In response to "Wired Differently" from The Escapist Forum: An enlightening article. My friend and I have had the occasional bout of something that at least resembles this. I gave him a go at Portal one night he came over while I played on the PC. As soon as he got control over both portals he shot one at the ceiling, the other at the floor and let out a scream as he went into constant free-fall, and expressed a desire not to play any more.
A similar thing happened in Crackdown when he turned on all the cheats and found himself running faster than the cars. I found myself with an uneasy feeling when flying over open water in Grand Theft Auto. Not having anything in the distance to relate my distance to overwhelmed me with dizziness and a little bit of panic, though I suppose this could be more akin to Agoraphobia than VSS.
- Novajam
This is exactly the reason I turned off the head bobbing in FEAR. Too much unnecessary movement makes me feel nauseous. When it comes to videogames for entertainment, I always felt that there should be a threshold for realism. Because, if you think about it, being realistic for the sake of realism will compromise gameplay at one point (unless you're gunning for an all-out simulation, then by all means be as realistic as you want). Luckily for FEAR, there was an option, however, take a game like MGS3, which has "forest survival" as one of its main features. As good as that game was, the survival aspect of eating, resting and treating injuries just broke the flow all too often. Granted, it might be a limit of the technology to not be able to implement it in a better way, but still.
Oh, and this is probably the reason why I don't feel nauseous when I play Prototype, even if it is a faster-moving game. Even if the game goes all chaotic on you from time to time, you can easily keep your orientation on everything that's going on around you. I do feel my stomach sinking when I take Alex atop a very high building, then jump off it. Though that happens to me in a lot of games where falling from high places is a normal occurrence.
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In response to "The Glory of the Last Stand" from The Escapist Forum: Ahhh the Last Stand. Only the other day was I looking up last stand scenes from movies on Youtube. For me it's one of the most interesting things to read about from WWII and military history in general; Dunkirk, El Alamein, the Battle of Sevastopol, Battle of Berlin... pretty much every battle in the Pacific island-hopping campaign became a last stand for the Japanese defenders.
Then of course it's been used extensively in films and other fiction creating some of the most memorable scenes, whether it's against humans, aliens or zombies etc.
Now in videogames we can get as close as possible (without actually being there) to living out these sorts of heroic scenarios. If there's a level in a game that culminates in a last stand, you can bet I'll replay that level eventually, with the difficulty turned up a notch if possible.
I dunno what the psychology is behind what makes this sort of thing so appealing. I guess it's just the resourcefulness and spirit to carry on in the face of defeat which makes it such a romantic and, to me, genuinely interesting scenario.
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In response to "The Escapist On: Frustrating Gaming Experiences" from The Escapist Forum: My frustrating moment was back when I played Runescape.
I was a young child. I was undertaking a quest to slay a dragon. The quest is one of the harder non-members quests, but I was a member. I had played the game for a long time and could easily complete the quest. I just never got around to doing it. One day, I finally decided to try completing it.
Before I continue, I should explain the death system in Runescape. When you die, it doesn't give you a second chance. You lose everything except your 3 most valuable items if you die. So obviously dying will really fuck you up as it takes a long time to replace the items you lost. Now this Dragon I had to kill was special. It's fire breath could kill you in one hit. regardless of your defense and HP. That's why you need a special shield to kill it. Now the shield is good against the dragon but piss weak against everything else. So while traveling to the dragon I had my superior shield equipped.
I entered the dragons chamber, charged at it with my long sword, only to fall dead in one hit. I had forgotten to equip the shield.
I don't need to explain what I did next.
