At first, it started as a joke. One of my friends asked me if the next video game I played would make me feel sick, and I said, "Probably."

At the time, I just thought the game was likely to be hard, and I wanted to know how I would be able to handle it.

But this became more of an issue than I'd anticipated, and as I progressed through more and more games, I started to notice a pattern.

At first, I noticed this problem only in side-scrollers, because I'm not very good at first-person shooters

I've never played "Call of Duty," "Halo" or "Ghost Recon" or whatever other so-called "serious" shooters, but I've been around long enough to know what those games can do to your stomach.

I still don't understand why it's such a problem for me, since I've always had some level of sensitivity to motion sickness, but I suppose there's probably psychology behind it, something to do with feeling queasy and the fear of feeling queasy.

I wasn't sure how I'd handle certain games, but I figured I'd just hold my nose, take deep breaths and look away from the screen.

But this didn't always work. Sometimes I was tempted to skip over sections of a game I didn't like, but then I realized I'd have to replay them to get to the parts I liked, or I'd never play the rest of the game.

When I would skip to the good parts, I'd often feel a bit sick in a way that I wouldn't understand until I went back and did it all over again.

And it wasn't just with "serious" video games; this problem has been recurring with a lot of third-person shooters.

For some reason, it just isn't as easy for me to block out other people.

Perhaps it's because I'm extremely empathetic and sensitive to other people's feelings, but the mere idea of witnessing someone shooting people with a gun is enough to make me feel nauseous.

What's more, it doesn't seem to matter how I try to remove myself from that image; I still sometimes find myself almost feeling sick when the camera zooms in on someone pulling the trigger.

My friends have tried to reassure me, saying that the problem's only when I have a hard time blocking out other people.

"You don't have to watch the shooting," they'll say. "Just keep your eyes in front of you and put your hand in front of your face to block out the rest."

But that doesn't always work either. At first, I would spend most of a "Call of Duty" level playing in the corner, out of sight from the action.

Then I would play from the very beginning, then from the very end, keeping my head pointed towards the screen the whole time.

But it didn't really make a difference, and I still felt like I'd been playing for eternity.

My friends all assured me that there was no such thing as "video game sickness," and that it was nothing to be ashamed of

I'm glad they told me that.

But I still felt like I couldn't play "Call of Duty" without feeling a bit sick.

Despite all this, I continued to play more and more "serious" games, taking what little hope I could find in the notion that there would be a game out there that didn't make me feel sick.

My friends assured me that there was no such thing as "video game sickness," and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. I'm glad they told me that.

But I still felt like I couldn't play "Call of Duty" without feeling a bit sick.

At first, I thought it was an image thing. Perhaps it was just because the developers used certain colors to emphasize a point, so maybe if I started playing more colorful games, I'd feel less nauseated.

I also tried the PlayStation 3 headset, which came with a pair of headphones that emitted some kind of sound.

But the same thing kept happening

I kept reading about video game sensitivity and realized that most of the information was based on games developed in Japan.

Since my favorite games were often developed in North America, it took me a while to even figure out which games to play.

It also took me a while to realize that it was not a matter of watching someone shooting a gun, but rather playing a shooter with triggers and knobs and a screen you have to look at, no matter what.

Since my favorite games were often developed in North America, it took me a while to even figure out which games to play

My older brother suggested that I play "Limbo," which is a game I'd never played before.

I figured I'd give it a shot, and it was pretty much perfect.

The monsters moved around a little slower than in the previous games, and the game's low-key art style seemed a lot more soothing to my constantly-nauseous mind.

Once again, though, I still felt sick after playing "Limbo."

Eventually, I began to notice that there were certain games I'd play again and again.

After discovering these games, I began to get an almost compulsive desire to play them.

If I wasn't playing a game that was so sickening that I'd have to take a break, then I was trying to play a game that was so soothing to my mind that it made me feel like I wasn't playing.