SpecialEffect Interviews: Alexander Kostov
Introduction: Alex Kostov is an enabled gamer living in Poole, Dorset, UK. This is his interview...
GamerTag: Don't have one. I am generally known as PotatoJedi online.
1. Earliest gaming memories.
I think I was between the ages of three and five years old. The very first gaming console I played was the NES. Really old school, before the PlayStation one came out. I had some really enjoyable times on that. I remember playing things like super Mario and some different versions of a football game (including one that was written completely in Chinese that I somehow managed to navigate my way around). My most memorable memory is probably playing a game called Tanks with my grandpa [edit: aka Namco's Battle-City]. We controlled one tank each and our objective was to destroy all the other tanks while protecting our "main base" from being destroyed. Extremely fun and addictive. We had strategies and everything. My grandpa's thumbs were slightly big for those little controllers and he sometimes drove towards our base and blew it up. Good times!
2. Favourite games.
I was a master at Fifa 2001 on the PlayStation One. I used to play on the hardest difficulty and continuously beat the computer by several goals. My hands/fingers were little machines! Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds was and still is my all-time favourite strategy game for the PC. It was just so addictive; the maps were incredible; the gameplay simple yet intricate; several civilisations to choose from; wonderful team-play. Just amazing. I was quite a fan of the Smackdown games on PlayStation 2. Last but not least – Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic. Best RPG I've ever played. Extremely good storyline; the combat was perfect for me as it didn't require quick reflexes whatsoever.
3. First gaming barriers faced.
Tekken 3 on the PlayStation One was quite a nice game. I found it difficult as it required several buttons to be pressed really fast, including the ones that weren't so easy to reach at the back of the controller. Counterstrike: Condition Zero on the PC was an excellent first person shooter. Though I was quite good at it (I could beat my classmates), I faced many difficulties with movement and aiming. I just couldn't do everything swiftly and quickly enough, so I had to resort to sticking to basics. Jade Empire on the PC – another excellent Action/Adventure game which I managed to complete, however I would have done a lot better had switching between different styles and everything else been a little easier. Again: several keys were needed in order for the game to be played at its optimum design.
4. Accessible Gaming Rig. How do you play your favourite games now?
At the moment I'm using voice recognition (Dragon NaturallySpeaking) and an eye gaze camera to do everything on the computer. I really just try to look for games in which I have an equal chance at "being the best" as another "fully operable" gamer has. Unfortunately these are far and few. I normally accept the fact that due to my physical difficulties I may never get to the standards as some others do, but at least I can have fun seeing how far I can go.
5. Have a vent off!
I hate games that don't have options to enable/disable a certain feature. For example: not being able to click and move on the map, but rather HAVE to use the keyboard. Any game that requires a billion buttons to do certain things is a turnoff for me. I'm hoping that in future, technology will become available for us to control things even better. For example: move the character around the map using muscle twitches/impulses from an extremely sensitive device. I am aware that such a device already exists, but it's nowhere near affordable or indeed good enough for such a thing. Somebody will need to put down their thinking caps, sit down with a real-life disabled person (or people, even better) and go through step-by-step what sort of devices and technologies would make playing games easier for them, then actually start planning to create them if they are not already available.
6. What's your favourite music?
Classic heavy metal/rock from the 70s/80s/early 90s.
7. Favourite food and drink?
Apple juice and beef lasagne.
8. Favourite film?
STAR WARS!!!
Comments
Subscribe
2 Comments
Click here to sign up now.