If you, like me, are prone to suffer motion sickness whilst playing video games I can sympathise. I've come to see it almost as a disability. There's nothing worse than following the hype of a new release only to realise within 30 minutes of playing that it'll make you dizzy, bring on vomiting and chronic tiredness.
The very first game that made me ill was Motorhead on the PC. Back when it was released I'd just bought a fairly good PC for the time and Motorhead was one hell of a fast racer. After about 15 minutes of play I recognised the feelings I'd had as a kid going on coach trips with school. The same feelings that preceded chucking up. In those days it didn't really bother me. Most video games had low frame-rates and I'd learnt that it was this and/or bobbing camera motion that was causing the problem.
These days however it's a different story. The games which knock me sick are far more frequent: Halo 1, 2 & 3, Wipeout, Call of Duty 3 & 4, Gears of War and Ace Combat 6 to name just a few. However the god-send is the Burnout series, which for some reason has no effect on me and is one of my favourite games of all time. The others I own because my son loves playing these types of games.
However after a couple of days over the holidays of watching COD4 and lasting between 10 and 20 minutes before I had to leave the room I decided to do a little research. The obvious answer was to try Dramamine - but that would leave me feeling drowsy and I didn't want to turn to drugs simply to enjoy a good game. The next suggestion that came along was ginger. After reading a few articles I decided to pop to my local health food store and pick up some capsules. I took one and waited an hour before loading up COD4. Amazingly, even though I broke my first rule by playing in a near dark room, i lasted more than an hour. And to be honest I was feeling a little tired but I'm not sure I wanted to play longer.
So if you suffer from Motion Sickness I'd recommend taking some ginger and seeing if it helps. Just remember to read the label first!
