background color
reading font
reading size
The Greatest One Armed Gamer Ever
|
Please tell us of the incident that cost you your arm?
I got hit/run over by train 10 years ago when I was 15.
Most gamers would consider that their gaming days were over, but you didn't. Why?
Well I was in the hospital for nine months straight, then in and out for years afterward. I couldn't move too much after more surgeries than anyone bothered counting, but I could move my hand enough to play most Nintendo games (pinky finger on control pad, thumb on buttons). I never really considered my gaming days over, before I gave any thought to it, I'd been playing for a while already.
So how do you game now?
I can play most console games by just spreading my hand over the controller and holding it between my knees. I was very good at fighting games, especially Mortal Kombat. I had problems with the N64 because the analog stick was in the middle of the controller, but the PS and PS2 sticks were no problem, and i never played Dreamcast. Analog sticks in general are a little harder for me to use than digital pads.
So what games do you find yourself playing most?
As far as pc games go, I love Warcraft and it's RTS clones and before that I played Civilization and a few other Sid Meier games. I tried some online games recently, a friend let me try DAoC. As soon as I learned the basic controls, I had no problem as a Melee type, but I didn't like the the genre as a whole, so I didn't play it.
Do you ever find yourself playing in a match of Counter Strike, and how do you rank?[i]
I only played counter-strike a few times, but I did play a lot of Team Fortress Classic. I wasn't very good or bad, about average most of the time. The way I set it up was to put the keyboard at my feet. I used the spacebar as a trigger with my left foot, the arrows with my right big toe to run, and occasionally tossed a grenade with the "0" key. I used the left mouse to strafe left, right mouse to strafe right, wheel to switch weapons and pushed the wheel down to jump. It's not as complicated as it sounds, in fact using your real feet to control your in-game feet comes quite natural. I could snipe, scout, and demolition well, anything that didn't entail running around and aiming at the same time. It wasn't a perfect system, more than once I accidentally kicked the keyboard across the floor by accident. I kind of gave up on it after a while when the game got old and my keyboard started to smell like feet :)
[i]What do you find the trickiest when gaming with only one arm?
I can't really play console FPS's well at all, as aiming with the analog stick and reaching all the buttons on some of the newer pad's is too hard.
[i]Would you be willing to go under the knife so that I could implant a Gravis Gamepad Pro in your brain?
No thanks, I've gone under the knife enough. Try it on a monkey first and let me know how it works out.
[i]What are you doing now?
I don't have a lot of time to play anymore. I make my living building, repairing and setting up pc's and computer networks. Other than pulling out cables with my teeth sometimes, I have no problems with it.
I'd like to give a big thanks to my guest. It goes to show how true gamers can rise up an overcome what may seem to be an impossible obstacle. After I finish with this monkey I'm going to drop him a line again.
Share/Email
