3DS made me feel sick. Should you be worried?

I've had hands-on time with 3DS now on two separate occasions. The first was in Amsterdam, where the 3am start, travel fatigue and Shaun The Sheep announcement had undoubtedly taken their toll on my fragile little mind. I felt a bit weird after playing on and off for a couple of hours, but that's understandable. But the second time was in the office on a normal day. And that's where the worry comes…

Let's just be clear that the game I was playing is not the problem. PES 2011 3D is just like the PES games I've played on screens anywhere from 4.3 inches to 42 inches and they've never been anything less than a joy (well, except the 2008 version on PS3, but that was just a shoddy game). But, after half an hour of rather stop/start play thanks to trying to play a 3DS in an open plan office full of curious journos, I felt... funny. Motion sick funny. I had to play in 2D mode because it wasn't comfortable any more. And after my time with the device was over, I had a headache. Not a splitting, throbbing, kill-me-now kind of headache, but a dull pain in my head that wasn't there before I started playing. Bummer.

What is motion sickness?

The feeling of 'motion sickness' occurs because the impression of motion that is being received by your eyes doesn't correspond with the data from your ears, where your sense of balance is saying 'dude, we're sat still on the sofa'. Without some frame of reference to say that it's only a telly you're looking at and not a window into a wildly spinning world, your brain assumes you have been poisoned, so it tries to make you physically sick, to expel this phantom menace from your body.

It's the opposite of reading a book in a car, where the page you're focusing on is unchanging, but your sense of balance is moving around all over the place due to the moving vehicle. But the outcome is the same. Bleurghsville.

Above: Playing 3DS didn't make me physically sick, but the sensation I felt was very similar to seasickness

Why am I getting it on 3DS?

The 3DS' 3D effect gives you a sense of depth that isn't normally present in handheld gaming. Where you'd usually be looking at a flat screen with moving images, you're now able to focus on different depths, makes everything on the screen suddenly a lot more like the real world. You're using real-life rules to look at it, yet despite the more realistic viewing experience, your sense of balance is still just as detached, and if anything, amplified as a result. While it isn't entirely realistic (objects you're not focusing on don't go blurry as they're still as far away from your eyes as everything else, in reality), it's a different way of viewing images... and it looks like my head found that hard to adjust to.

Is it just me?

I'm not particularly susceptible to motion sickness, but I have experienced it before. TimeSplitters 2's single-player caused me to feel sick after ten minute's play and the wobbly roadie-like cam in Skate got to me quite badly. A demonstration of Fatal Inertia on a 70in TV was quite bad (although it's highly likely this was just physical repulsion at that disgusting game). In fact, playing 60fps games on massive TVs gives me the biggest problems, most likely because the huge screen is as big as a window so my mind sees it like it's the room that's moving. Like the house in The Wizard of Oz tornado.

Above: Oh my, Toto! This HD television is wonderful! But I do feel a bit queasy. And this game sure does suck... 

So should you be worried?

Yes. No. Maybe. It's going to be different for everyone who plays it, so you may feel no ill effects at all. But it worries me more than a little, as I've pre-ordered mine, having saved up for months to buy it. I don't want to have to play it in 2D mode all the time - I could have held onto my DSi for that. But I've felt strange both times I've played it, having been fine beforehand and recovering soon after both exposures. That looks like a trend to me.

I'm not alone in feeling like this. Our UK Editor, Matt Cundy, says he felt odd after the first ten minutes or so with the device, but then, 'once his brain had calibrated' he was fine for the rest of the show. I also saw one woman in Amsterdam refusing to play Super Street Fighter IV in 3D mode, much to the demonstrator's dismay. She had tried it and couldn't bear to look at it again. And reports suggest several Japanese gamers have reported similar problems to mine. That said, our own Dave Meikleham played 3DS for a good two hours late last year and felt (and I quote) "suitably impressed with no adverse side effects", so it's entirely possible you'll be fine.

The 3DS is a wonderful machine and I'm still buying one. But it wouldn't surprise me if A) I have to play most of the time in 2D mode, and B) this happens to a lot of people when it finally hits store shelves. My advice? Try before you buy.

31 Jan, 2011