Wheeling Around at the Speed of Sound

Video game reviews by and for disabled gamers. I will try to be as accessible as possible, so please correct me if I get something wrong. Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/93GBk8x

[disabled-gaming]

Spider-man (PS4)

Marvel’s Spider-Man is a Playstation-exclusive game released last year, in 2018. It’s immensely popular, ranking at the second most popular game sold for Playstation 4. Spider-man is my favorite superhero, so I was unbelievably excited to be able to play him! When I got the game and started it up, crossing my fingers that I’d be able to understand what he was saying with the help of subtitles, I was treated to a lovely surprise!

[image ID: An accessibility menu for the Spider-man game. Spider-man is sticking to a wall on the right-hand side, while the left-hand side of the screen has a blue accessibility menu.]

An entire accessibility menu! The options for accessibility include:

Disabling parallaxing (I believe this is to help with nausea or motion sickness?)

Enabling a background for subtitles to make them easier to read

Making subtitles BIG

QTE (quick-time event) auto-completion

Changing button-taps to button-holds

Option to skip puzzles

HUD background

I personally only enable subtitle backgrounds and big subtitles, because that’s all I need. It was also incredible to see subtitles auto-enabled. No more watching a scene in confusion until I get the option to turn subtitles on after-the-fact! 

There was also another accessibility note that isn’t in the accessibility menu, and was in the sound options. “Midnight” mode lowers the volume of the loudest sounds (explosions, shouting, etc) so that you don’t hurt your ears playing if you have to turn the volume up to hear voices, etc. 

As for gameplay, the controls are relatively simple and intuitive, without needing to precisely aim for regular combat. Peter Parker automatically punches the enemies near him, and you can press triangle at any time to zoom right to your next enemy. In events where you DO need precise aiming, none are timed, and the camera can zoom, making it very doable. 

While there are timed events, none of them are mandatory. You also have the option to pull up the controls menu if you forget at any time. Night-time is still well-lit and easy to see, and you can switch to daytime for most missions if you find it difficult to see what you’re doing. Overall difficulty is adjustable at any time. 

For me, someone with frequent memory issues, the plot was easy to follow, as you can read a summary at any time from the menu, as well as bios of all the characters with pictures. Unfortunately, there are no visibly disabled main characters, and while characters with wheelchairs do exist in the game, they are primarily only found in the homeless shelter. You can chat with a few, but most are just background characters. 

Overall, Spider-Man for PS4 is an enjoyable experience that tries to be as accessible as it can be for an action-oriented game. Intuitive controls, the ability to change difficulty at any time, the ability to disable QTE, and subtitles that are easy to read clearly show that accessibility was a priority for the Spider-man development team. The only downsides I noticed are in the visibility of disabled characters. 

If you have any feedback or accessibility notes of your own, feel free to contact me! My experiences are not universal, and everyone has different accessibility needs. Have fun!

[disabled-gaming]

Check out the Disabled Gamers community on Discord - hang out with 2 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

Join my new server for disabled gamers! Anyone is free to join, including allies, but the server will be focused primarily on people with disabilities who enjoy video games. It’s a very new server, so suggestions are welcome!

[disabled-gaming]

Video Game Accessibility Blog!

Hello all!

I’ve started a video game blog focused on disability/accessibility! 

Are you tired of not knowing if a game will have subtitles, or if you’ll be able to see at night, or whether a game has quick-time events? Worry no longer! I will be writing video game reviews with accessibility at the forefront, meaning you’ll be able to know if you’ll be able to play the game before you even buy it!

As an avid video game fan and a disabled person, I was sick of not knowing if I’d be able to enjoy a game until after I’d spent money on it. That’s why I’m starting this blog!

A review for the PS4 Spider-man game will be posted tonight at around 6PM. 

Check out my “what is accessibility” page on that blog to see the standards by which I’ll be judging games!

Thanks for checking me out!