In the early days of console gaming, about 25% or so of all games made me nauseous, dizzy or gave me headaches to the point where I couldn’t play them. A prime example was Deus Ex: Invisible War. I enjoyed the game and wanted to continue playing it. But I couldn’t play for more than 15 minutes without becoming dizzy and nauseous. Ultimately, I had to abandon the game.

[Updated May 25, 2009. Added first person bobbing-while-walking factor.]

In the current (Xbox 360/PS3) console generation, the percentage of games that are unplayable due to nausea, headaches or dizziness has dropped dramatically to, perhaps, 5 to 10%. For example, I couldn’t play the otherwise enjoyable Laura Croft: Tomb Raider Legend for more than 15 minutes without feeling ill.

Below, I identify three four factors that cause me dizziness, headaches and nausea when playing video games.  I also list specific games that have made me sick.

I’d be interested in your thoughts – especially with respect to what might be behind the X-Factor discussed below.

Nausea Caused by Aggressive Camera Centering / Fighting

When a game gives me only partial control of the camera, especially when I need to fight the game for camera control, this makes me nauseous every time. Ironically, when a game takes total control of the camera from me, such as in God of War 2, I do not get nauseous.

The poster-child for this type of camera-control-fighting-induced nausea is the entire Resident Evil series. Not only does the game st0p you from moving your character wherever you wish (they are all ‘on rails’ games), the game aggressively fights the player for control of the camera by constantly pulling the camera back to the center every time the player looks hither or thither. Rumor has it that the forthcoming Resident Evil 5 might finally hand camera control to the player where it belongs. Surprisingly, this is controversial.  I won’t be playing RE5 unless this problem is finally fixed. [Spring 2009 Update: The reviews for RE5 were so bad, I’m not even going to bother trying it.]

Each of the recent Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Battlefield: Bad Company, Resistance Fall of Man, Grand Theft Auto IV (but only when driving) and Star Wars, Force Unleashed (but only while moving) games fought me over the camera somewhat. This resulted in mild dizziness. Happily the implementation of camera centering in each of these games wasn’t aggressive enough to cause me to abandon the games over the issue.

Nausea Caused by No Y-Axis Inversion Option

The first console-based video game I ever played was Pilot Wings, on the N-64. As a flying game, it naturally featured inverted Y-axis controls. A dozen years and a hundred or so games later, I have inverted the Y-axis on every console game I’ve played since.

If I can’t invert the y-axis I can’t play. Non-inverted game play makes me instantly nauseous. My brain is wired in such a way that when I pull the right stick back, my brain expects the camera to move up. When the camera goes the opposite way it is very disorienting.

There are very few games now-a-days that do not provide the inverted control option. Indeed, inverting the Y-axis is so common that the Xbox 360 can be set to automatically configure every game I play with the Y-axis inverted.

I was astonished to discover that Silent Hill: Homecoming does not allow players to invert the Y-axis for normal viewing (it does have a limited Y-inversion option for shooting when the gun is wielded).  As I wrote here, the game was unplayable. I had to abandon it.

Dizziness Caused by First Person Bobbing While Walking

I first wrote this post in October 2008. In late May 2009 I played F.E.A.R. 2 and remembered another cause of dizziness – the screen bobbing while a character walks. In F.E.A.R. 2 and several other first-person video games, the screen bobs up and down as the character moves. The bobbing, I gather, corresponds with the cadence of the character’s walk. This doesn’t make me dizzy or nauseous as quickly as the other factors discussed in this post, but I can usually only play a game that does this for an hour or so before becoming dizzy. The game is not unplayable, but it has to be taken in light doses.

Nausea Caused by the X-Factor – Possibly Frame Rate

Finally, there is a class of game that makes me seriously dizzy or nauseous even when I have full control over the camera and the Y-axis is properly inverted (see list below).

I’ve never fully understood, absent the camera/Y-axis issues, why some games make me dizzy and nauseous while others do not. I’ve always assumed it was a frame-rate issue. I’d be keen for any of you to suggest other possible causes.

Whatever the reason, such was recently the case with Mercenaries 2. The game gave me complete camera control and I had happily inverted the Y-axis but it still made me nauseous to play.

List of Games Causing Dizziness / Nausea

Below is a list of games that have made me seriously dizzy or nauseous. I also list the underlying game engine in parenthesis. Note how many games are built on versions of the Unreal and  id Tech engines. I intend to expand the list over time as I remember them:

PC:

• Half Life 2 (Valve’s Source Engine): Enjoyed it so much I pushed through about 80% it. But, to this day, just the sounds of that game (the gravity gun in particular) make me woozy.

Original Xbox:

• Brothers in Arms: Earned Blood (Unreal Engine 2)
• Brute Force (?): Finished it anyways given how hyped it was – didn’t really enjoy it much
• Deus Ex: Invisible War (heavily modified Unreal Engine 2)
• Doom 3 (id Tech 4): Finished the game anyway – holding my cookies the whole way)
• Psi-Ops (Unreal Engine 2)
• Return to Castle Wolvenstein (id Tech 3): Finished it anyway but wasn’t that good.
• TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (??)
• Unreal Championship (Unreal Engine 2): Couldn’t play for more than 5 minutes at a time.

Xbox 360:

• F.E.A.R. 2 – (Valve’s Source Engine): First person bobbing while walking issue
• Half-Life 2 – Episodes 1 and 2 (Valve’s Source Engine)
• King Kong (Ubisoft’s Jade engine): Bad game – pushed through just for the easy achievements
• Laura Croft: Tomb Raider Legend (Crystal Dynamics Proprietary):  I enjoyed it so much I pushed through about 40% of it before I had to stop because I couldn’t take it any more.
• Mercenaries 2 (EA proprietary)
• Perfect Dark Zero (Havok’s HyrdaCore): Thank goodness the game was  horrible – I didn’t miss much
• Quake 4 (id Tech 4): Abysmal game.
• Prey (modified id Tech 4): Also pushed through about 75% despite extreme dizziness.

PS3:

(Note, the numbers are fewer here because,  if given a choice, I play the 360 version of a game. Each platform is an equal opportunity nausea causer.)

• The Darkness  (Starbreeze Engine)
• Resistance Fall of Man (Insomniac Engine): Caused only mild nausea. I was not nauseous when I played its sequel. I note that it’s sequel, Resistance 2, did not make me dizzy or nauseous.
• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Naughty Dog Proprietary) – Best PS3 game yet!

Conclusion

Thankfully, better graphics, higher frame rates and the abandonment of nausea-inducing camera controller techniques is making gamer illness increasingly a thing of the past. Unfortunately, as the recent games Silent Hill: Homecoming and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames have shown, we still have a way to go.

Reviews: Metacritic 73%| Game Rankings 77%
Reference: Achievements|
Walkthrus:  WikiCheats | GameFAQ   | Mahalo
Developers: Konami | Double Helix Games
Genre: survivor – horror
Status: Abandoned after escaping hospital

As explained in my “Video Game-induced Nausea, Dizziness and Headaches” post, I had to abandon Silent Hill Homecoming due to nausea caused by the inability to invert the Y-axis.

It came as a shock to me that, while there is an option to invert the Y-axis when shooting, Silent Hill Homecoming does not give you the player the option to invert the Y-axis when walking around, fighting or doing anything else in the game. This is extremely rare in modern video games.

A quick Google search to see if there is a patch, cheat code or some other way  to rectify the situation yields posts like this one and flame wars like this one. It seems that Konami is aware of the issue and just doesn’t care. No patch is available and none is in the works. It’s truly bizarre that Konami does not provide an across-the-board option to invert the Y-axis in a major title such as Silent Hill. This is a standard option in virtually every console game that comes out these days.

The upshot for me – the game was unplayable. I tried. I killed some nurses and critters, got a couple achievements and made it out of the hospital. But 25 minutes of playing without inversion made me too dizzy and nauseous to continue. FYI, the game also suffers from reliance on quick time events – which I detest.

Thank goodness this was a rental. Back it goes.

Reviews: Metacritic 73%| Game Rankings 72% | zero punctuation
Reference: Achievements|
Walkthrus: Mahalo |  WikiCheats | GameFAQ  
Developers: Pandemic Studios | Pi Studios
Genre: Third person shooter
Status: Abandoned after first level

As a shooter fan, I was looking forward to Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Unfortunately, I had to abandon it after the first level due to nausea. 

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames was fun – as far as I got. Nothing spectacular, but some good old-fashioned sand-boxy, shooter fun.

I unintentionally ended up playing the hottie female character, Jennifer Mui, pictured to the right. I’m not sure how that happened because I didn’t necessarily intend to pick her. But she was fun to play nonetheless

The weapons were fun, the controls were responsive, the vehicles were enjoyable. I liked the tracer-bullet effects (would like to see that in more shooters). The sounds were realistic. The collecting cash bit was a bit cheeky. It looked like it was going to be a fun romp.

But, within minutes of starting, that old-familiar dizziness, headachy feeling that, in me, leads to nausea, reared its ugly head, forcing me to stop playing an otherwise enjoyable game.

It’s been awhile since nausea (in this case for the x-factor reason) forced me to stop playing a game. Having also been forced to also stop playing Silent Hill Homecoming due to nausea (caused for a different reason), I decided to write this “Video Game-induced Nausea, Dizziness and Headaches” post.

I hope those with stronger stomachs/heads enjoy Merc 2.

Reviews: Metacritic 86%| Game Rankings 87% 
Reference: Trophies – none|
Walkthrus: WikiCheats | GameFAQ | IGN
Developer: Insomniac Games
Engine: Insomniac Engine

Note: The pros and cons portion of this post was written in  April 2008. I am posting this entry on November 4, 2008 – the day I purchased Resistance 2. I have back-dated this post to April of 2008 to reflect the time period when I played the game.

Initial Experience – Pre Rumble

I picked up Resistance Fall of Man (RFoM) the day I purchased my PS3 in August of 2007). However, my initial experience wasn’t good. After years of playing console-based shooters on my Xbox 360, RFoM didn’t feel right without rumble – regardless of its merits. After a level or two, the game was set aside … until …

Resistance Fall of Man – Post Rumble – Ummm…. Good!

In mid April, 2008, Sony finally released the Dual Shock 3 controller with rumble. After figuring out how to get rumble to work (details here), I gave the game another try.  I’m glad I did. I liked it so much I played through the entire game and then played 50% of it through again on the hardest level.

I was surprised and delighted with how much I enjoyed the game. It took me awhile to get into it but was really enjoying it once I figured it out (especially the unique weaponry).

Unfortunately, at the time I did not write a full review. I did write the pros and cons notes (below) during the early stages of the game. I thought I had written a much more comprehensive review towards the end but I can’t find it.

So, while there are more cons than pros below, and while the list of cons is still accurate, had I written a complete review back then, I would have written a much more complete and positive review.

Pros:

• Frame Rates: Constant / solid frame rates – no nausea or headaches – except when driving (see below).
• Creative Weapons: The auger’s ability to progressively shoot through solid matter was novel and interesting. The L23 Fareye’s (Sniper Rifle’s) ability to slow time was terrific.
• Larger battles: quite good – first battle in Nottingham (for example) reminiscent of Call of Duty 2 and 4.
• No escorts, ridiculous boss battles or timed missions.
• Good Particle Effects: smoke, fog
• Decent save points.

Cons:

•  Slow load times: Due to the slowness of the Bluray drive (compared to the much faster DVD drive in the Xbox 360), load times are way too long. To add insult to injury, the game waits for you to "Press the START button" after each load. Why? If I start loading a level, Insomniac should assume I want to play it after it loads!
• Autocamera & Some Nausea: I dislike when any game controls the camera.  When driving, the game is constantly fighting you and pulling the camera back to center. For the first 10 seconds of every level, the game controls the camera. Both of these game mechanics make me queasy.
• Can’t Jump: Can’t climb or jump over small walls – daft.
• Poor Weapon Changes: The weapon change mechanic stops the game every time you need to change weapons. That’s so PS2!
• Scoped Reloading Problem: Reloading a scoped weapon when scoped, moves you out of scope and then back in. The game should either leave you out of scope after a reload or keep you in scope the whole time. Going back and forth is disorienting and angered me throughout the game.
• Auto-saving: It was unclear when/if the game was auto saving.
• No Ability to Remap Controls. Virtually every major console shooter has adopted the Halo 3 control scheme wholesale. Not RFoM. Moving back and forth is disorienting. RFoM uses the green triangle for melee instead of red circle. RFoM uses R1 for primary fire instead of R2 like almost every other console shooter on the planet, etc., etc.
• Boring Enemies
• Plot Didn’t Engage Me. I didn’t follow or care about the story – but then again, few games (even the good ones) pull me into the plot.
• Extremely Linear Path
• Repetitive Game Play: Enemies followed predictable patterns. Big enemies were followed by little critters chasing, followed by big enemies, followed by little critters swarming … over and over …
• Droning – Never Changing Music: I shut it off after an hour. I couldn’t take it any more.
• Friendly Fire Didn’t Hurt Friendly NPCs: There was no way to shut this off.

Reviews: Metacritic 96%
Reference: 
Developer: Valve Corporation Engine: Valve’s Source Engine

[Note: This mini-review predates the founding of the Daleisphere. It was culled from an email I wrote to friends about the game in early December 2007.]

Orange Box consists of several games in one package:

• Half Life 2 and the mini-sequels Episodes 1 and 2,
• Portal (there will be cake )
• Team Fortress

Certainly worth a rental if you’ve never played Half-Life 2 – or even for Portal. Unfortunately, as was the case on the PC, Half-Life is a game that gives me headaches and makes me nauseous after 30 minutes of play. I cannot sit with it long enough to play it through. If whatever does this doesn’t affect you, its quite a nice shooter. Though I wouldn’t give it the kudos its getting in the press. 

The game “Portal” also makes the Orange Box worth a rental. It’s playable all the way through in just a few hours. I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

I didn’t try Team Fortress (which is getting terrific reviews) – it is an online only game and nobody I know has the game.

Reviews: Metacritic 88%| Game Rankings 89.69%
Reference: 
Developer: Naughty Dog Engine: Naughty Dog proprietary

[Note: This mini-review predates the founding of the Daleisphere. It was culled from an email I wrote to friends about the game in early December 2007.]

Just finished the PS3 exclusive ‘Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’.  Prior to this game, the most fun I had on the PS3 was playing the PS2 titles God of War 1 and 2.  Finally, a PS3 exclusive that is top notch.

This is an THE BEST action adventure game I have ever played. Very much in the tradition of Laura Croft, Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia and many others, but with much, much more. I’ve never quite played anything like it.

Naughty Dog really took advantage of the PS3. It has more “realism, and is more cinematic than any video game I’ve played. The story is terrific – the most “adult” (in the sense of mature, developed characters – not simplistic and juvenile) video game story I’ve experienced. They hired real actors to play the characters and the actors participated in both the motion capture and voice work – simultaneously. A rarity in video games. The result was wonderful.

You have to see it to fully grasp what I mean. The story is terrific. The acting is terrific. In many places I felt like I was both watching and participating in a really good Hollywood movie. 

It doesn’t hurt that the heroine (Elena Fisher – shown on the left) and the real-world actress that played her (Emily Rose) are very-much Dale-type (button nosed, cheery, warm, mature, adventurous, stubborn, spunky, compelling and sexy – all at once) women. 

I don’t recall ever feeling that a male and female character in a video game had actual “chemistry” the way they talk about chemistry between romantic leads in a movie. The leads in Uncharted have it. 

Some Problems

To be fair, there were several things that I didn’t like:

Quick Time Events: A few game conventions that I have always disliked that are still there – the overly-used PS2/PS3 “quick time events” (ie: quick press green-triangle followed by blue square or die) mechanic figure prominently in a few key places that are infuriating (one in particular had me wanting to throw my controller).

Vine Swinging: The game’s vine swinging mechanic is flawed in at least one key place.

Camera Issues: The game, frustratingly, keeps pulling the camera out of your control – you look to the left and the game starts gradually pulling the camera back to the center even as you still want to keep looking left. To my mind a game should either control the camera 100% as in God of War or give the player 100% control.  In this game the player gets about 85% camera control but that 15% where the game keeps subtly wrestling the camera away from you is a recipe for nausea and headaches every time. AAHHHH!!!!  Why do game developers do this!!??  So, ya, I got a mildly queasy and headachy over the week of evenings I spent playing the game – which is nothing new – but certainly not as sick as I have gotten in other games like Orange Box/Half Life 2 and way too many other games to count. 

Conclusions

Despite the cons, I’d still give this game a 9.8 out of 10. Certainly one of the best of the year (right up there with Halo 3 & Bioshock) and it is the FIRST PS3 game that I can recommend – period!   I am looking for Metal Gear Solid, Haze & Killzone in 2008 to hopefully bring some respectability back to this lagging console.

If you like the action / adventure genre, and have a PS3 at your disposal, this game gets my highest recommendation.