Blind teenager kicks everybodys butt in games.

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LINCOLN, Neb. - 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."

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

how embarrasing to get whooped by sombody who is not looking at the screen (of course blind as well), but this is pretty awesome, and he has my respect in regard to able to overcome this disability to be able to beat anibody. is it just the hearing of the sounds as well as the feeling? or somthing else, like mental projection from the tv to his brain to see how he is doin in the game, as well as at arcades. or just plain luck.


[edit on 28-7-2005 by deltaboy]

Sounds like me and a friend of mine with Area 51 Arcade.

We played for hours and eventually didn't even need to look at the screen. Knew what was where, power ups, aliens, when to reload, and got top score on the machine. It was great, be talking, not even paying attention to the screen and people would ask us what we were doing.

But we had to play for about 5 hours to become that good, and we could see. I bet this kid would lose to me if I unplugged his controller.....(If at first you don't succeed, CHEAT!)

Sounds like a kid i heard of named Tommy.









i wonder if anybody will get it

Originally posted by KKing123
Sounds like a kid i heard of named Tommy.
i wonder if anybody will get it

WHO would get it? Really, does anyone play pinball anymore? I am soooo old... ;-)

This is cool, but not amazing. The goal of the fight games is generally to lock up the other player using a set of combinations. You are going to push up 3 times, hit ABABA X finishing move or whatever. It become rote after a while. Heck, he is probably at an advantage in this type of game because he doesn't see the flashy graphics and go "cool!" like I do.

i dont know its true because usually blind people have better senses in feeling,touching hearing blah blah blah.

this game is mostly in seeing so i dont think its true

Originally posted by Marid Audran

Originally posted by KKing123
Sounds like a kid i heard of named Tommy.
i wonder if anybody will get it

WHO would get it? Really, does anyone play pinball anymore? I am soooo old... ;-)

WHOs Tommy? I think hes in the John with Elton......LOL

I'm soooooo old too......LOL

There are a lot of video games that I bet I could play by sound. I assume that is what he was going with, because there is no other way he could get input from the game. If he could beat people with the sound off, then I would be amazed.

And how does he know that he won if he is blind? Maybe they have just been humoring him all along . But I suppose it says "[Blank] WINS", etc.

Meh. Lots of fighting games can be won without looking if you memorize the combos and stuff. That's why I don't like most of them, they're too unbalanced. It would be more impressive if he could play something complicated, like an FPS or something.

a FPS would be absolutely amazing yes

but...i wanna point something out you guys are missing

when i play soul calibur im extremely defensive
i keep back alot to confuse my opponent and get them to attack first which is a huge disadvantage to them

a blind person would have hella trouble finding me and by the time they got close doing some "combo attack" like u guys said; i would have already came with counter attacks to take em down

my friend michael hates me for this playing style

well...if the blind guy can win still after that type of manuvering and out-witting *which im sure a few people HAD to have tried agianst him*
than he is doing something far deeper than "memorizing buttons and peoples reactions"

because its a game of poker; a game of wits; and if u keep a good poker face agianst the blind kid he cannot possibly read your signals because u can make false ones; and mislead him often; and then change it up just to screw with him worse

i am led to believe that this blind kid is tapping into some kind of Zen mindstate or something of this nature; where he can collect information at hightened rates
and this is what enables him to outwit others

im trying to say this in a "physical sense" and not a "religious or paranormal sense" because "paranormal" cannot exist; everything that exists is Normal...totally

if you can follow me with this; i am trying to say that this kid is tapping into deeper states of information than what we normally tap into
otherwise we would kick his butt with shady tactics

now; another wild story; is i knew this kid
he had one arm; and a stub arm *cut at his elbow*

well this kid could beat everyone on soul calibur
i knew so many awesome soul calibur players;
but the one armed kid could beat everyone
I MEAN EVERYONE!
and dont even think you could beat him; he was unstoppable
he played with his stub
it was nuts guys

well; the ONLY CHALLENGE the blind kid would have is the One Armed kid
im telling you guys
its Messed up
these kids got zen or something

now;
i wanna see these kids play Battlefield

if they can fly around and blow everyone up and out-wit the other airplanes

i will be writing a book about them
lol

"The Blind kid and the One armed kid; Zen Masters; Video Game Gods"

but i will ONLY write that book AFTER they p'own everyone on
BATTLEFIELD

Originally posted by KKing123
Sounds like a kid i heard of named Tommy.









i wonder if anybody will get it

I got it...The Who rock...

Oh...right...the game..yep, really cool.

But, The Who rock.

Damn, looking up I see all the Who puns...I feel so down...why didn't I think of that?

[edit on 10-8-2005 by shorty]