Virtuoso modder Ben Heck made waves again last week with his showing of a one-handed Guitar Hero controller. Ben was kind enough to take some time while making a pan of Hamburger Helper to talk about what he’s been up to and what he’d like to do next.

A former graphic designer, Ben has been making a living at making and selling custom video game hardware since early 2001. His projects range from portable Atari 2600s to Xbox 360s in laptop form.

He first got into accessibility mods when asked to make a one-handed Xbox controller for someone who was injured in Iraq. A revised version of the controller will be going into production very soon.

Of the two Guitar Hero controllers, one will be going to the person who requested it and the other will be going to Walter Reed Hospital, which Ben recently toured with some reporter-types to demonstrate the controllers.

“It was interesting to talk to some of the people and talk about some of their limitations,” Ben said. “You might not think of some of those limitations until you see them firsthand.”

In fact, Ben finds the area of making prosthetics appealing. It’s interesting to look at a disability as a problem to find a solution to, he said.

“Instead of trying to just replicate limbs or all this, why not add function?” he joked. “Like a DVD wrap opener.”

Prosthetics may be interesting, but Ben says it’s probably not something he’ll ever get to do. The game mods are his livelihood, and they keep him too busy to do much else.

“I’d also like to build my own car, but I probably won’t get to do that anytime soon,” he said.

Though Ben doesn’t quite know what he’ll be taking on next, whatever he decides, you’ll be able to read about it on his web site.

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Categories: Video games //