Half-Life 2 is making me sick .... literally
Posted by: Newsfactory on: 11/19/2004 05:11 PM [ Print | 26 comment(s) ] · 31749 views
Hi guys,
I thought this piece of information would make interesting news, as it appears to be affecting a lot of gamers (myself included). Half-Life 2 is making me sick .... literally - it's giving me motion sickness.
I'm getting quite bad nausea, cold sweats, headaches, and a feeling in my stomach that makes me want to be sick. This is exactly the same feeling I have got on an extremely rough boat ride. Once I have these symptoms, it takes me a few hours to feel better again once stopped playing.
To justify this, I'm 24 yrs old, and I have played pretty much every decent FPS shooter for the past 10 years. There are two examples of games where this has happened to me before however - Halo affected me slightly (not as severe nausea, but still present), and the other being the original Half-Life. In that game, I made it to about the second level, as it was too difficult to play any longer with the symptoms, even though it was THE game at the time, and I was enjoying it thoroughly.
The quite strange thing about this all, is that I'm a big Counter-Strike fan. I have been playing since early beta's, and have spent many many hours in front of the PC on CS : Source, and I've felt perfectly fine! I have tried forecing refresh rates to 85hz and above, running in higher/lower resolutions, all to no avail.
Some gamers are starting to believe that the POV (Point Of View), which is the field of vision displayed on the screen, is the culprit. CS:Source's POV is set at 90, whilst HL2 runs at 75. Humans have a field of view of approx. 180 (degrees). This means that running around playing HL2 is like running around with tunnel vision.
I'm hoping that Valve will address this issue, as this utterly incredible game is not having the impact it should on me.
I might even experiment taking some motion sickness drugs, and see what the outcome is. You could then change the story from "Half-Life 2 making People Sick", to "Half-Life 2 making people drug-dependant".... ;-)
Here is a few links to other peoples posts about the problem.
Steampowered Forum Thread 1 Steampowered Forum Thread 2 HalfLife2.net
Cheers guys, keep up the good work.
Lee Jenkinson
I'm getting quite bad nausea, cold sweats, headaches, and a feeling in my stomach that makes me want to be sick. This is exactly the same feeling I have got on an extremely rough boat ride. Once I have these symptoms, it takes me a few hours to feel better again once stopped playing.
To justify this, I'm 24 yrs old, and I have played pretty much every decent FPS shooter for the past 10 years. There are two examples of games where this has happened to me before however - Halo affected me slightly (not as severe nausea, but still present), and the other being the original Half-Life. In that game, I made it to about the second level, as it was too difficult to play any longer with the symptoms, even though it was THE game at the time, and I was enjoying it thoroughly.
The quite strange thing about this all, is that I'm a big Counter-Strike fan. I have been playing since early beta's, and have spent many many hours in front of the PC on CS : Source, and I've felt perfectly fine! I have tried forecing refresh rates to 85hz and above, running in higher/lower resolutions, all to no avail.
Some gamers are starting to believe that the POV (Point Of View), which is the field of vision displayed on the screen, is the culprit. CS:Source's POV is set at 90, whilst HL2 runs at 75. Humans have a field of view of approx. 180 (degrees). This means that running around playing HL2 is like running around with tunnel vision.
I'm hoping that Valve will address this issue, as this utterly incredible game is not having the impact it should on me.
I might even experiment taking some motion sickness drugs, and see what the outcome is. You could then change the story from "Half-Life 2 making People Sick", to "Half-Life 2 making people drug-dependant".... ;-)
Here is a few links to other peoples posts about the problem.
Steampowered Forum Thread 1 Steampowered Forum Thread 2 HalfLife2.net
Cheers guys, keep up the good work.
Lee Jenkinson
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scyphe Unregistered |
#58293 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:21 PM
Well, no motion sickness here... Just sweet gameplay... what kind of hardware is used? |
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TSThomas Unregistered Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-05-10 |
#58294 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:21 PM
Haven't got Half-Life 2 myself though the usual solutions should work. A lot of FPS games allow the FOV to be adjusted via the console/cfg file. Disable view bobbing, again, most FPS allow this via the console/cfg file. Refresh rates another good one to raise if possible. |
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dzjepp Unregistered Posts: 33 Joined: 2003-04-30 |
#58295 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:23 PM
Console game manuals always have epileptic seizures warnings and dizziness, motion sickness... they tell you to stop playing and see a physician. I bet HL2 has a similar warning somewhere in the EULA. Anyhoo the bulk of the problems people have been experiencing seems to be with the field of view, not the refresh rate. One way to bump it up from 70 to 90 [which is default in most other FPS shooters]: On console: sv_cheats 1 then fov 90 |
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TSThomas Unregistered Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-05-10 |
#58296 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:26 PM
The hardware is irrelevent. It's a perceptual issue. |
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bcKP Unregistered |
#58297 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:30 PM
I do believe the condition is called vertigo. I have it as well, while all of my friends don't. I noticed that I develop a headache and become very nauseated from playing Half-Life 1, although in CS I feel perfectly fine. Also, movement in the CS virtual environment is slower. |
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shlepp420 Unregistered |
#58298 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:32 PM
Never in my life have i gotten sick from playing a video game, but i started playing back when Nintendo first came out, ive adapted well. My big sister get sick when she just play Mario 64, so its not just HL2. |
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Cruelty Unregistered |
#58299 Posted on: 11/19/2004 05:55 PM
Oh, boo-hoo. Freakin' wussy. |
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Tuckwit Unregistered Posts: 62 Joined: 2002-09-26 |
#58304 Posted on: 11/19/2004 07:18 PM
Perhaps theres a new product line in this. Logitech Bucket. Microsoft Intellibucket. |
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muff99 Unregistered |
#58306 Posted on: 11/19/2004 07:26 PM
Switch off weapon movement, helped a friend of mine ... think its This is actually a smart way to get these tasty drugs for free  |
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Phalin Unregistered Posts: 3 Joined: 2002-07-28 |
#58307 Posted on: 11/19/2004 07:42 PM
LOL Just goes to show you. Those that can do and those that can,t, *****
I'm having a blast with the game. One 5 hr stint with nothing but fun to report. Perhaps the ones getting sick are playing it in wide screen. |
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antspants Unregistered Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-03-24 |
#58308 Posted on: 11/19/2004 08:48 PM
yep I know your problem, its the stench of gabes backside, your nose is still probably up it. NARK |
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sorlag Unregistered |
#58309 Posted on: 11/19/2004 09:12 PM
I also got sick after playing HL2. I try to set the fov to see if it works... |
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apathy Unregistered Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-09-26 |
#58310 Posted on: 11/19/2004 09:15 PM
These people do realize that there is a thing known as "outdoors" that exists beyond the boundaries of their computers, right? Reminds me of another thing some of these "motion sickness" fools were probably unaware of, some know it as "pootang", either one will certainly cure whatever ailments that arise from playing hl2. |
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apathy Unregistered Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-09-26 |
#58311 Posted on: 11/19/2004 09:18 PM
Aww please forgive, I think I spelled pootang wrong, isn't is "poontang" ? sorry for the screwup, either way those words are probably very new to many of you motion sickness people... |
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vacantmind Unregistered |
#58312 Posted on: 11/19/2004 09:25 PM
HAHA THIS IS THE MOST NERDY POST EVER |
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antspants Unregistered Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-03-24 |
#58313 Posted on: 11/19/2004 09:28 PM
and when you get little pubies on your peepee apathy maby you too will get some, what did you call it again? pootang! newsfactory knows all about pootang, he likes pootanging with Gabe! pootanging, the art of tasteing tangy poo |
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eopie0 Unregistered |
#58314 Posted on: 11/19/2004 10:57 PM
I would just like to voice my agreement with this posting. After about 30 minutes of playing HL 1, I would get really sick, and it would also take a few hours to cool off. I haven't played HL 2 yet, but I strongly thing it may have the same outcome. I also agree about CS. I have played CS for long periods of time, and no sickness....very wierd. It happens on very rare games, too bad it's happening on this one. For everyone that thinks we're crazy. Click on the SteamPowered Forum links, and you'll see that many, many people have this issue. |
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DamazoG Unregistered Posts: 0 Joined: 2003-06-12 |
#58315 Posted on: 11/19/2004 11:41 PM
But hey, a friend of mine got this when he played Quake 1 for the first time. I don't think it has to do with HL2. It's just that new fts gamers get this motion sicknes. |
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the_atheist_prophet Unregistered |
#58317 Posted on: 11/20/2004 01:16 AM
I was on a ferry about 5 hours ago in gale force 7-8 winds, I'm going to buy the game tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see how they compare! |
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thomas997 Unregistered Posts: 11 Joined: 2003-04-21 |
#58318 Posted on: 11/20/2004 01:33 AM
The first time I played HL2 I got quite sick.. mostly when I was in the airboat. Never been affected by a game before... I play a lot of fps games too. I think it may have something to do with the weapon movement, and view bob, because I can play CS:S for hours with no problems.. |
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MANGRAVY Unregistered |
#58319 Posted on: 11/20/2004 06:42 AM
"Console game manuals always have epileptic seizures warnings and dizziness, motion sickness... they tell you to stop playing and see a physician. I bet HL2 has a similar warning somewhere in the EULA." Does that mean if its not,we can sue?.....lol |
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Caleb Unregistered |
#58320 Posted on: 11/20/2004 09:17 AM
"I'm hoping that Valve will address this issue, as this utterly incredible game is not having the impact it should on me. " So Valve should fix it just because you feel sick when playing it? Maybe the game is simply too realistic for you? |
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thomas997 Unregistered Posts: 11 Joined: 2003-04-21 |
#58321 Posted on: 11/20/2004 09:30 AM
Changing FOV to 90 seems to have helped a lot. Although I think most of the problems I had were with the early levels (airboat/buggy). |
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freesey Unregistered |
#58322 Posted on: 11/20/2004 09:39 AM
I can agree with this guy here. Especially on the airboat, I felt like I was going to puke. The feeling isnt as bad when Im just running and gunning, but that airboat ride was horrible. For everyone making fun of him and myself - bite me - if you have the collectors edition you can read the page about the airboat. It says several people got very sick and one guy even vomited during playtesting. |
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RStormblade Unregistered |
#58326 Posted on: 11/20/2004 09:14 PM
Halo made me slightly ill once, of course I was @ sea on a ship that was rocking in all directions AND running around in Halo. Talk about disorienting, what a blast. The only game to date that made me sick enough to stop playing and take a while to recover was the original Descent game. Floating in those tunnels with any axis being up, etc tore me up a few times. |
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