get a good laugh at your expense.)

Kevin
- And instead of Dramamine, I suppose you could also try taking a Ginger pill. It worked for Seasickness according to Mythbusters (I don't get seasick either, so I've never tried this).

I've never had any motion sickness problems that I can recall.

This thread actually reminded me of something I did that I'm sure would cause motion sickness in some people, so I think I'm fairly tolerant to it.

A while back I had gotten myself a TV from goodwill. It was a good 28-30 inch or so. Problem was: It was a Zenith, and I found out quite annoyingly that you couldn't hook an original playstation to one of Zenith's TVs. The picture would LITTERLY jump UP AND DOWN constantly.

Imagine trying to play a game while the screen is jumping up about an inch or two every second, only to drop back down the very next second, in a constant pattern. The PS2 didn't do that, but I didn't HAVE a PS2 at the time. >_< (Come to think of it. I don't recall if playing a PS1 game on a PS2 fixed that problem...)

Well the point of the story is: MegaMan X6 came out. I really REALLY wanted to play the game. Some of you know just how crazy I am for MegaMan games. But of course since it was a playstation game. The picture would do that jumping thing if I tried to play it.

I decided to hug it and play it anyway. I wasn't waiting for some odd time in the future where I got a new TV, or PS2. So I played through a good portion of MegaMan X6. With the picture doing that jumping thing.

I don't think I played the entire game like that, but I did play a good portion.

I don't get motion sickness, and I'm not a fan of FPS-based games (none of them interests me). However, watching gameplay videos of Mirror's Edge was the closest of making me feel a bit of vertigo at certain points, but no biggie.

I don't get motion sick from games, but I do get turned around pretty easily in first-person-view games in terms of having a hard time figuring out which direction to head in and where I've been, so I tend to end up going around in circles a lot accidentally.

I noticed it quite badly when 3D games began to take over from side-scrolling. I didn't play games much at all, if ever, during those years.

But I hardly ever notice it on the Xbox 360 or Wii. I have to be really tired and playing for a long time. However, I've recently tried to play some GameCube games and yep, there it was again.

It's almost as though stuff like Gears of War and Halo 3 are realistic enough that I feel like I'm actually part of the game, but the jerky movements and looser controls of the older games start screaming to my brain that the environment is artificial and set off the disconnect that I feel when I can tell that my body's not moving and my brain says it looks like it is.

I've never gotten motion sickness from a video game, whether it was 2D or 3D. Even fast-paced stuff like Sonic doesn't phase me.

I have it terribly with FPS, which is why I never play them. Goldeneye was my first encounter with it. But sometimes I'll have trouble with some 3-D games. Most recently, the Bayonetta demo. No problems during fighting, but the shoddy camera moving around...gah. I had it once with Mario 64 but oddly I don't have it on the Virtual Console version.

I absolutely hated Kingdom Hearts' Little Mermaid world because of the horrible camera. Come to think of it, the entire game's camera was horribly jerky, but the Little Mermaid world was the worst.

I too, get motion sickness from FPS. I think that's a common thing.

Thing that does me in, is the quick, unrealistic movement of the camera, when you're turning to the left it's like you're spinning with high speed, combine that with fierce fighting and you get yourself a nice case of motion sickness.

I still toughed through Bioshock and half of Jericho with it. No matter.

Now when Mirror's Edge makes you feel vertigo, though, I have to say, the game is doing it goddamn right.
Hooray for immersive gaming.

I love FPS, they're my favorite. I only ever had a problem with motion sickness one time playing Halo on a giant projector that turned an entire wall into a giant TV. Looked beautiful until I turned and felt my stomach rise up. It was just too big and took up too much of my peripheral vision.

But no problems ever then that one time.

(would suck too, Bioshock is my favorite game.)

No problems myself.
My dad would get motion sick watching me play Decent, but he was fine when playing it himself.


Jumping off of really high stuff in WOW gives me a sensation of actually jumping off of something high.