Tired of playing games the conventional way, Reddit user GMABT took on a self administered challenge to finishing up Dark Souls on PC. Once a running joke in the challenge run community, he took it upon himself to challenge one of the more insurmountable tasks possible: playing the game from beginning to end with only the use of a guitar controller. The original Rock Band-branded plastic Fender Stratocaster for Xbox 360 to be specific.
Through a crazy list of tweaks and customization, GMABT was able to turn an instrument with a fairly limited range of motion and axis control into a tool capable of even taking down Pikachu and Snorlax (Ornstein and Smough, as they’re sometimes known among the Dark Souls community). There really isn’t an easy way to get full movement control (especially camera control) out of a guitar that doesn’t feature any true direction inputs. His workaround? Utilizing the whammy bar to utilize forward and backward movement with tilting the guitar vertically to move to the right. The limited range of movement coupled with the selector switch (camera X-axis left) meant he only had control over only half of the directions for movement and camera control at a given time. His entire run through Dark Souls winds up taking less than eleven and a half hours with a more specific rundown available on Reddit. You can check out a video below from GMABT’s stream showcasing his fight with Ornstein and Smough.
What are your favorite out-of-the-box controls for playing a game? My personal favorite remains playing a high pace fighting game like Guilty Gear XX on a Dance Dance Revolution dance pad.
