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ZACHARY: Hello, hello, hello.
I am author and entrepreneur, the Cerebral Palsy Vigilante, Zachary Fenell.
I truly do enjoy putting together these videos for all of you out there.
Of course I am a talker, eager to chat up anyone making the mistake of being willing
to listen.
Perhaps a more traditional avenue for fun would be the topic we are going to discuss
today, video games.
More specifically, I want to discuss the connections between cerebral palsy and gaming.
Admittedly I have not been much of a gamer for a while now.
You have to go back to my freshman and sophomore years of college for when I last played video
games regularly.
So over a decade ago!
However, that hasn't always been the case.
Video games once played an important role in my life.
As those who have read my cerebral palsy memoir Off Balanced know, I wasn't always this
open and outgoing guy.
Growing up I was embarrassed about being different.
That's the actual story arc of Off Balanced, my journey from embarrassment to embrace over
CP.
That journey largely began in seventh grade, so 12, 13 years old.
It was this time I began feeling isolated from my peers.
Before that though, I did have friends.
Video games allowed me to bond with these friends while keeping my CP discrete.
Something physical activities like riding a bike and playing catch could not do.
You could say video games are the star power of friendly activity.
(Thumping landing back on chair)
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I can recall a number of afternoons spent
with my then best friend playing the Resident Evil games.
We worked as a team, taking turns with the controller.
I definitely enjoyed co-op gaming over friendly competition.
Thanks to CP I do not have the best hand-eye coordination.
So in competition I often come out on the losing end.
Not a huge deal if your goal is just to have fun.
But lose enough, eventually you stop having fun.
That was the case for me in college.
Gathering in the rec area and playing video games was a go-to hangout for my friends and
I my first two years of college.
Mario Tennis and Mario Kart were two of the group's favorite games.
I am HORRIBLE at Mario Kart.
Of course I wasn't playing to win but rather spend time with friends.
Again though, lose enough and you eventually stop having fun.
In fact I reached a point where I would go back to my room when Mario Kart was put in.
I developed a similar avoidance towards Nintendo's Wii too.
I tried playing the Wii once with friends and found tremendous difficulty with the motion-reliant
controller.
The only game I would play on the Wii was Guitar Hero since the Wii controller goes inside of
the guitar controller.
Guitar Hero was a lot of fun to play, as long as I kept the difficulty to the green, red,
and yellow buttons.
Turning up the difficulty level proved too much for me.
Adding in the blue and orange buttons overwhelmed my fine motor skills.
I guess though, (ping of Kindle) that holds true for most games.
I was obviously better at certain games but for the most part I kept the difficulty level
to easy or medium.
Between my elementary school and early college years I used video games to help fill the
void of lacking friendship.
In Off Balanced I even describe my kiwi Game Boy Color as my best friend.
Most of my time though was spent playing wrestling video games like Smackdown 2: Know Your Role
for Playstation and then Legends of Wrestling II. I cannot recall if I played that
on the Gamecube or X-Box.
I would use my imagination and "run" my own organization.
I played through events against the system, crowned champions even if the game didn't
actually have titles, and kept track of results in a journal.
All this I found a great escape from my lacking social life.
A great escape indeed, although still flawed.
As I have already explained less than great fine motor skills left me keeping games on
easy and medium difficulty.
Furthermore after losing enough times, I learned to avoid certain games altogether.
That avoidance expanded to an entire gaming system with the Wii, minus the exception of Guitar
Hero.
Though, one way to avoid losing is to indulge in co-op gaming instead of competition.
(Dogs barking in the background) And that summarizes my many years of playing video games with cerebral palsy.
How do they compare to your experiences?
Do you have a gaming system preference?
What difficulty do you play games on?
Do you enjoy games where you work together or are in friendly competition with your friends?
Share your experiences by commenting below.
While below make sure to hit that thumbs up icon that is if you liked today's video.
To make sure you receive word any time I publish a new video make sure you are subscribed to
my chanel, channel and hit that bell notification icon.
Until next time remember.
Don't blend in.
Blend out!
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