I get this from some games too, and when I bought Metroid Prime I pretty much bailed on it within 10 minutes because I could tell it was going to have the same effect.
It's technically called "
simulation sickness", and can happen to you even if you don't get motion sickness from actual moving vehicles at all -- they may be unrelated. One theory is that your brain thinks it's being poisoned, and wants to get the toxin out.
The big risk factors for me seem to be:
- high speed
- cameras that whip around a lot
- movement on three axes
- dropped frames/low frame rate
- lots of blur
When you look at this list, unsurprisingly, the biggest culprit is the N64 -- a lot of its 3D games I can only play in moderation, and some I can't play at all.
I remember playing GoldenEye and Banjo-Kazooie and wondering why I always felt feverish, nauseated, and headachy after 30-45 minutes. Only years later did I figure it out, and I tried to power through it, but no dice. The worst was Monster Truck Madness, which gave me a wicked migraine and made me feel like crap for at least an hour.
OTOH the PS1 almost never causes a problem for me. I only recall one Dreamcast game giving me trouble, Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm; same with the 3DO, I got a bit queasy once or twice from Escape from Monster Manor but have otherwise been OK. GameCube usually hasn't been an issue, I can play Super Monkey Ball all day long. I don't play much XBox but I never had an issue with Halo/Halo 2.
Gameplay duration is also a factor, as the likelihood seems to go up with time. But it's really hard to predict sometimes: FPS games seem likely to cause problems, but I played South Park a ton and had no trouble; lots of 3D movement can be an issue, but I beat Pilotwings 64 with little to no issue.