Localized versions

[Jamski]

China is a tiny unimportant country though. Most people haven't even heard of it Isn't it something to do with Japan???

-Jam

[Urban Ranger]

Bah, just to get even, we will export 1/10 of our population to your country.

[The Pioneer]

I live in Germany and they tend to translate everything and anything but then they turn around and use english words to sound cool .

I hate translations/localisations of games and movies. I even stay away from translated books as much as possible.


So long...

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by War of Art
China is a tiny unimportant country though. Most people haven't even heard of it Isn't it something to do with Japan???

-Jam

[Alex]

I hate localised versions of games. They usually do a lousy job and the game loses any trace of humour it might have.

But I have to say that it depends on the genre. Grand Prix 3 was entirely translated into Portuguese, not only the manual, and it doesn't suck, because the technical nature of the game keeps things at a believable level.

But yes, usually those localised versions are awful... Age of Mythology, for instance, is a well-made translation, very professional, but... the voices are too lame and everything ends up being a little cheesy to me.

[Traianvs]

translating games into anything but english should be punished with death penalty, except when it's some sort of a childish game such as bobby goes fishing or something..

Nowadays nearly all games are English, for example Divine Divinity, a belgian product was made in English, because frankly, it would be hilariously stupid in dutch, czech gamedesigners, Hungarian, etc etc, also make their games in English.. They don't need to be translated because they were already finished as an "English" product!

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Not in China it isn't.

Though games translated into Chinese suck bad as usual. They could have hired me as a translator, but they are too cheap and employ high school dropouts.

I've heard that Chinese movie titles are just as bad...

If I recall right, I once heard the title for Batman and Robin:
"The hero in black clothes, with his tiny little helper Robin"

...or something like that...

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Not in China it isn't.

Though games translated into Chinese suck bad as usual. They could have hired me as a translator, but they are too cheap and employ high school dropouts.

It always puzzled me how translations are almost universally terrible. They spend a large amount of time and money writing the actual code for the game, and then stuff up their image by having their text translated by someone who "almost" knows 2 languages.

Its like spending a month building a car, but then paying a colourblind drunk to paint it for you.

[August Borms]

Games in Dutch just suck, translated or not.

Standard Dutch sounds too gay to be used in games (from Dungeon Keeper: "Opgepast, je dondersteentjes zijn aan het sterven")

And if that phrase would be translated to "middle language" (the language I normally use, iit's between Standard Dutch and dialect), you would get something like this: "Allee joeng, ge zijt uw dondersteenkes ier aant late crepere", which is incredibly silly.

[Urban Ranger]

ADG,

They might have messed up Batman and Robin, if Batman hasn't been around the block a few times. At any rate, I can't vouch for the translations in Mainland China and Taiwan, because we all do our own independently, but the local translation was all right.


Skanky,

Translation is a black art, probably worse than programming in C++ for Windows.

[Alex]

The funniest case of bad translation I've ever seen was with Icewind Dale. The game was still in English ( ) but they tried to translate the manual into Portuguese. Guess how they did it? Using a translation software, kind of like those you use to translate a web page into another language. Simply awful. Some words were not even translated, probably because the program could not find a correspondent word in Portuguese.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Alexnm
The funniest case of bad translation I've ever seen was with Icewind Dale. The game was still in English ( ) but they tried to translate the manual into Portuguese. Guess how they did it? Using a translation software, kind of like those you use to translate a web page into another language. Simply awful. Some words were not even translated, probably because the program could not find a correspondent word in Portuguese.

Nice


The worst case I've seen, is with The Settlers IV, where Weaponshop and toolshop is called exactly the same... oh, and it still sounds childish...

...also in the SimCity 4 manual, they mentioned something... I had no clue whatsoever that was... after a long research I found that this "thing" was the same thing as the quiery tool...

[Adagio]

Re: Localized versions

Originally posted by ADG
Personally I hate localized versions of games... Games translated into danish, sounds so childish

Btw... as I was 8, I also hated translated games... and back then, I didn't understand much english...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by August Borms
Games in Dutch just suck, translated or not.

Heh, 'A2 Racer' rocks!

But yeah, translated games are the spawn of satan. I kinda got used to the Dutch version of Dungeon Keeper though, even grew a liking for it in the end. But that's just the exception that proves the rule...

And if they'd translate any game to Flemish or some other dialect, I bet they wouldn't sell two copies if they pressed a double CD

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Dissident
well I am an american who can care less . I can't think of any games not originally English made that were worth a damn. I just can't get into japanese gaming. most of it is console anyways, and I don't currently have a console system.

SimCity? Tetris? Pacman?

I voted, banana, because I didn't really understand the question. The patching problems with PTW are related to copy protection, not the actual translation.

Unlocalised games would not sell. They are simply not an option in the capitalist world.