Portal nearly made me barf... Any games nearly make you barf?

[ChildishLegacy]

I've had similar thing with HL2, seems like the source engine might be the common cause? :S

I get a headache and feel nauseous when playing half life.
A certain moment in Portal 2 with an air vent made me feel dizzy when I couldn't tell which way was up.

 

[BLAHwhatever]

My advice: Go play Mirrors Edge

 

[Starscreamed]

I got nauseous too, and I'm pretty young. I think it was when you had to build up momentum by falling through the portals again and again...but I just had to take a quick break and then I was fine again.

 

[Mr Shrike]

Personally, I was fine with Portal, but Portal 2 & Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway have made me a little giddy...

One of my friends had insane motion sickness while playing Portal 2. She threw up so much, but completed it to her credit.

 

[Darth Rahu]

I think one time it happened to me was playing Luigi's Mansion. It was a new console generation and wham! Lighting and Particle Effects! Ever since then I've been cool, even with Portal.

 

[Aeroastrix]

I made it through Portal 1 and 2 just fine, but my friend was getting dizzy in portal 1, and he became useless in portal 2 co-op because he got vertigo. I had to pretty much do the entire portal 2 co-op BY MYSELF with 2 controllers, I have to say it was a very interesting challenge, especially the last co-op level where you find the *SPOILER COVER*

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Not on portal, but actually on dead space 2. I'm not too sure why, but I can't play the game for more than 30 minutes at a time without feeling extremely dizzy or feeling the need to throw up. I mean, I'm running at like 40 fps or something, so it's not lag that's causing it.

Could be the way the game often throws you into anti-gravity. I never get sick from it, but I get quickly, and I mean quickly disoriented and it's extremely hard for me to find my path. I could be wrong as I don't know exactly what you do in the game to make you feel that was, buuut anti-gravity would be my first guess.

Portal didn't make me sick when I took advantage of the Free Portal Offer last year, neither did Portal 2. The major amounts of reorientation from entering differently angled portals majorly throws me off, though. As I stated above, when I'm upside down or sideways, any bit of navigational sense I have is thrown entirely out the window. So it took me many tries to figure out many puzzles due to the high velocity reorientation. Especially in co-op. Mirror's Edge didn't make me sick or dizzy, either.

 

[Spacelord]

So took advantage of the free Portal offer. Never got around to playing it until now; I know.... Great game and concept.

Was making great progress with escaping from level 19 after an hour. But then I had to stop playing the game. For the first time in nearly 30 years of playing games, of all sorts, I to stop for fear of barfing. Maybe I am getting old, but I have never felt so nauseous playing a game. I finished the game soon afterwards, but had to take a few breaks whenever the nausea got too much.

And yes the game was not running slowly or anything with 60 fps going throughout. This is the normal gaming rig I use and have never felt like this before, even with games using 3D glasses.

Anyone else had their stomach turned, by the mad orientation changes in this game? Will have to decide if my stomach can take the second one....

The game is known to cause vertigo since you're bouncing around so much in a first person view. The same thing happened to my dad when he merely WATCHED me play through the 2nd game. I actually get mild vertigo from it, but some people have more extreme cases. That's what think your problem was.

Unfortunately, I don't know a cure for that. Maybe motion sickness meds?

Yes! Exactly that. The leading theory about motion sickness is basically that you're incapable of marrying the sensory input of your eyes with the sense of balance you get from that thingy in your inner ear. Probably what happened to OP. Motion sickness meds should fix that right up!

 

[Caveworm]

The only game that has nearly made me vomit was the original Turok on the N64. The way your character waded from side-to-side has he ran....ugh.

 

[Gxas]

I've had similar thing with HL2, seems like the source engine might be the common cause? :S

I find the Source engine to be extremely off-putting. This just adds to my list of reasons now.

OP, have you tried Mirror's Edge? I bought it and played it with my roommate watching and he got motion sickness from it.

 

[halfeclipse]

The default FoV will be 75 degrees. The average humans FoV is around 200. This tends to make your inner ear unhappy with your average first person game. Throw in Portal's rapid movement and viewpoint changes and cue motion sickness. Boosting the games FoV will help, set it 85-90. Still not ideal, but any higher and you start getting weird curving effects when you move the camera.

 

[mysecondlife]

In first run through Uncharted 1, there is a part where you take a jet-ski up against river's current. All the swerving made me lightheaded and dizzy that I stopped the game to take a walk 1AM in the morning.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Mirror's Edge, the first times I died by falling (which happens A LOT) freaked me out. The sounds and the visuals just gave you a scared feeling.

 

[scar_47]

Can't say that I have beyond my stomach tightening when my character falls from high up beyond that I can't remember a game making me feel ill.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Simulation sickness [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness#Simulation_sickness] is a not-uncommon issue amongst gamers (and would-be gamers). In the case of the Portal series, I've found that the combination of rapid movement, orientation changes and motion blur (as some people have this enabled, and I think Portal 2 does it by default) really messes with the equilbrium of some players.

I like to suggest the following possible remedies (trying one at a time): Play in windowed mode, switch between first/third person view (if possible), lower the resolution, sit further back from/closer to the screen, place a small object in view of the screen, make sure that extra effects (like motion blur) are turned off.

 

[Bluntman1138]

That is why i play FPS games while high on weed. It stops the nausuea, and relaxes your eyes.

Of course i play almost all games while on weed, but i HAVE to be high to play FPS's. (It also helps with having to deal with little kids and D-bags that like to screem and chat about inane shit)

 

[imnot]

Nope. I was fine throughout.

Though I tend not to have visceral reactions to anything...

Except that time we cut up an eyeball in biology.

Think yourself lucky, when we did that my friend ended up with what can only be described as 'Liquid retian' in his mouth.

OT: Surprisingly portal was fine for me whereas soem games aren't.

 

[SupermarioPS]

I remeber which I stopped once playing it for 2 hours because I got dizzy and headaches, I also lost direction ingame every second then. This didn´t happened to me in the sequel, but this may be the cause of Portal 1 training and my more skilled gaming skills. Oh, one of my friends did even stopped playing totally, because he got confused everytime travelling through a portal. So i think playing Portal One really can breaks one mens mind

 

[Snotnarok]

I felt my stomach 'lift' when jumping off high buidlings/places in certain games but portal? No.