Blind teen amazes with video game ability

[htitos]

LINCOLN, Nebraska (AP) -- Brice Mellen is a whiz at video games such as "Mortal Kombat."

In that regard, the 17-year-old isn't much different from so many others his age.

Except for one thing: He's blind.

And as he easily dispatched foes who took him on recently at a Lincoln gaming center, the affable and smiling Mellen remained humble.

"I can't say that I'm a superpro," he said, working the controller like an extension of his body. "I can be beat."

Those bold enough to challenge him weren't so lucky. One by one, while playing "Soul Caliber 2," their video characters were decapitated, eviscerated and gutted without mercy by Mellen's on-screen alter ego.

"I'm getting bored," Mellen said in jest as he won game after game.

Blind since birth when his optic nerve didn't connect because of Leber's disease, Mellen honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing, memorizing key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. He worked his way up from games such as "Space Invaders" and "Asteroid," onto the modern combat games.

"I guess I don't know how I do it, really," Mellen said, as he continued playing while facing away from the screen. "It's beyond me."

Mellen knows this much: He started playing at home when he was about 7.

"He enjoyed trying to play, but he wasn't very good at first," said his father, Larry Mellen. "But he just kept on trying. ... He's broken a lot of controllers."

When the question of broken controllers comes up, Mellen flashes a smile and just shrugs.

"I used to have quite a temper," he said. "Me and controllers didn't get along very well."

Now they get along just fine.

While playing "Soul Caliber 2," Mellen worked his way through the introductory screens with ease, knowing exactly what to click to start the game he wanted.

He rarely asked for help. Once the game started he didn't need any help.

"How do I move?" an exasperated opponent, Ryan O'Banion, asked during a battle in which his character is frozen in place.

"You can't," Mellen answered before finishing him off.

"That's what happens. It's why I don't play him," O'Banion said after his blood-spattered character's corpse vanishes from the screen.

How Mellen became so good is a mystery to his father.

"He just sat there and he tried and tried until he got it right," Larry Mellen said. "He didn't ever complain to me or anyone about how hard it was."

Mellen hangs out any chance he gets at the DogTags Gaming Center in Lincoln, which opened last month. Every now and then someone will come in and think he can easily beat the blind kid.

That attitude doesn't faze Mellen.

"I'll challenge them, maybe. If I feel like a challenge," he said, displaying an infectious confidence. "I freak people out by playing facing backwards."

There's nothing he likes better than playing video games, Mellen said.

He will be a senior in high school next year. After graduation, he plans to take a year off because he wants a break from school.

When he does go to college, Mellen wants to study video game design.

[Kn'thrak]

I'm take him on in Halo 2 and Battlefield 2
KICK HIS A$$!

[SharkmanSIX]

His BLIND a$$.
Id tell him Im deaf, blind and have no arms (he wont be able to tell), and Ill play against him and beat him then they can make an article about the amazing, deaf, blind no armed man whos good at computer games.

[editman]

If it's in the comic book he'd have been Daredevil.

God took away this kid's sight and gave him better senses so that he can waste his talent and life on video games!?

Another living proof that there is no God.

[radstar]

God took away this kid's sight and gave him better senses so that he can waste his talent and life on video games!?

Another living proof that there is no God.

God never took it away from him. The kid never had sight in the first place. It said he was born with the blindness.

I'm just a sayin.. People who believe in God just wouldn't like reading that last sentence. I don't go around and say.. "There are no movies."

I still wuv ya, editbabe.

[editman]

But there ARE no movies. It's not the pictures that are moving. It's just that our eyes are not fast enough so we willingly accept the illusion of moving pictures.

God took it away before he's born. Or put it in a worse way, He didn't give the boy any.

Either way, I still think the blind kid should've used his senses on better things than being a blind video-master - You can't create 'Ode to Joy' beating the crap out of some virtual characters all day.

[Inzane]

At least he doesnt have to worry about getting blind by playing to mutch video games. :big grin:

[Jean-Pierre Bazinet]

The kid's born blind... I say, let him do whatever the hell he wants.
He wants to play videogames? Go for it man.

[Lestat]

Right on JPB!

[SharkmanSIX]

I bet he TKs a lot.
"Foot steps AHHHHHH!" Blam blam blam!

[radstar]

Well God made him famous, didn't he?

(and the movies thing was just a joke, i know it's different.. you can see movies but you can't see God, it's all a matter of Faith)

And back to the boy, I think it is pretty amazing what he can do. Everyone with disabilities inspires me. I watched a pilot with no legs fly a plane at an airshow and I actually went up to meet him. He's the coolest person you would ever met. Being deaf myself, I would like to inspire others the way these people inspires me. But I really don't. I lived my life believing that. Joining the band and the marching band and getting a Ham Radio "Extra" license when I was 14 years old and being the only deaf person in high school being in the top 10% of my class... lots of people made that a big deal but everyone I know doesn't know any other deaf people. Seriously, if they knew others, I'm sure they would be more inspired by them than me.

But yah, playing video games is nothing impressive to me. But the blind kid, how does he do it? And he's not afraid to show it.

I get emotional about this kind of stuff.