SpecialEffect, the gamers charity, have recently helped a young man named Ben to be able to play video games for the first time.
Ben, who has spinal muscular atrophy, never thought he’d be able to play video games. He’d found out about SpecialEffect online and told his parents, but they hadn’t said much. It turned out they’d subsequently arranged a visit to the charity in Oxfordshire without telling him, so one morning in April they took him for ‘a bit of a drive’ and an hour or so later, to his absolute surprise, he found himself in their games room.
“I’ve never played a proper computer game,” he said. “I’ve always watched my friends play. Games are important to me because I can’t go out and play football like other kids so I do it on a computer screen.”
Ben uses a joystick to drive his wheelchair and control his PC at home, so the dev team from SpecialEffect bluetoothed it to a laptop so it could act as the left gaming stick for games like FIFA and Grand Turismo. They also rigged up a selection of light-touch switches and connected them into the PlayStation via a couple of interfaces.
The end result is that Ben’s able to play on the PS3 for the first time ever, and he’s barrelling into a range of games including Gran Turismo, FIFA and Minecraft. The equipment he needs has been lent to him, and now he’s one very happy gamer.
“It’s good because I get the same amount of fun as they do. I can do everything on it and it’s amazing”
This is just one of many stories from an amazing charity that deserves continued support from as many people as possible.
You can view Ben’s story below
The Train2Game Blog 