27-year-old gamer without eyes still plays games

Gaming Through New Eyes, a new documentary about a man born without eyes, but he's an avid gamer.

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1 minute & 9 seconds read time

I've always thought that you would need eyes to play most games, but there is a 27-year-old gamer that has pumped countless hours into games over his life, all without eyes.

Toby Ott is 27 years old, and was born with a rare condition called bilaterial anophthalmia, which means he was born without eyes. In the documentary Gaming Through New Eyes, they explain it hasn't stopped Toby from playing games since he was a young child. Toby has played through games that millions of other games, including myself, have played - like fighting games with Injustice, and even RPGs like Final Fantasy.

Toby says he plays Final Fantasy for its story and characters, as well as its gameplay. But how the hell does he play the game without seeing, is something that anyone would ask - with Toby having a friend help him through the structure of the game's menus, where Toby will memorize how many button presses to get to a specific menu or action.

Duke Nukem and Doom are some first-person shooters that he's played, but he requires cheats for some of those games in order to find things like health packs and keys - items that don't make noise. In fighting games Toby listens for audio cues, so that he has a sense for where he is on the stage. Bosses on the other hand, could take weeks to battle, with Toby spending a huge 8 weeks fighting one of the bosses in Final Fantasy X.

The documentary is amazing insight into a gamer without eyes, something we would all take for granted when we game - but it hasn't stopped Toby from enjoying games for all these years.

27-year-old gamer without eyes still plays games | TweakTown.com
NEWS SOURCES:youtube.com, kotaku.com

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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