shmups and contact lenses

[Fenrir]

And music games as well.
I have been noticing that I have a problem with shmups, something that makes me go really berserk.
I wear contact lenses. Without them, the world would be a huge N64 screenshot to me.
I can't play shmups with contact lenses, and the same goes for music games (DDR et similia).
Those two genres are the two most attention-whore genres. That means that I've got to stare at the screen as long as possible to avoid bullets with a perfect timing, or - in case of music games - gotta stare as long as possible in really hard songs to memorize all the arrows / sticks and so on.
I can't blink for too long, the blinks must be really fast to keep concentrating on hundreds of thousands of bullets and the constant changes of the enemy ships.
With contact lenses this is not possible, because if you stare too long without blinking OR you blink too fast, they can't get as wet as they should be and begin drying up inside the eye, so you at a certain point MUST pause the game and rub a bit the eyes or close them a bit longer. This doesn't happen without lenses because the eyes don't need constant watering like the plastic surface of a contact lens.
This means that after 10-15 minutes on a shmup, I must pause, or can't continue, and my overall performance is utter crap.
I've got bad eyesight so can't really play without them. One would say - get a pair of glasses. I could, yeah, but can I really switch between glasses and contact lenses all the time I want to play a shmup? And when you're in your friends' house? Can you just excuse yourself and pop out the lenses?

This makes me absolutely mad. Does any of you have the same problem? And if you solved it, I'd like to know your way

[NTSC-J]

Eye drops, man. Lately, after shopping for a few hours at a time where I'm having to focus on reading small spines of manga and games, my eyes start to kill me. When I go to the arcade afterwards I put a few drops in and I'm good to go.

[Turrican]

I wear contact lenses. Without them, the world would be a huge N64 screenshot to me.

That was, like, the best phrase ever written by Man. You're a Poet, my respects!

[CMoon]

I guess this is one of the cases where glasses >> contact lenses.

[ResOGlas]

Surgery.

[Sword]

One would say - get a pair of glasses. I could, yeah, but can I really switch between glasses and contact lenses all the time I want to play a shmup? And when you're in your friends' house? Can you just excuse yourself and pop out the lenses?

I have both contacts and glasses myself, and i switch between em constantly. Even when at a friends house/party/whatever. I find contacts are better when doing sports or when outside in bad weather, while glasses are far better when you're tired, or when you need to look at a monitor for hours on end.

I also noticed that while playing a shmup i seem to blink a lot less, so my eyes get all itchy afterwards. I tend to play in sessions of an hour or more anyways, so taking 30 seconds to switch isn't that much of a hassle.

[sjewkestheloon]

same here i wear both lenses and glasses and it takes 2 seconds to switch em out. contacts and shmups definately do not mix though. itch eyes equals stu sucking. get yourself some decent and reasonably big glasses for tv watching and game playing. that way to get no periferal distractions and good sight.

[WarpZone]

"Oh, you've got reading glasses?"

"Nah. Those are my shmup glasses."

[Blade]

Get one of these with your prescription lenses and you'll look the perfect shmupper.

http://www.phlem.org.uk/Fanzine/next/glasses.gif
http://www.magic.org/store/images/future_glasses.gif

[gunbird18]

I wear contact lenses. Without them, the world would be a huge N64 screenshot to me.

That was, like, the best phrase ever written by Man. You're a Poet, my respects!

I didn't get to post that fast enough, Turrican!

Great line, Fenrir! I laughed...lots...

[roker]

Eye drops, man. Lately, after shopping for a few hours at a time where I'm having to focus on reading small spines of manga and games, my eyes start to kill me. When I go to the arcade afterwards I put a few drops in and I'm good to go.

[TalkingOctopus]

I wear contacts, have terrible eyes, and shmups don't bother me at all. Maybe cause I'm still young?!

[Keranu]

I don't get what's wrong with wearing glasses.

[visuatrox]

I don't get what's wrong with wearing glasses.

I prefer glasses to sticking things in the eye, I also think some people look better with glasses than without. Personally I don't need either anymore because I had lasik surgery, and would recommend that to everyone except those that want perfect vision. What most people don't know is that after surgery the quality of vision will in most cases not be as good as it was with lenses or glasses. But the quality of your life gets a upgrade, I never realised how annoying glasses were before I got rid of them.

[icycalm]

I've been wearing contacts for over 15 years and had no problems with them. Of course I can play any game for hours on end with no irritation. I've even gone bungee jumping and skydiving with them.

Your eyes must be particularly intolerant to contacts.

[PFG 9000]

Fenrir, I was going to make a similar topic to this because I have the exact same problem. I've come to hate my contacts anytime I'm playing a shooter. When I know I'll be playing for more than a few minutes I just take my contacts out and wear my glasses. My shmupping friends don't understand how contacts can make my shmuppability drop so much, and it makes me want to get laser surgery that much more. (I'd probably have enough cash saved up for it if I hadn't bought some 30 shooters in the past two years. :/ )

Oh, and the N64 comment is golden.

[Fenrir]

Cool, PFG 9000 I feel relieved - that's exactly my same point. Indeed it drops your performance a lot.
I was kinda thinking that I was the only one facing this odd hardship but I'm glad to see that there are others like me.
I am not intolerant to contacts, in fact I wear them from when I wake up til when I go to sleep and they never ever gave me problems or whatsoever. It's just that disposable lenses are made out of plastic and they tend to dry really really fast. And when you stare a lot to attentionwhore games like shmups - where in fact you need every single second of your sight time to be blocked on your TV screen - the lenses dry up and you start feeling that there's an alien thingy in your eye and it all goes down from that moment. This doesn't happen with other games like RPGs or Adventures or Platforms or heck knows. In those games you can relax a lot more and take your time to blink a lot.

It maybe depends on the type of contact lenses (Bausch & Lomb are good but tend to be larger and dry faster, while Acuvue for example suck big time but they keep wet for longer time). Those of you who don't experience such things are really lucky I'd love to have the laser surgery once and for bloody all.
And it's going to be like the final stage of Gradius, when the Vic Viper shoots its laser to the big eye. Yey - my eyes be shootemupped to play shootemups better!

I'll try the eyedrops. Even though I don't think they'll prevent my contacts from drying up shortly afterwards

[Daigoro]

i have similar problems when playing games, not just shmups.

the solution is to keep blinking. not that you can really controll it. i had one of my lenses pop out the other day while gaming because i didnt blink for long enough that the thing dried out and popped out when i finally blinked.

drops might help a bit, but if you stop blinking for long enough, they'll dry up.

one of the many draw backs to having poor eye sight. i would like to get that surgery one day.

[PFG 9000]

i have similar problems when playing games, not just shmups.

the solution is to keep blinking. not that you can really controll it. i had one of my lenses pop out the other day while gaming because i didnt blink for long enough that the thing dried out and popped out when i finally blinked.

drops might help a bit, but if you stop blinking for long enough, they'll dry up.

one of the many draw backs to having poor eye sight. i would like to get that surgery one day.

My eye doctor told me the same thing, that I need to blink more. But an intershmup blink generally causes me to lose my place momentarily, and shmups by their very nature require such intense concentration that those quick moments of WTFage bring about my Vic Viperish demise.

[VNAF Ace]

Maybe you should blink faster?

But seriously, all you need to do is adapt. I wear contacts too, and I haven't had any problems with gaming (even though I need to blink). Use some eye-drops (such as Visine For Contacts) if your contacts feel dry or uncomfortable.

[Ko.oS]

scusate il disturbo.


A Tale From The Hardside - Straight Outta Komptan, Tokyo (translation provided by 'toNik)



"All skillful shumppers choose glasses -- the bigger, the better!!!"(laughs)





"Yeah, yeah, that's true. The only time i prefer lenses is when i have hot steamy sex with ugly women!!"(laughs)





"You know, i always turn off the lights anyway"(forced smile)

....