Over the course of my blog, I\u2019ve talked about a lot of things. I\u2019ve talked about the struggles, and the successes of being a blind gamer, I\u2019ve talked about accessibility and how awesome it is sometimes, and where it could improve other times. Through all that, though, I haven\u2019t revealed one of blind gaming\u2019s biggest secrets. I haven\u2019t explained why being a blind gamer is, in fact, better. I haven\u2019t covered the hidden benefits. That\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do for you now. Prepare yourselves, because these are things many people don\u2019t even consider until they witness it, or until we bring it up. Here goes!<\/p>\n
Who needs a TV? No, seriously, who needs one? The answer, of course, is you sighted gamers. You\u2019ve gotta have your polished graphics, and your 4K resolution. You\u2019ve gotta have your HDR colors, and oooo those water effects! We blind gamers\u2026 We need none of those things. Why, almost every single day I stream those fancy console games I play, our TV is completely off. This is the one that really gets a lot of sighted people. My dad\u2019s reaction was especially memorable when he walked in from work, heard game audio, and saw nothing. His brain didn\u2019t know how to process it, so in a way it was almost like he got mad at me for not having the TV on. Then he actually thought about it, and it got funnier. Why bother turning that pesky TV on? All I need is the sound! This brings me to my next point.<\/p>\n
Blind gamers can get cheaper hotel rooms! Of course, you don\u2019t wanna go too cheap here. After all, you really don\u2019t want a bedbug coming home in your bag. But hey, if one of the features of a hotel room you\u2019re looking into is a 2000-inch TV, maybe you could scale back a bit. After all, you\u2019re a blind gamer. Bring your console, bring your headset, plug into power, and you\u2019re golden! Or another possibility if you don\u2019t mind a little latancy, and if the wifi is good enough, and if your console is a PS4, just bring your laptop, and a controller, and use remote play! You can even afford to turn visual quality down a bit to ensure you can connect, because again, who needs graphics? 😊<\/p>\n
Every console is practically mobile! Since you don\u2019t need a TV, you can game wherever there\u2019s a power outlet. Pro tip, this world contains many power outlets. If I could fit my PS4 into a carry-on bag, I could Playstation on a plane! Yeah, I know the Switch can do that, but we blind gamers, we awesome, fantastic, amazing blind gamers, are the only ones who can PS4 or even Xbox on a plane. This of course doesn\u2019t take their size into account. You probably couldn\u2019t actually do this, because both consoles are pretty large, and you couldn\u2019t fit much else into a carry-on if you put one in, but in terms of mechanics once you got one onto a plane, you could totally do it. So clearly I\u2019m driving the no TV thing into the ground, but to be fair, it\u2019s pretty awesome. I actually have a friend who simply doesn\u2019t have a TV, but owns and plays both a PS4 and Xbox One. But that\u2019s not the only blind gamer benefit.<\/p>\n
We can game long range! Both the PS4 and Xbox One\u2019s controllers have the ability to route all game audio through the controller, and through a headset you connect to that controller. They also have surprisingly long wireless ranges, which most folks have no reason to take advantage of. You know, because they need to see the screen and all. Well, we are not so restricted. We can hook a headset up to our controller, launch a game, and take said controller out to, say, the porch swing. Ah, a nice relaxing gaming session far, far away from the console we\u2019re gaming on. Feeling the sun on your face as you perform a gruesome fatality in mortal kombat, hearing the chirp of the birds as you take down a few more zombies in Resident Evil 6, these are the pleasures we blind gamers can enjoy. Now, I hear you again saying, \u201cBut, Nintendo Switch!\u201d Sure, but both PS4 and Xbox One controllers, in my opinion, have superior battery life, and facing facts, the Switch is still a significant power level down from both of them. Still, this does lead to my next point.<\/p>\n
Finally, finally, I\u2019m actually going to talk about the Switch in a positive light, in order to demonstrate the fact that we blind gamers are potentially far more forgiving to ports of games. Mortal Kombat 11 is my example here, having just recently played the Switch version. To me, the port is essentially perfect. Yes, I notice the slowdown in transitional areas such as the boss fight, and I notice the bit of chop between gameplay and story cut scenes, but those are the only 2 things I knock off of it. Meanwhile, a review I heard on the Switch version suggested that it was so bad because of the scaled down graphics, especially in the portrayal of the crypt, that you definitely should not ever get the Switch version ever unless you don\u2019t have any other console. Wow, that\u2019s harsh. But guess what? I, and blind gamers everywhere, don\u2019t care much about that, because they didn\u2019t mess with the audio! I will say that I noticed very, very light compression, but we\u2019re not talking MK9 on the vita here. The audio was still crystal clear, and as beautiful and savage as it is on every other console. Sounds like a solid port to me, and one I\u2019ll be glad to take on the go. Ah, being a blind gamer rules!<\/p>\n
Before I close, I want to be sure you understand that this post is all in fun. There are certainly benefits to being a blind gamer, and I think I\u2019ve outlined them pretty well, but of course the sighted gamers out there have it pretty good too. Even though I can\u2019t see them, I acknowledge there\u2019s something to be said about game graphics being near photo realistic these days, not to mention the amount of games sighted gamers can play dwarfs those we can. Still, I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Continue to be awesome!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the course of my blog, I\u2019ve talked about a lot of things. I\u2019ve talked about the struggles, and the successes of being a blind gamer, I\u2019ve talked about accessibility and how awesome it is sometimes, and where it could improve other times. Through all that, though, I haven\u2019t revealed one of blind gaming\u2019s biggest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[24,119,126,76,253,352,351,350,43,22,34],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-audio","tag-audio-gaming","tag-blind-gamer","tag-blind-gaming","tag-graphics","tag-mk11","tag-mortal-kombat-11","tag-nintendo-switch","tag-ps4","tag-resident-evil-6","tag-xbox-one"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandoncole.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}