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I'm not sure how much time you spend staring at a computer screen every day, but I average 8-10 hours if I don't have overtime to do. Long story short, eyestrain and headaches kind of go with the territory. I just figured all I could do was take a break from time to time, but a clever little company called Gunnar Optiks thought of a better concept -- invent glasses that fix the problem.

Founded by Oakley veterans, these glasses may just be able to enhance your gaming experience. Gunnar has recently partnered with Major League Gaming to produce the Legend model, which you can see in the gallery. Valued at $99, Gunnar says these provide "reduced reaction time, improved accuracy, and increased visual endurance". Is it true? Well, there's only one way to find out.

To win a pair for free, simply hit the comments and tell me about the worst headache (or other affliction) that you got from a case of hardcore gaming. Feel free to illustrate with video, pictures and reenactments, such as Rey's amazing parody here. The contest is open to all countries and runs through October 21, ending at midnight EST. As always, if you have any questions, hit me up at colette@destructoid.com. Good luck, everyone!

[Update: Here's who won!]






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Colette Bennett is a Destructoid features editor from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is also a founding member of Destructoid's sister sites Tomopop, a toy lover's blog and Japanator, our anime site. Likes Nintendo DS, NES, Silent Hill series, Rhythm games, RPGs Meet the rest of the team



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174 comments | showing # 1 to 50
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gamadaya's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 17:52
gamadaya
Yeah... that sounds like a hot, steamy load of bullshit.

Well, anyway, one time when I was playing Metroid Prime, I got really into it and was moving my head along with the action. Something took me by surprise, I dodged to the right, and a swung my head into the sharp corner of an open cabinet door. Hurt like a motherfucker. I doubt these glasses would have helped the situation though. Maybe if they were valued at $100.
Half left's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 17:52
Half left
Nice work Rey. I laughed pretty hard just now :D.

I don't need specs thanks.
Trevor McGee's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 17:54
Trevor McGee
I'm an epileptic who has grand mal seizures so... Yeah, it sucks. I've had plenty of headaches and done a few breakdances on the floor because of my love of gaming. I'm not sure how much a pair of these glasses would help, but it'd be nice to have. I sometimes pull all nighters, for instance I was playing the face meltingly awesome Brutal Legend all last night. \M/
Death by Yeti's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 17:55
Death by Yeti
i played Darkest of Days...
oy vey
Infinitys End's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 17:57
Infinitys End
easy.
I rented the Virtual Boy from Blockbuster back when it came out.
I was so excited that I played it non-stop for about 10 hours straight...
Suffered from an extreme headache, and minor eyestrain.

Let's just say I'm not going to be playing the VB again anytime soon.
Danzflor's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 17:59
Danzflor
Best ad i've seen in years!

im'm going to see if I got some video idea for later :P
fetusmilk's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:00
fetusmilk
i used to get so worked up over street fight on snes when i was young that i would throw controllers at the TV screen. i had one bounce off it and hit me in the head once.
nowherekid03's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:00
nowherekid03
weekend long sessions of world of warcraft. monday comes along and im tired, feel like shit, and have a headache.
tripled153's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:00
tripled153
I bought Merchants of Brooklyn. Then I played it. After Uninstalling it I went into the bathroom an saw blood leaking out of my ear. I think all the rage ruptured a blood vessel in my head from all the rage of spending twenty bucks only fall through the elevator at the intro sequence of the game.
lem's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:01
lem
I suffer from migraines pretty hardcore naturally so I'm not supposed to play games to much anyway. Having said that I've been going back and playing some N64 games recently. Trying to play the whole "Keep away from the one up" game in mario 64 with friends for ages with drunk friends leads to this kind of headaches in poorly lit rooms.

Uniquenamehere's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:02
Uniquenamehere
Space giraffe made my head


BBcode fail???
R3Y GUTI3RR3Z
I put ketchup in my eyes and scream hysterically around the Destructoid penthouse. What do I win!? I know what I lost... what little self-respect I had.
Puppy Licks's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:02
Puppy Licks
Nice vid, I love the random cat chasing for no reason :D

As for a headache story... yeah I got nothing.
Uniquenamehere's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:04
Uniquenamehere
doh try again
Space giraffe made my head
Yougiedeggs
I have mine right now.
Just bought a PSP and went on a Monster Hunter Freedom binge, and holy hell, if I haven't had a headache for 3 days now. Guess I'll take a break and play some Team Fortress 2. No, my eyes haven't melted yet.
commish's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:04
commish
I had the most ultimate headache playing megaman 3, I was always dying on snake man level and those snakes with the wavy platforms just got the best of me
AriesWarlock's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:05
AriesWarlock
My worst headaches come from playing FPS's, like I was playing Bioshock once and since I tried to catch everything on the screen whenever I moved the camera I got a really bad headache.
Uniquenamehere's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:05
Uniquenamehere
argh I suck at bbcode

Space giraffe made my head http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/protestwarriors/ScannersExplodingHead.gif
abombb's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:05
abombb
Playing a Street Fighter IV match that went on way too long can cause a massive headache.
bangbang's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:06
bangbang
I got the worst eye strain from playing multiplayer on both AvP 1 and AvP 2. When I would play as an Alien running so fast all over the walls that it not only made me sick but also hurt my eyes. But mad it was fun to play can’t wait for my eyes to hurt again with the new one.
gamadaya's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:07
gamadaya
@lem: Keep away from the 1up is so fun on Battlefield :)
ZeroTolo's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:07
ZeroTolo
The worst gaming headache I've ever incurred was caused by Final Fantasy VII.

I'd rented it from a local videostore and only had two days to get as far into it as I possibly could before it was due back. By the time the sun set on the first day, I'd made it out of Midgar. I watched some TV, ate some dinner and went to bed. Being the summer, I got up bright and early the next day and started my crusade once again. We're talking Boston Marathon-level gaming. I played all day, sucking down almost an entire 12 pack of Diet Coke and several bags of Doritos. I could feel the MSG flowing through my veins like water on drought-stricken land; my body absorbing it and pushing me forward.

I played all day and all night, and by the time the sun rose again in the east, I had conquered the Gold Saucer's side-missions, collected and grown countless materia, and was a good deal of the way towards that elusive Golden Chocobo. When I finally crashed it was roughly noon, with the game itself due back by six o'clock. It was one late fee that I was happy to pay.

As far as the post-marathon headache went, it went all the way back through my head from my sinuses to the nape of my neck, both my eyes were bloodshot, and its one of those experiences that hindsight allows me to realize caused permanent damage; mostly in the form of my left eye, which still goes completely bloodshot from the pupil out to one side if I even attempt to power-game like that.
Los255's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:08
Los255
Wow. I remember when I was first playing Super Mario World on Christmas for like 6-7 hours straight. I got such a headache, that I started hitting my head with the controller, lightly, but long enough to make the controller not work anymore. My grandmother was disappoint.

Now that I think about it, this is probably the only controller I've ever broken.
Android8675's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:09
Android8675
Not since the days of Ragefire in the volcano Solusek have I endured a gamers headache from prolonged gaming (80 hours straight), but it could of been the sleep deprivation as well.
Blue Ryd3r's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:13
Blue Ryd3r
I was playing Mendel Palace with my sister on the NES (this was about 15 years ago) and my sister made me stay up WAY past my bed time to help her beat it. Some how I contracted the flu during this session and that night I had the most insane fever dream nightmare I had ever had in my life. I was running around with crazy doll people flipping cards on the floor and trying to destroy monsters. It was for some reason horrifying to me. I was never able to play that game again.

Something similar happened to me after playing a long session of Mass Effect. While having a fever of 104.1 F I hallucinated that I was a space marine who was kidnapped by Krogans and injected with a virus that they wanted to spread to the rest of my unit (gigity) but after being abandoned by the krogan and rescued I was locked in a quarantine room with a window and my fellow marines came one by one to console me while they watched me die. I really believed that this was happening to me. I was awake and fever tripping for about 8 hours, trying to deal with the fact that I thought I was going to waste away and die.

Fever and flu is not technically caused by gaming, but I think my super freaky dreams count as gaming related.
Guncannon's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:14
Guncannon
When I was around 11 years old, I was at a friend's birthday party. After playing Goldeneye, Mario Kart and other N64 games late into the night, our bodies and minds were so mixed up, being wired and tired from gaming, that we decided to put on a play(!), that night, in the basement of his house, for no one but ourselves. I think it was about vampires, or at least started out as that, and we kept going until it was the next morning and our parents picked us up.

Suffice it to say that it was the BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER!!!
lem's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:14
lem
@ZeroTolo
Yeah, Been there done that. I was a nintendo kid but my mate lent me his PS1 but being a jerk wouldn't lend me a memory card so i play Final Fantasy VII to hell in fear of a power outage with added stress of dying. That'll give ya an aneurysm.

Probably so many better ones I'll think of later today too (after mooching off other peoples ideas).

Ohoh! In Lufia 2, the Ancient Dungeon. Trying to get to the bottom floor. Me mum and I would take turns to get there. No save states back then. That was also stressfull. (Don't think we ever made it -_-)
Swisskid15's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:18
Swisskid15
Playing Brawl in the dark for hours has given me a headache so strong, I had to take a 400 mg Ipuprofen tablet (which was pink for some reason). I also believe I had a repetitive strain injury the other day and has probably only worsened my already quite poor eyesight. In summary I feel like this
Josh Tolentino's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:19
Josh Tolentino
My worst-ever gaming headache that didn't have anything to do with other factors was from playing Requiem: Avenging Angel, that ill-fated FPS way back in 2001. It might have been the refresh rate or something to do with my graphics card or something else, but after a couple of bosses I had a splitting migraine. I considered playing further to justify my purchase (even pirated games were expensive at the time), but I couldn't stand it anymore.
Yougiedeggs's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:21
Yougiedeggs
I just realized how much these glasses make me think of Travis Touchdown.
storyr's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:22
storyr
Worst headache of my life was Saturday Morning of PAX 09.
TheBigFeel's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:24
TheBigFeel
I was playing this one game where I literally had to smash bricks with my head. Man, what a headache. A mushroom came out and when I ate it, my head began throbbing. I got disoriented and it seemed like the entire world became smaller to me. I powered through it, though, only to find the princess I tried to save was in another castle. What a bitch.
HiddenAHB's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:25
HiddenAHB
One day i and my cousins decided to finish RE2 and RE3 in the same night. We succeed, we played until 7:30 AM and than we go to sleep.
One day later, i woke up at 5:30 PM on a bed made of plastic bottles of Diet Coke and PS1 controller between my ass cheeks. And a headache so strong my eyes were red, i was seeing pictures of Jesus everywhere and i didn't even bother with the fact that i had a PS1 controller in my ass.

True story.
Devin Watson's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:26
Devin Watson
Last year I played through Fallout 3 in one day, that really did a number on my eyes...
wanderingpixel's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:26
wanderingpixel
I was a huge anime fan when I was young, so naturally I read all six volumes of Akira and watched the movie. Unfortunately, I've always had a lot anxiety, and every time I got a headache from the age of seven to nine I thought my head was going to explode like this:

Feel free to laugh. Luckily, my mom explained to me one day that nobody's head has ever exploded because of a headache. Now, I can finally watch Youtube music videos of the JFK assassination in peace.
Seolfer Wulf's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:28
Seolfer Wulf
I used to fix computers for a living, not the new kind but the old PII's 233 slot processor kind. I used to fix these computers on a pc monitor that could hit a max Refresh rate of 50Hz and my boss refused to supply us with better equipment. Needless to say i complained about eye strain to him endlessly and had to leave work one day from being dizzy and not being able to focus.

The next day i woke up blind in my left eye and when i looked in the mirror the entire of my left eye was solidly red. After a few days it slowly returned to white and my eye sight came back if somewhat diminished in my left eye. Even now if i strain my eyes it starts to bleed on the inside leading to massive headaches and nausea.

It's not game related but y'know....
Solozaur's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:30
Solozaur
I think the worst headache i ever had was after playing 6 straight hours of World of Warcraft i just couldn't see straight - bot only when looking at the monitor! If i was looking at the monitor the room started spinning around me and i felt like i was in the middle of a whirlpool(not that i really know how that is like!), and when i looked away from the monitor everything looked normal again.
So i decided to call it a night and I'm glad i did because next day i heard on the news about a dude that ran from home with his mom's money and did a 3day gaming spree and in the 3rd day he was found dead in from of the pc with white foam(?!) dripping out of his mouth!
Jon B's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:32
Jon B
I think possibly the worst gaming affliction I've ever had was from Crazy Taxi. It doesn't compare to the serious things posted above, but it has a more humourous twist to it.

It's December, 2003, I'm on the Dreamcast, on Crazy Taxi 1. Due to being really damn ill on the night of the school ball, I decided "to hell with it, I'll go for the Crazy Taxi high score".
Now, normally this would consist of taking a regular run on Original mode, with Arcade scoring. Anyone who's played the Arcade version will know that if you're super fast, it'll give you +5 seconds upon a "speedy" score.
Now, from some strange miracle, the gods of gaming blessed me with a miracle on such a god-forsaken day, and I was on the one run for no less than FOUR HOURS.
The Dreamcast controller is a very nice controller, I'll give it that. However, holding it, concentrating, sliding your fingers up and down to perform crazy tricks for four hours is NOT fun on a DC controller. By the end of said run, almost all the skin from the sides of my middle and fore fingers on my right hand had eroded, blistered, bled and blistered again.

Since I've rambled loads, I'll cut to the chase. I got a fantastic score, reaching well into the millions, and from that day forth, had a huge smile on my face for a few days. Now normally that wouldn't be too bad. However, being 13, having majorly blistered hands and a huge grin on my face not only caused some of the strangest looks I've ever had the pleasure of recieving, but I was collared by teachers as to the problem.

Eventually I was forwarded to the school nurse. I wasn't sure why, it's just a gaming injury, right?
Well, it turns out that the word had got around I had a chronic masturbation problem. Hey, the signs were all there, fair enough. But dear god, that was the most embarassing moment of my life, having to announce to the teacher that it wasn't a chronic masturbation addiction.

I'm never, ever going on a Crazy Taxi marathon again.


Was still an awesome score though.
TheGregsaw's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:33
TheGregsaw
I usually get my headaches when I'm tired. Maybe my eyes are just used to screens now.

I'm doing the 24-hour Extra Life thing this coming weekend, we'll see how I feel after that.
KIHP's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:37
KIHP
I once was playing halo 2 for a good 10 hours and once I stopped to take the trash out I just collapsed on the grass outside my house with sound of the h2 sniper ringing three my head. Then I was so dissoriented that I made a mad dash behind a car thinking the sniper couldn't see me from there. I didn't get my wits back until I spent a good minute behind this car.
BrianIsLIVE's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:38
BrianIsLIVE
Biggest Headache I Had While Gaming Is When I Was Singing on Rock Band1. I Was Singing for over an Hour over Xbox LIVE, Then This Queer Picks "I'm So Sick". My Head Hurts to Begin with. Then I Gotta Put My Voice Real High Pitched Just to Hit the Notes, Then Next thing You Know I Throw Up In My Mouth While Doing This One Roar In the Song. FML.
LeXxX's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:39
LeXxX
I'm so addicted to blog sites like destructoid, that by the time I get around to actually playing a game I have a headache from looking at the computer screen and don't feel like playing anymore. =( It's ruining my gaming time and I need to find a way to fix this.
AutumnWindz's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:40
AutumnWindz
I went to high school in China. Many people may know where this is going already - it has to do with internet cafes. I had a group of friends that would often head to the internet cafe after school on Fridays, and spend the entire evening there, gaming late into the night and early morning of the next day sometimes. It was the same story one Friday - we skipped last period of class to get to the internet cafe before the after-school rush of other middle/high school kids and gamed. As the night wore on, my friends gradually trickled off, until it was only two us left. We had a soccer game with other friends going on around noon of the next day, Saturday, so I decided that we might as well stay at the internet cafe all night due to its proximity to the soccer field. By the time we headed to soccer, it was 11am and we had been gaming at the internet cafe before that for 20 hours - I remember I had gotten over 300 kills in a game in CS, and we'd also played countless games of WC3, Red Alert 3, Rise of Nations, etc. I was feeling a bit sick. After a few hours of soccer in the outdoors, getting fresh air (it was an unusually clear day in Beijing that day), I was feeling a lot better. When I laid down on the field and looked at the clouds, I could vaguely see outlines of random gaming related images... I think it was a combination of sleep deprivation and too much looking at a screen.

Anyway, I bet you could guess what my friend and I did after soccer: we went to the internet cafe again. I don't like going to sleep while the sun is still up, so I guess that was my only option at the time. I vaguely remember playing - and sucking at - an online rhythm game, as well as 'playing' Starcraft with one hand (the other hand was needed for propping my head up). I went home, finally, at 9pm or so on Saturday night, which meant I'd been awake for something like 40 hours straight, and spent maybe 25 of those hours gaming. No sleep. I was so dazed that my eyes couldn't help tearing up whenever I was in the sun for the next few days, and I have no real idea how I got home. Needless to say, I had a huge headache from all this, and in fact, I'd had one for most of the duration as well.

Sorry if this was long or rambling :P
froboman's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:43
froboman
So, I had ordered a new computer, which arrived a day before l4d came out. Problem was, i didn't have a mouse. Installing it without a mouse was easy enough, just arrow keys, tab, and enter, but I couldn't resist attempting to play it like an old fps, binding home, delete, end, page down to moving the mouse and right control to shooting. The injury I received? Horribly, horribly cramped fingers from playing for hours with friends.
calpis's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:43
calpis
I've been playing FPS games for years so I could say that I had grown an immunity to motion sickness in games. That is until I played Painkiller for the first time. I had to stop and step away from the game because I felt sick in the stomach after about 30min of playing. I thought it was maybe a stomach flu or ulcers so I kept going back to it. In total, I tried to play through the game 8 times in the span of a week before I ended up giving up. I came close to vomiting so many times.

Another time was when playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village for 3 hours straight then looking up and immediately burst into tears and blurred vision kicked in. I had to lay down for 10min to regain my sight.
stevenxonward's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:50
stevenxonward
I don't get headaches from gaming or working too terribly often. I spend 8 hours in front of a screen at work and about 4-7 hours afterwards gaming, watching TV, or browsing the interwebs.

At any rate, when I was younger I could handle that much gaming and TV watching. I remember having what my brother and sister and I would call "up all night" parties, where we'd watch all of the original Star Wars movies in a row or play 3 player Secret of Mana or something similarly nerdy. We'd do this just about every Friday and Saturday night.

I fell out of gaming for most of my freshman year of high school, probably due to a girlfriend or some nonsense, but I can't really remember. When I picked it back up I found that I was having all sorts of sensory issues - my eyes couldn't take the staring, my stomach would churn, and I'd even get a nosebleed or two.

Anyway, the story is about Lunar II: Eternal Blue. I played that game pretty much straight through the summer before my sophomore year, getting between 3-5 hours of sleep most nights. The worst night of gaming that I remember started with the Borgan fight (which Aaron Linde mentioned on a past episode of Podtoid). I don't remember too much about the events leading up to that battle, only that I absolutely could not beat it. I spent a good chunk of time just repeating the battle over and over, only to have the bastard rip vast chunks of MP from me each time. So I grinded... probably for about 3 or 4 hours. I might've been able to take the guy after about an hour, but I wanted to make damn sure I didn't run into this problem again. I started feeling sick at about the tail end of the 3rd hour. My eyes were completely dried out and my insides were waging war on each other. I remember throwing up a bit, and if that wasn't bad enough on its own, my nose started bleeding as well. So I decided to lay in the bathtub until I started feeling better and not so dry.

I felt ok in the tub, but I still felt ill when I'd get out. Even worse - I started to feel sleepy when I'd get out. So I finally got out and dried off, then went into my bedroom and unhooked the PS1. I got one of our small travel TVs and just hooked everything up in the bathroom. I didn't throw up anymore that night, and I beat Borgan in the bath. It was awesome, and yet totally not awesome.

I'm 23 now, and I don't really have those problems anymore - aside from the dry eyes bit. If the glasses work, it'd be awesome not to have dry eyes anymore.
SovietMudkipz's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:51
SovietMudkipz
A couple years ago, I was with my family on a trip to Banff. This was about three years ago.

I got Elite Beat Agents as a Christmas gift and was playing it religiously. I'm talking nearly every waking moment. EBA is quite accomodating in that way because it's a portable game. EBA was like pure concentrated awesome compacted into a little square box (my DSlite).

One day, we went to the Banff Springs Hotel. EBA and care rides were a recipe for disaster. I had my first ever migraine that day, and have never been more sick since then. I felt like I wanted to die.

I find it ironic how one of the best games I've ever played inspired one of the worst moments of my life. God I love Elite Beat Agents.
TheBigFeel's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:55
TheBigFeel
I think SovietMudkipz wins just because of his avatar. Sorry lem
Gamechamp's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/14/2009 18:56
Gamechamp
When I got the first Phoenix Wright after waiting to play the series for years, I went on a super marathon. Reading that much in such a small time made my eyes not very much having fun.
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