With the rise of 3D games came a rise in gamers who suddenly felt the need to keep a bucket close at hand while playing Halo. Despite being a mild emetophobic, I'm always open to conversation about game-induced motion sickness.
Or to use the more correct term: simulator sickness.
I wrote a feature about simulator sickness for What They Play, a great site directed towards parents whose kids play those mysterious vidya-game things. I realised parents might understandably become worried if seemingly harmless games suddenly caused their kids to spew. With nightmarish tales about seizures and other flashy-screen afflictions, who wouldn't become worried?
People not familiar with video games might not realise that simulator sickness falls in with motion sickness, even though the afflicted individuals are on a stationary couch and not the moving deck of a ship or in a car. It all comes down to our brain being screwy and betraying us at inopportune times, no matter where we happen to be. Stupid brain.
What makes simulator sickness hard to treat is the triggers; they vary wildly from individual to individual. Wolfenstein 3D made me terribly sick, but Doom didn't touch me. I never had a problem with Super Mario Galaxy or any of the 3D Zeldas, but guess which game totally floored me? Harvest Moon for the Gamecube.
Sometimes acupressure bracelets help me, as does "playing through the pain," so to speak. But something about Harvest Moon was completely intolerable and I think it had to do with the background. It scrolled at the "wrong" speed compared to the speed at which Jack ran across his farm. His happy little farm that I had no choice but to let fall into disrepair.
Of all the games for my stomach to be sucker-punched by.
Related Links:
Raised on the Stuff
Harvest Moon Anniversary: Ten Years of Potatoes and Sex
The Art of Gore in Project Origin