A disabled gamer has explained that he’s unable to play Dead Space 2 thanks to a lack of button mapping features in the game. Gareth Garratt has cerebral palsy, and uses his head to control a mouse or controller when playing games. The inability to map any movement controls to his mouse means that he can’t play Dead Space 2. A petition has been launched asking EA to add key mapping functionality to the game. It’s already received more than 22,000 signatures.

Gareth posted about his situation when looking for a solution on the Overclockers forums, and has had hundreds of responses. “i can’t use my hands, so i game using my chin. for disabled people like myself need fully customisable controls in all games, it can’t be that hard to do surely?? If they can have the fire assigned to a mouse button, surely they could of assigned walk forward to a mouse button… so now I can’t play this game and i wasted £25.”

Gareth also posted a video demonstrating the way he uses the mouse to play Fallout: New Vegas, and has highlighted a petition started by disabled gamer and comedian, Chuck Bittner, also known as AskACapper. The petition asks developers for full button customisation in all games. Button customisation would help many disabled gamers, and it’s a feature that, like dedicated servers and mod support, gives us all more control over the way we want to play our games. The petition already has more than 22,000 signatures. You can sign it here.