The Game Dame

Truth be told, I actually haven’t played Halo 3 yet, but Halo 2 gave me motion sickness so bad that after 10 minutes of play I had to lie down for several hours! I didn’t know what was happening to me. I’ve never had motion sickness before (nor since) despite airplane and boat travels that made large men weep. My entire brain was banging up against the top of my skull, my stomach was trying to crawl out of my mouth, and when I opened my eyes I got dizzy from The Bed Spins. I thought I was dying. It was like having the world’s nastiest hangover but without the previous night’s fun to justify it. I had no idea that it was related to playing Halo at first but my husband figured it out because he’d gotten car sick once.

You’re probably thinking that I’m the wussiest gamer on the planet right now. But guess what? What I experienced is a legitimate malady called “simulator sickness” which affects 20% to 50% of the population. (Other bloggers have even written about it.) It’s a type of motion sickness related to virtual environments, simulations, and video games. Air Force and Navy pilots are even tested for it when they sign up. It’s actually more common in people who do NOT get motion sickness from other things. In fact, if you get motion sickness, you can be pretty sure you won’t get simulator sickness.

It seems nobody knows what happens in the eye/ear/brain connection that causes simulator sickness. I didn’t get it when I played Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath, where you can switch between FPS and 3rd person play. I’m not getting sick now while playing Bioshock. But still, because I associate the simulator sickness with Halo, I have THE FEAR of Halo 3.

See this post for ideas on how to prevent simulator sickness if you get it.

There is an additional theory that Halo 3 in particular can cause simulator sickness because of its high frame rate. Some people cannot play games with frame rates higher than 30 frames per second without getting sick. Halo 3 runs at 60 fps. I’m not sure if there’s a way to convert to a lower frame rate for Halo 3, but if someone knows how to do it, please let me know.

Due to my success with Bioshock as a straight FPS, I’m looking forward to giving the entire Halo series a re-try using my new simulator sickness battle tools. Maybe by the time I finish playing Halo and Halo 2 there will be copies of Halo 3 to rent at Blockbuster. I’ll start with a rental… just in case.

Apparently Al Gore didn’t invent the World Wide Web. According to ZDNet UK, Sir Tim Berners-Lee actually did. (Dudes get knighted in England for some crazy stuff! Don’t you think Sir Lancelot could’ve kicked this guy’s tail in a jousting match?) What’s even cooler is that this guy has taken his knightly chivalry to the IT ranks. He says, “There are bits of male geek culture and engineer culture that are stupid.” I’m assuming he’s including game developers here. He goes on to say that, “they could be alienating people who are smarter and better engineers.”

Wow, the guy who invented the WWW is calling all Game Dames to rise up and Fight the Pocket Protectors! That is so cool.

As an aspiring game developer myself, this topic is near and dear to my heart. One of my fellow Game Design students, Carrla, went to the Austin Game Developers Conference this year. She said the ratio of men to women that she witnessed was about 10-1. Carrla also noted an interesting dynamic among the women who were successful in the gaming community. She said that the established women seemed worse at shutting out new women than the men did.

I was shocked. I mean, aren’t we supposed to be looking out for each other? How can we compete with the Old Boys Network (or, in this case, the Male Geek Hive Mind) if we don’t stick together? Carrla and I started wondering why women would do this to each other. I suggested that it was a “female harem” kind of thing: “These are my men, girl, back off and find your own.” My logic was rooted in the idea that the insecurity women feel about their places in the gaming industry might make them territorial and defensive. Carrla was kinder. She thought it might be that since the GDC is a huge networking event, the women figured they were better off making male contacts who were above the glass ceiling rather than hanging with other women who might not be able to help their careers.

Maybe you all can think of other reasons women might block each other out at a gaming networking event? How can we overcome this mindset to help women get into better positions within the industry?

I got BioShock in the mail for my birthday yesterday! I opened up that bad boy as soon as I got home from work. I played the first 45 minutes or so of the game. The visuals are incredibly stunning. They are the best Xbox 360 graphics I’ve seen to date. Everything looks detailed, real, and touchable. The art and theme reminds me of Oddworld, some of my favorite game art of all time.

It’s a dark game. And I mean visually dark (humor color unknown as yet, if it exists). You start the game off by configuring the screen so that it’s JUST light enough to see. I had to turn down the lamp in my living room so that I could see better. I still have a bit of trouble seeing things. I’m pretty sure that’s part of the design, to keep you in a state of tension. The sound design is intriguing. I’m 50% deaf in one ear so sometimes the radio voice who guides you is a bit tough to understand.

I’ll give it a full review soon!