• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Anyone else's fear of heights getting triggered more often this gen?

S

Stoney Mason

Banned
Motion sickness or my fear of heights was never really an issue at all in prior gens. I never really could understand how it bothered people in games like Doom and such back in the day. I remember playing Jumping Flash and the 3-D jumping aspect not being an issue. But either age or the graphics are sort of causing it to trigger off now in games.

I first noticed it in GTA 4 when I was at the top of a very tall building and went to the edge of it and felt noticably uncomfortable the way I might feel if I was near the edge of something very tall in real life.

Same thing happened in Fallout 3 where I could climb up on rocks and deserted freeways and walk off and my stomach would do that thing where you feel like you are falling like in a roller coaster.

And now prototype is the worse. At least in something like GTA or Fallout you generally have to purposefully go out of your way to create these sort of situations. But in prototype you are constantly climbing tall buildings and leaping off so my stomach is constantly getting butterflies.

It's actually kinda neat and sort of cool to me as a mark of how far videogames have come if only my stomach wasn't constantly having that full of butterflies feel. ;)

Was just curious was anybody else experiencing these things this gen?
 
Haha, yes. When I'm playing Crackdown I definitely feel like my stomach is in my throat after a particularly long jump.

Far Cry 2 did it for me as well - jumping off cliffs into the water.
 
only time it's ever happened is Assassin's Creed, and Twilight Princess (especially TP..jumping down from that high-up place in kakariko)
 
Yes lol.. I was so frustrated with Mirror's Edge. I was more focused on what would happen if I fell than completing objectives. But I think Shadow of the Colossus is a lot more crazy compared to those games.. being on that huge bird flying around.
 
When I first played Mirror's Edge it was at some event in London and I sat and played if totally fine, then I watched my mate play thru the level and it was horrible, it was the first time I'd ever felt ill from seeing a game, I thought the whole '3D sickness' thing was bollocks until then.
 
Mirror's Edge and Ass's Creed have definitely giving me a couple stomach in a knot feelings. I hate heights, but it usually doesn't stop me from going on top of my roof to fix something or on rollercoasters begrudgingly.
 
Saint's Row 2 had some very tall skyscrapers you could run and jump off, the feeling of falling was pretty well done. Then you could pull your 'chute right at the last possible second and glide to the ground.
 
The sense of vertigo that I get in games like Mirror's Edge and Assassin's Creed is awesome. Helps the immersion so much when you actually get that feeling that you're way high up.

Pretty impressive that visuals and animations have got to the point where your body can be somewhat fooled into thinking it actually does have a danger of falling, despite the fact that your mind is fully aware its just a game.
 
That level in duke3d where you're around some skyscrapers (i think in episode 3) made me pee a little, but it think it's mostly because of the weird old 3d perspective than anything else :lol
Doing a thunderdrop from a high building in infamous was pretty cool too.
 
Games are getting more vertical- devs are figuring out ways to get people to look up and down (this is, incidentally, a very difficult problem in game design... play the commentary of Half Life 2 Episode 1, and they talk about it)

That said, stay away from this game:
http://www.dejobaan.com/aaaaa/

Or play it, maybe it'll break your fear so hard you'll no longer have it.
 
I'm the opposite. I love the feeling of isolation from being way up there. The technology is finally there to make you sort of feel that way in videogame form.
 
In the Underwater Frigate in Metroid Prime, it was the first time I felt it, and I was confused and wondering what I felt (or why).

Then again in TP, after falling from the highest platform in Kakariko.

And so many times in Prime 3: Corruption, but in this case it was also by the fact that I couldn't see what was at the end of the fall.
 
I always had a habit in Oblivion of scaling as high a mountain/building as possible which was fun. But if I ever jumped off, after about the first couple of seconds of not hitting the ground, I'd get that crazy falling sensation. I loved it, and yet I hated it!

Also had it for a while with Mirror's Edge, but I think I died in it so often I just eventually got used to it.


Didn't have too much in Assassin's Creed, probably because I knew I was landing in something, but I think it was still there.
 
The only game to give me a real life feeling with stomach weirdness and all because of heights is WoW, jumping off ridiculously high ledges and dropping off an air mount then entering the BG right before I hit the ground and die. Quite fun.
 
Mirror's Edge did it to me with the falling sound of wind rushing past your ears, and for some reason Prototype got me with it too. I think it's more to do with having a colossal TV that takes up a significant portion of your field of view than anything else...
 
Me too.

I felt extremely uncomfortable in the sky dungeon in Twilight Princess, but worst was Catcall tower in Okami - I practised climbing up little things first and then clung so darn tight to that tower that I never even discovered that the glowy ring things stop you falling.

Took me about three hours to get up there. Never again.
 
I'd like to put in another vote for Assassin's Creed. It didn't trigger 'fear' per say, but when doing leaps of faith off of some of the tallest structures I actually felt butterflies a few times.
 
Nope, last I game remember getting vertigo in was Asheron's Call. There were no invisible walls or anything so you could climb these big ass mountains and jump off them. It was quite a rush falling down and wondering if I was going to live.
 
I actually started to like heights in video games when I started playing the spiderman games. I'd jump off the empire state building, and sling up using a web at the very last moment. I didn't always make it though. :lol

Edit:
Mirror's edge was a pure rush thanks to all those jumps, and the sounds.
 
Haven't had any vertigo playing videogames, which is strange as I'm scared of even looking over a second floor railing :lol
 
I don't know if this counts as fear of heights, but I LOVED the sensation of jumping from high places in OOT. Every chance I get, I jump off the waterfall in Zora Domain, or a leap off into the river in Gerudo Valley. You can feel the rush as you jump from high places, and it felt great. Hell, I might go jump off a cliff in OOT right now.
 
This happens to me a lot actually :lol

Most recently in Warhawk in that destroyed capital level. There is this really, really tall skyscraper that you go to the top of. I went up there but I didn't have a way to get back down (I think my jet blew up or something). So I decided to just end it and jump. It makes no sense, but it was kind of nerve wracking, the same feeling I'd get in real life, only less keen. Even during the fall I really felt like I was on a roller coaster during a huge drop.
 
Half life 2 accomplished this better than any game I've ever played. Remember the part where *spoilers for HL2 mid-game*
you had to go along the underside of the bridge as trains went over and made it shake? and then you had to go BACK with a frigging gunship shooting at you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Anyone else skip this gen?
2
97
1K
ThatOneGrunt replied
Anyone else notice gaming sections of big department stores are getting smaller and smaller?
2
54
620
Tiago Rodrigues replied
Low key triggered by this ad
2
60
723
consoul replied
So… We are not going to get more small exclusives games for the PS5 to fill the gap this gen?
2
55
150
RoboCain replied
Anyone else been guilty of this kind of gaming stupidity?
2
59
1K
Team Skoda replied
Top Bottom