I wanted to see how accessible a game that has been made for the newer consoles and is fairly new, so I picked Call of Duty Black Ops since I just bought it. The controls for these types of first person shooters can be complicated if you have never played one, especially one from a AAA title like the Call of Duty series. Almost every button has two different functions with buttons, analog sticks, and two types of triggers. They are definitely hard to master and learn, but the game yields a high reward when done. Though they are difficult to learn and master, the controls are very precise and smooth. With a company like Treyarch you can count on the controls being top notch.
So I logged onto multiplayer with two friends and played team deathmatch. I played with my feet since it was the next most capable part of my body to use a controller besides my hands/arms, this proved impossible to use all of the mechanics available, so I just stuck with trying to control the two analog sticks. Doing this at first proved difficult, but with practice in minutes I was moving and looking fine…if you consider only moving forward and trying to only look left or right. By clicking the analog stick I could knife someone, so I was able to fight at least. My friends Ian and Chad didn’t have much faith in my doing anything that round, but to their surprise I murdered two players in that round. That wasn’t much to anyone, but to my friends they knew I had taken on two people using both their hands and won using only my feet (just two big toes at that). The only thing I would add to the game would be being able to choose exactly what functions you want attached to the analog sticks. They have some you can switch around, but you cannot choose just any function you want for the analog sticks.
This part of the trials I knew would be the hardest to complete, but I turned the monitor off as soon as the match started and was very put off. Playing the game without a monitor is very disorienting, because you are losing sight and sound all at once. I had my friend lead me to a corner where I could attempt to crouch and randomly fire into enemies. All I could do was try to think about what my controls did and input each move carefully to control my player, though I knew that wasn’t helping much as Ian called Chad over to where I was to laugh hysterically while I tried to quote “run into walls and shoot all the birds.” The only thing I can think of that would make this game more accessible to anyone without a monitor would be to have a control scheme that would move the character in direct rotations and snap movements when they pressed the appropriate buttons as well as a narrator on headphones or external speakers.
Now I had imagined that playing with one arm would have been the easiest trial to complete, but I could have used a helping hand. Trying to move and look with one hand simultaneously was hard, there was no way I could use any other buttons besides the analog sticks and that was only possible because I have huge hands. I was having a hard time moving and looking at the same time until I learned to just run forward and look only when I saw an enemy. Somehow I managed to knife two opponents in the round that I played, though I died about 12 times and was the player with the lowest score. This game was not built for the handicapable, but again a control scheme with snap movements and rotations would help someone only using one arm play this game more accurately.
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