Category: Accessible Games
In 1993, the first public version of arguably one of the best first person shooter games was uploaded as shareware onto a server at some college somewheres. Yes, I'm talking about Doom. In 94, Doom 2 Hell on Earth came out. In 95, Ultimate Doom for Windows was released.
This paved the way for first person shooter hounds like yours truly to just go around wasting baddies with chainsaws or brass knuckles, depending on how sadistic you choose to be. And if you wanted it to be over quickly, you imployed the Shotgun or Chaingun. The Plasma rifle was one of my personal favorites when dispatching tougher badguys, IE the barrons of hell or the Cacodemons, but the imps and mutated humans did an extremely gratifying scream and dance step when mintsed with the chainsaw.
Well that's all well and good, but what if blind people want to wander through laborynthian passage ways making pulp out of enemies too? When it came to doom, I always either had a sighted friend help me out with navigation or jjust turned on Godmode and noclipping mode which enabled me to walk through walls, step into vats of toxic waste and field bullets and fireballs constantly without suffering a single point of damage. It was fun, but admittedly not fair.
In the year 2001, GMA Inc abligingly came out with a heavily modified version of the game called Shades of Doom. Anybody heard of it? (Download demo and purchase full version at www.gmagames.com.) I played the demo version for months before I coughed up the thirty-five dollars for the full version. I think it's almost worth it. It just kinda sucks. Not the game, the anal rapage of the price. I had to pay the thirty-five because unlike sighted people, I couldn't go anywhere else for a cheaper deal. Ah well.
The game itself, sound wise is absolutely incredible. Sounds from both sides, a scope on your weapon to tell you whether or not you're pointing at your target, multiple traps and treasures, it's a lot like the original Doom. I'm afraid, however, that what there is in sound is absolutely lacking as far as graphics go. I could have the semiautomatic boltgun out and just pwning a mutated human, right? The guns sound really cool, and there is a satisfying impact whenever a monster is hit with your shot, but the sighted person I was showing off my uber awesome sauce gaming skills saw nothing but a dot (representative of the player), a square (which I think is the bad guy) and a map. I mean, I would have loved to have like super cool graphics of monsters and mutants being splattered about the room. Think about it. It doesn't do me, or you, or whoever might be playing the game any good, but it'd make your sighted friends go "Damn, man! You own at this!"
All in all, I loved the game, but it's not very sighted friendly. Yes, I said it. After years and years of "This isn't blind friendly", Shades of Doom is not sighted friendly. Your thoughts?
accessible games have always swung towards good sound and little graphics. you call thirty five dollars anal rapage? you can double or trebbel that if you want good graphics. what the sighted community want with graphics, blind users want with the responsibness of sound, so the coding goes either one way or the other.
Codiac's right. I never care for graphics whether i'm playing my PS2, GC, or computer games. I'm more into the sound, or storyline if its a console game. I've played shades of doom, and its alright, but I'm not going to pay for it.
Wow. Accessible games on PS2? I've only ever played Tekken and Mortal Kombat on that system.
I play a lot of games on the computer and PS2 and I would have to say that I prefer more of an sound base than a sound and graphics base game, becaus in that case they would have ot split the work in to two parts and then the sound quality would probalbley go down.
SOD is not overpriced for what it is. I don't enjoy FPS games, so I didn't purchase it, but if I did I would gladly play. If you can't afford it, have you tried Audio Quake?
Yes, I have.
I didn't like Shades of Doom either, but I'm not a big fan of GMA games in general. But if you don't want to pay for it, that's cool, I understand that.
So wait, your saying that, because a game that s, in all factuallity, created for blind people, doesn't have good graphics? What does that matter? Its for blind people, as in people who can't see. Do you think whenthey were designing major games, we'll say metal gear solid for instance, that game designers went; "you know, we need to make these sounds better so that blind people can go, man, you rule at this"? No, they simply put a sound in. And in all honesty, the sounds on MGS suck, but its still a kick ass game.
No one is going to care that someone who only uses sound can't use a major game, and a game created for blind people is not going to have great graphics, because no one cares. Ok, few people care. I just fail to see why they would waste valuable space and time and money making you a game with grate graphics that your not going to use, just so your friends can see how good you are at the game.
Besides, your complaining about the price, if you add graphics into the game, its going to be even more expensive.
There's my thaughts.
I have always thought no matter how people tried to copy or emulate they could never reach the caliber of gma games. I played sod, lone wolf, and bought tc.
I have been disappointed though because on the roomer mill there was suppose to be a sequal to tc coming out where it was kind of like a troop mission where you controled other players on foot and you go through the same kind of senareos but on foot and shoots and stuff would all be done like an fps. instead of via a tank.
this never materialized and I wonder why tc or anything else gma has done received no more attention.
What about folks who are visually impaired? They still need sound and speech to help them navigate. But they may be able to also enjoy the graphics using a magnifier. If a game has graphics, more people will play and enjoy it. If you make games that can be enjoyed by more people it will make the game developers more money and/or be better known. That will help them to decide to make more and better accessible games.
Eleanor Robinson
7-128 Software