Mars War Logs Gets English Language Overhaul

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Mars War Logs Gets English Language Overhaul

Focus Home Interactive says Mars War Logs' wonky English language script and dialog have been completely rewritten and re-recorded.

Mars War Logs was a cool idea that didn't quite make it. The story of a not-quite-completely-terraformed Mars wracked by war between colonies, it promised Total Recall but delivered something more akin to Mars Needs Women. Among the most obvious issues afflicting the game was the voice acting, which made David Duchovny's performance in XIII seem downright animated, but that, at least, has been fixed by a major update released today.

"The tight deadlines between the game release dates meant that the initial English translation lacked depth and contained a number of errors; it was then sent to the recording studio, making the job of the actors extremely difficult," Production Director Luc Heninger explained. "The actual game was thoroughly tested and released with very few bugs on PC, but unfortunately the procedures for the audio and text QA failed and allowed many English localization issues to slip through."

Heninger said Focus Home didn't become aware of the extent of the issue until less-than-positive reviews and feedback from gamers began to roll in post-launch. That eventually led to the decision to halt the submission process for the console versions, which were initially due to come out just a few weeks after the PC release, and redo the English translation. An update of the game is now available for free via Steam (and has probably already been applied if you own it), and the new content will be incorporated into the console versions of the game on release.

The seven-minute intro to Mars War Logs, with new dialog, is available now (and is in fact hovering just above and to the right) and while it's not exactly soul-stirring it's certainly better than it was. New dialog obviously isn't going to make this a great game but it's a solid move by Focus Home that will hopefully go a long way toward making it more accessible, or at least tolerable; there are few things that can spoil a gaming experience quicker and more effectively than bad voice acting, after all, and there's no question that Mars War Logs was pretty bad.

Mars War Logs for the PC is currently on sale for 33 percent off on Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/232750/], while console versions are now scheduled to come out in September.


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hazabaza1

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Nov 26, 2008
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Honestly, the original audio and stuff wasn't awful. This is fucking better, don't get me wrong, it's so much fucking better, but around release it was serviceable.
 

Voltano

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hazabaza1 said:
Honestly, the original audio and stuff wasn't awful. This is fucking better, don't get me wrong, it's so much fucking better, but around release it was serviceable.
My thoughts exactly. I noticed the voice acting was bad but it didn't stop me from playing through the game. Still, a free update is nice.
 

roguewriter

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"Difficult for the actors..." my foot. They should just admit that, because of the rushed time frame and limited budget, they hired crappy english voice over actors. Hell, wouldn't be surprised if half the voice cast weren't even actors but rather Focus Interactive or recording studio employees. I mean, if it was merely due to script errors why did they recast damn near everyone in the game as british/australian? Now, don't get me wrong. It's a huge improvement. But, come on, just call it like it is. Regardless, looking forward to this dropping for 360.
 

Amir Kondori

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I read the article, watched the video, and thought, "well, its not terrible, sure the voice acting is pretty poor but not too many mistakes".

Then I read the rest of the article and realized this was the fixed version.

Wow.
 

Sonntam

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Amir Kondori said:
I read the article, watched the video, and thought, "well, its not terrible, sure the voice acting is pretty poor but not too many mistakes".

Then I read the rest of the article and realized this was the fixed version.

Wow.
Well, this is an indie developer with little budget. They may try and give their best, but at the end of the day they neither have the resources nor the time to make outstanding work.

The effort itself is worth to be appreciated, in my opinion. Spiders seems to be interested in making quality products. What they lack in ability they make up in dedication. The latest releases show a lot of promise and I enjoyed them even considering the weak execution in some areas.

It's interesting how far they try to push themselves with each new game, even if they almost topple over trying to implement even simple features.

Their effort to innovate and become better is rather interesting. I hope that they won't lose their resolve in the following years.
 

WindKnight

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DVS BSTrD said:
So apparently nobody thought to play test it with the English audio?

I wonder how well clanging your handcuffs together would work in actual prison.
I'd previously heard of an anime label telling their translator to go f*** themselves when the Japanese had already sent them a translation script, then had to grovel and beg them to come back when said script turned out to be gibberish done by some guy who barely remembered his high school english lessons. ('orbital decay' had been rendered as 'going around and down', and 'cryogenics' had been decribed as 'cold room for storage of dead people')

roguewriter said:
"Difficult for the actors..." my foot. They should just admit that, because of the rushed time frame and limited budget, they hired crappy english voice over actors. Hell, wouldn't be surprised if half the voice cast weren't even actors but rather Focus Interactive or recording studio employees. I mean, if it was merely due to script errors why did they recast damn near everyone in the game as british/australian? Now, don't get me wrong. It's a huge improvement. But, come on, just call it like it is. Regardless, looking forward to this dropping for 360.
well, depends on whether they were paid enough to care. Further stories from the previous source included tales of dubbing where the actors were being paid bare minimum, and generally had no preparation to rehearse the script.