{"id":131921,"date":"2023-02-17T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-145246"},"modified":"2023-02-17T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T19:00:00","slug":"soapbox-as-a-colour-blind-gamer-i-can-now-finally-beat-metroid-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/soapbox-as-a-colour-blind-gamer-i-can-now-finally-beat-metroid-prime\/","title":{"rendered":"Soapbox: As A Colour Blind Gamer, I Can Now Finally Beat Metroid Prime"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Metroid<\/a>
Image: Nintendo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over. Today<\/em>, Rory how the recent release of Metroid Prime Remastered<\/a> has enabled him to settle an old score. Prime endboss spoilers inbound…<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Baby<\/a>
I know. I was a handsome bugger. \u2014 Image: Rory Cocker \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s always felt a little bit weird to say Metroid Prime<\/a> is one of my favourite games of all time, because I\u2019ve technically never been able to beat it.<\/p>\n

You see, when I was but a wee sprog \u2013 on the first day of school, no less \u2013 my early years teacher (big up Mrs Holland) devised an icebreaker for the class that couldn\u2019t really have been any simpler; just get up and share what are possibly the two most basic facts about your biology.<\/p>\n

To cut a long story short, when my turn arrived, I panicked and just started to blindly guess all the colours of the rainbow. My teacher marched me to the bathroom, tail firmly between my legs, and ordered me to take a look in the mirror.<\/p>\n

I stared into that blighter for a good two to three minutes, but I was still none the wiser. I honestly felt so stupid that I started to cry, and as I recounted the story to my mum on the walk home, it became clear that I was colour blind.<\/p>\n

25 years on and those wounds have obviously healed, but colour blindness is something I\u2019ve always had to contend with, and from my experience, it tends to fall into that \u2018mildly fascinating\u2019 category for a lot of people. So, here we are!<\/p>\n

Before we start, what even is colour blindness?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Iris<\/a>
Image: Michael Morse \/ Pexels<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Given that \u2018blindness\u2019 literally means the inability to see, you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking that colour blind people just can\u2019t see any colours at all. And while there is a form of colour deficiency called achromatopsia<\/a> that means exactly that, it\u2019s incredibly rare, affecting only 1 in 30,000 people.<\/p>\n

For the vast majority of us, it\u2019s not quite as black and white as that, if you\u2019ll excuse the incredibly laboured pun. Explaining colour blindness to someone who isn\u2019t colour blind is really quite difficult; I imagine it\u2019s like trying to describe sound to a deaf person.<\/p>\n

Colour blindness \u2013 or colour vision deficiency, as it\u2019s sometimes known \u2013 comes in a variety of spicy flavours, and they all affect people differently; my colour blindness could be completely different to somebody else\u2019s. In most cases though, it\u2019s a simple hardware issue with the cone cells of the retina, resulting in a reduced ability to see colours, and decreased confidence when attempting to differentiate between them.<\/p>\n

Purples might look like blues, yellows might look like greens, and browns, reds and oranges often melt into an incomprehensible spectrum. You could point to a red coat, tell me it was brown, and I\u2019d simply take your word for it.<\/p>\n

But in reality, you and I probably don\u2019t see the world that<\/em> much differently \u2013 I\u2019m not seeing green skies and blue grass \u2013 it\u2019s just that I have a harder time making sense of things.<\/p>\n

Could I be colour blind without even knowing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Colourful<\/a>
Image: Alexander Grey \/ Pexels<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Colour blindness usually rears its head in social situations from a young age, so it\u2019s unlikely it would go undiagnosed for too<\/em> long. However, it\u2019s technically possible; you\u2019re essentially relying on a person with normal colour vision to tell you, so if they never do, you\u2019d never really know.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a woman by birth, then you\u2019re less likely to have colour deficiency; the genes responsible for the condition are on the X chromosome, so while it only affects 1 in 200 women, it\u2019s estimated to afflict as many as 1 in 12 men.<\/p>\n

You can test for colour blindness \u2013 or simply flex on your colour blind mates \u2013 by doing an Ishihara Test like this one<\/a>. See if you can beat my score of 2!<\/p>\n

Fascinatingly, reverse colour blindness tests (like this one!<\/a>) also exist, just in case you\u2019d really like to eliminate all doubt.<\/p>\n

How does colour blindness affect your everyday life?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Well, you can never be a pilot, train driver, or work in air traffic control, for starters. But colour blindness manifests itself in much more subtle ways, too.<\/p>\n

Picking out clothing can be a struggle. I tend to stick to neutral colours that I know will pair well with anything; blacks, greys, whites, off-whites and creams, then the occasional touch of sandy shades. A splash of orange if I\u2019m feeling really<\/em> crazy.<\/p>\n