Good morrow fine Sirs and Madams. It has come to my attention that you may well be feeling a certain qualmness with regards to Mirror’s Edge nausea inducing capabilities, but rest assured, the fine folks over at DICE have found a veritable bouquet of solutions that are positively bursting with ingenuity and charisma that aspire to resolving the conundrums at hand in a swift and mannered fashion.

Leap the gulf to continue these investigations.

Mirror’s edge is that game which does the jumping stuff and looks really, really awesome. It’s also the game that lets you jump across buildings, from a first person perspective as you run messages around a glimmering city, while, at the same time, watching enemies soldier’s fruitless attempts to stop you as you disarm them and end their lives.

The game looks really interesting, but with all that leaping, first person head bobbing and general riskiness there’s a pretty high chance that you’ll get simulation sickness. I say simulation sickness, as opposed to motion sickness, because you’re not actually moving, but watching a simulation of moving. Anyhoo, DICE are well aware of people vomiting all over their game and so are doing all they can to prevent it from happening.

First, although you won’t have seen this in videos, a shiny blue bubble of focus is being placed in the centre of the screen which, rather obviously, is meant for you to focus on. According to a good ol’ trusty DICE representative, ballerinas avoid feeling sick, while spinning, by focusing at a point on the floor. DICE are hoping this dot in the centre of the screen will work the same way for Mirror’s Edge. Of course this little spot is multifunctional: as well as acting as an anti-vomit inducing focus point, it also turns blue when you are charged to slow down time so, in true DICE style, the game doesn’t suck. Of course there are those amongst us who are so macho that they dont need a stupid focus point. Well they’re in luck as DICE have included the option to turn it off.

Another step DICE have taken in their infinite quest to stop simulation sickness is to remove head bobbing. Apparently the game’s camera is now stuck in the protaganists eyes, rather than in her head so fears of perpetual bouncing have now been quenched.

Finally DICE use the sides of the screen to provide peripheral vision which, for no particular reason that I can see, will reduce simulation sickness.

Well were just about wrapped up here. Remember, the ever present comment box is available for rental, lease and commenting, but mainly commenting.

Source: Joystiq

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