So I worked out something rather monumental over the weekend.
I think I've cured myself of simulator sickness.
For the last almost twenty years every time I'd sit in front of a first person game, whether I was playing or watching, I'd get the classic motion sickness of nausea and dizziness and having to go lie down with a cold seat for an hour. That'd be after watching for only ten minutes.
I'd heard that ginger tablets could allay symptoms while you were playing and when Deux Ex HR came out last year I was so keen to play it I bought jar of the bastards and went to it. After that, 300 hours playing Skyrim and flipping from first to third person seemed to be okay as any time I'd start to feel bad I'd simply switch to third or take a break.
Now, I had heard that the only way to cure yourself of this is to basically keep doing it and put up with the symptoms for long enough that your brain realizes it's not hallucinating and that your body hasn't been poisoned (this is the current leading theory on whats causes this particular form of motion sickness, thus you're not dying and everything's fine.
So over the weekend, my brother downloads the demo for The Darkness 2 and we're sharing goes on it. Only about twenty minutes in do I realize I've been watching him play and playing myself and I feel completely normal. No nausea, no headache - nothing.
Somewhat mutedly delighted (hell I dunno if this may come back or whatever) I decided to find a first person shooter cheap and have a thrash to see what happened. Since that demo had been so enjoyable I grabbed 2007's original The Darkness, dling it directly thru xbox live and off I went.
Played for hours, other than thoroughly enjoying myself, I had not a problem in the world.
This is epic - I've joined the 67% again. A whole new world of games has been opened up to me once more.
So besides wanting to do the thread equivalent here of The Dance Of Joy, I also wanted to say for the other people who have struggled with this gaming handicap - it can be overcome!
