[Cobra]

So I was going to a park called King's Dominion owned by Paramount. It's near Richmond, Virginia and it's very similar to Six Flags. The night before, I was wondering how I should dress, knowing that there was a water park there. I decided to bring sandals, seeing how my feet may get wet.

So, after I got off the second ride, the trail leading away from it went through an arcade. My aunt and brother, which whom I was there with, saw a Dance Dance Revolution machine and asked me to show them my hot stuff. Problem was, sandals are bad for DDR playing, as mine slip and slide. So I decided to do it barefoot. Not only does that have more traction, but they are also lighter and I'd be less tired. Also, bare feet make for more accurate stepping, as you can feel all of the steps and apply exact pressure.

I also wanted to impress them, so I decided to do maniac difficulty. By the time I got done with Dead End, my feet were literally torn up. I thought they might have been sore or even had a few blisters, but it was much worse. patches of sking were torn off my feet, exposing incredibly tender flesh. It looked disgusting, and it hurt like a bitch. Some oversized bandaids later, I could walk again, but with a sting in every step.

In the end, I didn't go to the water park, and I counted six DDR machines in the entire park, including DDRMax, which I hadn't played yet, but it was after I got my feet torn up, so I couldn't play it. I should have just worn sneakers.

So, what was the dumbest thing you've ever done related to video games? Any tales of personal injury?

[TheDylman]

Wow you went to those lengths for Dance Dance Revolution? I think you should be proud and ashamed at yourself....

[Cobra]

I'm going to send this to Ian Samuel. Let's see if he reacts.

[Trippy Skippin Tomato]

I played too many game and got kind of overweight. Does that count as injury?

I also think I came very close to getting Carpal Tunnel syndrome from playing too much. (But I suspect it was something else. That was probably just some excuse my parents made to get me to stop playing for a while.)

[Tool23X]

No personal injury here, but it was pretty stupid nonetheless.

I mistakenly dropped Super Mario Kart (The original, not 64) outside once and left it there overnight. In the snow. In sub-zero temperatures.

I found it in the morning, with ice crystals frozen onto the little teeth of the cartridge (What the hell are those things called, anyway?). Well, I took the thing inside, let it melt (Water + Computer chips = Death). I tried the game out about two days later, and it actually friggen worked. I couldn't believe it. All's well that ends well!

-Tool23X

[Asyria Nightshade]

Nah, no personal injury here. Though...

My brother and his friend got so pissed of at Road Rash II they threw it against the hallway wall and I stepped on a shard of plastic.

Ouchies!

[Wally]

Ah, Kings Dominion. I knew it well.

No personal injury, although I have been known to stay up all night playing games on a night before I have to work early that morning. But I don't think I've ever managed to seriously hurt myself, although I have managed to do minor injuries to my ankles on a DDR machine once.

[Some1else]

Well, there's a virtual boxing game out right now that's really accurate, and whenever I play that, I move so much that my thighs cramp up for days.

I'm good at it, though :)

[The RPGenius]

Hm...the closest to injury came when I was 4...

Before I even owned a system, there was this neat little handheld game of the Ghostbusters. I saw it in a store, grabbed it, and played for at least 2 hours. This was before my hands were used to button-mashing for hours on end, so I ended up with huge, nasty blisters. But it was a fun 2 hours!

My stupidest moment was probably when I dropped my Gameboy into a puddle on the concrete. Like Tool said, water is not so good for electronics. But after it got dried out, it actually came back to life as good as before. Better, in fact, for the sound now came out louder than before. Go figure.

[TheDylman]

I was playing my brother in RBI baseball when I was 5 or 6 and I started beating him so he took the cartridge of "Ducktales" and started beating me over the head. Man NES games hurt...

[RyKor]

Well, on SNES and Sega Genesis, as I was cleaning them, the little flaps to keep out the dust, pinched me, but that's about it...

[Iris]

Well, this is system injury rather than personal injury...does anyone remember an old NES game called Captain Skyhawk? My brother used to play it a lot. He'd always make it to level seven, where you had to rescue the scientists, and he'd die there. Then (every time, without fail) he'd growl and pick up the NES, hold it five feet in the air, and drop it on the ground. After that I was afraid to let him near the SNES (which was mine and not shared by us).

And the NES still worked okay, too, as long as you fiddled with it for a while...

[Aylakat]

A couple years ago I was playing an N64 game (it was either Diddy Kong Racing or Mario Party) and I played for so long and so hard that my thumb got a big hard white blister on it from usage.

Also, while playing Mario Party and using my palm to rotate the control stick really fast, it dug in and created a nice blister right in the middle of my palm which burned a good lot. That sucked.

I also remember absolutely killing my arms playing Caveman Games on the NES... now that's a classic game... having to practically vibrate your fingers to get your dinosaurs to walk was such a chore... but it was worth it. :)

[IcyBrian]

An entire weekend of playing Tony Hawk on PS2. My thumbs were like two giant blisters waiting to explode.

[Trinoya]

Okay.... The worst injury isn't a blister or anything that is physical. Instead I got one of the worse things you can get from video games.


Screen Sick...

This only happens when you play a game to much and are closer then 5 feet to the screen. Basicly it starts out as a small headach. Slowly turns into a very painful throbing knife in your skull being hit by hammers type of headach. Then slowly your eyes start to loose focus when targeting anything but the screen (gets very confusing after a while) then after that just looking at the screen can induce vomiting, headachs, and any number of visual problems.


This happened to me the christmas I got my PS1 and FF7 in the same day. I played for like 4 hours stright and then left for about 10 minutes for a bathroom brake. I went back and kept only playing for another 4 hours. Left for dinner. Went back played for another four hours. by now its about 9pm. I played for 3 more hours. Turned it off went to bed (bearly) and the moment I woke up I was playing it again (because I had to beat it!) By the time the first two days were done I had nearly 30 hours clocked on it. The only reason I turned it off was at some point all the symptoms above dicided to make them selves known. Needless to say, after the first headach I should have stoped playing. But then I wouldn't have been nice and leveled... come to think of it... that wasnt worth the pain I had the rest of the day....