Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Buzz! Quiz World - Czech Translation

I purchased Buzz! Quiz World game for PS3. This is a TV-Show style quiz game which has the distinction of being fully localized to Czech language. Not only translated, but there are also many questions about Czech TV shows, Czech sports etc! There are supposed to be over 5000 questions in total, some with audio and / or images.



I only played one game so far and it was excellent fun although I only found ONE online opponent (you are matched only with Czech players and the game is brand new over here) so we only played one-on-one instead of up to eight players which this game supports (online or locally).

I am rather sceptical about the quality of Czech game translations and I was nervous about this game because, in this case, bad translation could easily ruin the whole experience. Thankfully, the translation (and localization) is rather good, although not perfect.

For example, the announcer calls you by your name (provided you have some sort of "regular" Czech name). Unfortunately, instead of "Františku", the announcer called me "Františ..." the whole time, with abrupt fade-out on the last syllable. Perfect example of less-than-stellar localization quality control.

I won my first game because I was able to choose the category "Movie Quotes", where I trounced my opponent (he trounced me in "Current TV"). And out of the 10 questions in this category, two of them were not exactly right.

The first question was about the quote "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn". In Czech, this quote was written as "Vážený, to je mi jedno", which means "Dear SIR, I don't care", although this is said TO A WOMAN in "Gone with the Wind". Although the title of the movie was translated correctly as "Jih proti Severu" ("South vs. North") - yes, that's official Czech title. It's clear the translator didn't know the correct context for this scene and it's also quite clear most of the quotes were translated differently than in the the actual Czech versions of these movies.

The funniest "glitch" was the question about the quote "May the Force be with us" with "Armageddon" and "Star Wars" being offered as possible answers. Obviously, the correct answer is "Star Wars" but my opponent has chosen "Armageddon" and lost. The funny part is that in Czech versions of these movies, this phrase ("Ať nás provází Síla") actually appears in both "Armageddon" and "Star Wars"! And the funniest part is that it's because of me - I used "May the Force be with us" as a substitute for "Beam me up, Scotty" when I translated Armageddon many years ago (Star Trek - especially the original series - being virtually unknown in our country back then). This "error" is obviously almost impossible to discover and fix before the game's release but it certainly made my day.

As I already said, I had great fun playing the game and I cannot wait to try it with more people. And the Czech version does not suck. This is definitely perfect party game, even for non-geek people who usually wouldn't touch videogame controller.

P.S: Four "buzzers" (special controllers) are included with the game and I see no reason why I have to buy more buzzers for more players and why I cannot use standard PS3 controllers for players 5 and 6, for example...?

7 comments:

  1. Pane Fuko, podle všeho potřebujete skutečně 8 buzzerů pro hru osmi hráčů. Usuzuji tak z toho, že hra se normálně nedá ovládat standartním Dualshockem. Budiž řečeno, že set dalších čtyř buzzerů se již i v ČR prodává zvláš´t a obsahuje druhý USB dongle, podle všeho tedy jeden dongle zvládne obsluhovat pouze čtyři buzzery. Dlužím Vám tuto odpověd, jelikož jste byl u nás na Chodově v prodejně GAME, a tuto odpověd jsem Vám nebyl schopen dát ihned. S pozdravem Jan Pohan

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  2. Dekuji. Toto jsem si zjistil jeste pred koupi, jenom se pozastavuji nad tim, proc to nejdou pouzit i normalni PS3 ovladace navic k buzzerum.

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  3. Tak důvod je jednak teda zcela zřejmě z části ziskovost z prodeje dalších buzzerů, ale nemyslíte, že by hráč s DUalshockem byl trochu znevýhodněn? Minimálně než by mu přešlo řádně do krve že např. X znamená červené pole? Podle mého názoru ano, buzzer je pro tento typ hry přizpůsoben a je to intuitivnější typ ovládání. Zvláště když ho budete nabízet známým, kteří herní ovladač nedrželi v ruce nikdy:-) Jan Pohan

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  4. Hm, me jen mrzi, ze tohle neportovali i pro PS2, predpokladam, ze tak narocne na HW to zase nebude. Mame doma na PS2 Buzz! Music Quiz (asi jediny ktery byl castecne lokalizovany, tudiz jej muze hrat i rodina a navstevy) a je pravda, ze kdyz se seslo vice lidi, byla to celkem zabava... Ovsem kupovat kvuli tomu PS3 asi opravdu nebudu.

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  5. zdar, jak to vypadá s online teď? už to zas tak "brand new" není a mám obavu, že puboši to moc hrát nebudou a doma stále 5 lidí nemám.
    v čr hry nekupuju, ale tuto lokalizační jehlu v kupce sena rád ocením.
    jde nějak vylézt z cz omezení a hrát EN?
    čekal jsme teda offscreen video CZ verze a ne trailer, ale třeba se teprve dočkám :) L.

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  6. @lukin: Na zacatku se voli jazyk a podle nej se pri online pripojis k jazykovemu regionu.

    Jinak se souperi je to Ok. V podvecernich hodinach bez dlouheho cekani hrajeme v 8.

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  7. Hey!

    How come there are no more posts ? I'm hungry for them!

    - Wannabe translator ;)

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