Gamers who only play games in their native language... that's not English?

[Tanukitsune]

I don't go to game store that often, but I was close to one recently and I was, apparently, in luck because they actually where having a January sale!

They had Uncharted 2 60% off and I had enough points to get it down to 50%!

I then mentioned how awesome the voice actor is in the game... Both of the guys who worked there said they said they NEVER played games in English, just in Spanish or maybe with subtitles.... I had forgotten that the gaming community in Spain is so pro-Spanish that there are some games we never got because the publishers couldn't afford to add Spanish subtitles and Spain would rather not have a game unless it does....

Which is silly, before the PSOne era games where either in English or Japanese, except for some adventure games and other exceptions...

I HATE games in Spanish, the voice actors are usually terrible and don't put in half as much effort as the original voice actor...

I can't bare to think people DON'T want to hear the voice of David Hayter (Metal Gear), Nolan North (Nathan Drake and every other damn game), Tim Curry (every villain EVER), Stephen Fry and many more...

It's like saying you love pizza, but you refuse to eat one that was made the original Italian way! Or like saying you're a fan of an actor but you refuse to see a movie with the original voices!

So.... To all of you that live in a non-English speaking country, do you encounter things like this? And those who do live in an English speaking country, what do you think?

[toblix]

Here all games are translated so that everything takes place either:

• In a fjord, or
  
• Aboard a whaling vessel, or
  
• In the hall of the Mountain King (usualyl boss fights)
  

I don't mind.

[gdf]

I'm kind of like you [copy] Tanukitsune [paste] in that I like things to be in whatever language they're meant to. That Scottish means that I'm lucky because I speak North American, therefore get pretty much every game they do.

However, it annoys me when developers do it all the wrong way round. I turned on Italian with subtitles for Assassin's Creed 2. Then Desmond and whatever their names are started talking in it too. Whatever I chose would break the illusion at some point.

I also got annoyed when I played Cryostasis and a load of Russian actors were playing English-speakers doing bad Russian accents. It was horrible and there was no option to change it. Later I found out that the non-English version, which I could have purchased months beforehand, actually had English subtitles.

I remember wishing that Zeno Clash were in Spanish, but I don't think I ever checked if that option existed.

I'm into diegetic stuff as it is, and language is possibly the one thing that annoys me most when it doesn't fit.

[elmuerte]

There are not that many games which Dutch voices or Dutch in-game text, unless it's a "kids" game. I did play a bit of Dungeon Keeper in Dutch, the voices were quite good actually, but not as good as the English voices (yes, I figured out how to change the language to English). Luckily the market for Dutch localization isn't that large. But it also means that there aren't that many voice actors. If there's anything that sucks it's hearing the same voice for completely different characters.

Back in the day most cartoons where in original English with Dutch subs, but these days it's pretty much all in Dutch. I don't like that at all.

Game manuals are often localized to Dutch. But considering the game isn't that often introduces weird things where the manual speaks of X instead of Y where X is a purist translation of the name Y.

[Patters]

So.... To all of you that live in a non-English speaking country, do you encounter things like this? And those who do live in an English speaking country, what do you think?

I love how some games which are made by those that speak another language can often include side stuff (similar to the NPCs in STALKER speaking Ukrainian?), however the way Assassin's Creed II covered two languages in conversation frustrated me: I usually play games with subtitles on, however whenever a character is speaking then transfers from English to Italian the subtitle would read: [English spoken Part][italian spoken part (translated Italian)] where I would prefer [English spoken part][Translated Italian], where the character you play clearly understands it, so why can I not have this mess on my screen.

[Sleepdance]

This thing really pisses me of, because we europeans have to wait for all the games to be localised(which sometimes takes even a year!).

[buemba]

Well, not everybody speaks English so it's understandable that some would prefer to play a localized version of a game. Personally I always went with the English version because it helps me improve my vocabulary (Not that I have much choice nowdays as most companies that released translated games here stopped doing that a while ago).

[elmuerte]

Well, not everybody speaks English so it's understandable that some would prefer to play a localized version of a game.

Screw them. Either learn English or become a goat herder.

[MrHoatzin]

The English voices for Disgaea were as awful as the original Japanese were good. I played it in Japanese, subtitled. I was saddened when I bought the DS version and found it to be only English (in the major cutscenes alone, tho, so that was manageable).

I've never played a game localized in my language. But I did play Beyond Good & Evil in French once. The special effects in English were more carefully put together tho.

[eljay]

r the way Assassin's Creed II covered two languages in conversation frustrated me: I usually play games with subtitles on, however whenever a character is speaking then transfers from English to Italian the subtitle would read: [English spoken Part][italian spoken part (translated Italian)] where I would prefer [English spoken part][Translated Italian], where the character you play clearly understands it, so why can I not have this mess on my screen.

While I agree with you this is mentioned in game as a glitch with the animus, so Desmond doesn't in fact understand the bits that are in Italian.

It was made all the more weird by me playing the game in Italian as the double subtitling made even less sense!

[Patters]

While I agree with you this is mentioned in game as a glitch with the animus, so Desmond doesn't in fact understand the bits that are in Italian.

It's a really weird piece of game design, I cannot see what was behind it. It doesn't seem to be related with immersion, with the games visuals being very Italian.

[Erkki]

Only a few crap games have been translated to Estonian I think. I've never played one.

I did like how in The Last Express some people spoke in their native tongues and subtitles were provided for the ones Tyler understood. Or was it Cath, I always mix their names up.

[Tanukitsune]

Oh, man! I just remembered the Spanish village in RE4! Their Spanish was so horrid, that it felt like a "Jill Sandwich" moment from RE1! XD

[syntheticgerbil]

I prefer to play the game in original spoken voice the designers made the game in, but with english subtitles. I hardly ever have this option though. I also don't play a ton of Japanese games or JRPGs where this would show up more.

If anything, even if it's a foreign game and the voices are bad in the original language, I probably wouldn't be able to tell much, and more often than not English dubs of games of another language are terrible, on the same par with anime dubs where it's usually just a couple of bumfuck guys around the office.

I would have preferred the Rayman games after Rayman 2 give me a French only option with English subtitles, because the English voices are super lame. The "Raymanian" speak for Rayman 2 was a happy medium that I enjoy to pick even on later versions of the game where multiple languages were recorded for you choose from.

For the record, I played Metal Gear Solid with the English voices on. While they were pretty cheesy, I guess the game was cheesy, so I didn't care too much. It was almost on par with the Cowboy Bebop dub, which I think most people hold as the dub of all dubs, currently.

Was Metal Gear Solid recorded in Japanese first at all? Or am I mistaken? I seem to remember something going on where the English version is preferred by the designers.

[gdf]

I can't imagine Snake not being voiced by David Hayter.

[syntheticgerbil]

It seems like Twin Snakes doesn't even give you the option of Japanese voices, so maybe possibly it's the preferred voice?

[eclipt1c]

Alternately, I'm a native English speaker that wishes some games that are set in foreign countries were just in that language. I liked the Assassin's Creed II Italian, but wish the ENITRE thing could be put in Italian with English subtitles. Also, I would love to play a game like Cryostasis where the game was in Russian or Ukrainian, I forget who made it, but the menus/UI be in English. This only really works where the game is trying to immerse the player though, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for a King's Bounty or another Eastern European game to be non-localized in this context.

[Irishjohn]

I was living in Taiwan in the midst of the original Xbox era, and the local translations of games was a joke. This was just as well for me, but it would have been cool to play Fable in Chinese. I remember that Halo 2 had very good localization, and was heavily promoted as such (though the English options were all available).

Nintendo games, meanwhile, were in Japanese only. Gamecube games were much more expensive than Xbox games, too. Resident Evil 4 was relatively trouble-free because the audio was all English, but my attempts at playing Wind Waker were a complete disaster. Coming from a Chinese language background the more kanji the better, but most GC games I tried opted mostly for hiragana and katakana.

At least English is my first language! It must have been trying to be a Taiwanese Xbox owner unless you were playing Halo.

[MrHoatzin]

You know, I always assumed that Xbox was a western curiosity with no following in Japan, and in my mind I stretched this to mean most of east Asia. I never wondered if it did well in China or Taiwan or India or anywhere else in the region. Does anyone know?

[Irishjohn]

You know, I always assumed that Xbox was a western curiosity with no following in Japan, and in my mind I stretched this to mean most of east Asia. I never wondered if it did well in China or Taiwan or India or anywhere else in the region. Does anyone know?

Well, in Taiwan the emphasis is really on gaming cafes, and MMOs are a big deal. WOW has done reasonably well there, but there are a lot of Asia-based MMOs that do really well. In my experience, home consoles are not super popular in Taiwan. The Taiwanese people that I would chat to about games didn't like the expense involved in owning a home console. This doesn't hold true for handhelds though; the DS and PSP both seemed to do very well when I was still living there.

I speak Chinese, but I'm not Taiwanese, so I won't pretend to be an expert. This is the impression I have from people I talked to in Taiwan (not to mention the obvious popularity of gaming cafes... they're everywhere). So really, the PC is the dominant platform in Taiwan and in China. It's not hard to find fully translated versions of western RPGs and big titles (like the Orange Box) in Taiwan.