As English-speakers, we take for granted a lot of things: One, that every game will either be originally published in our language or localised for it (and woe betide those that aren’t…) Two: That the voice acting, if incompetent, will at least sound poorly acted and not read off a page.
As reported by Kotaku Brasil, the Portugese version of Uncharted 3 (above) released a trailer on Monday that is less than thrilling to the locals. They posted a trailer comparison and, even though I don’t speak any Portugese, yeah, it sounds bad when I watch the English version. Kotaku Brasil says the Portugese trailer has some colloquialisms but is “still somewhat artificial when applied to the context of the scenes.” The voices also sound, to me, a little too close to the listener.
Well, Brazilians aren’t gonna take that. They’re gonna take to Naughty Dog’s official forums instead to chew some folks out. A poster there alleges that Sony was presented with a dubbing proposal from a Brazilian studio, passed it along to Naughty Dog (in charge of the final decision), and it was rejected in favour of a Miami studio, resulting in that above. The Brazilian dub featured “Famous Actors from Brazil like Ricardo Schnetzer as Drake! That’s awesome! And Mauro Ramos as Sullivan! That’s Twice Awesome!”
Naughty Dog’s community manager, Arne Meyer, addressed the complaints in the forum by saying “we’re making some calls and looking into the situation below to get the back story.”
The Brazilian fans sound accustomed to getting crappy dubs, citing Infamous 2‘s and Killzone 3‘s as disappointing. Bad localisation for Uncharted 3 , considering how story-driven the enterprise is, is too much.
Quando Surge uma Dublagem ‘Perdida’ de Uncharted 3 Melhor que a Versão Oficial [Kotaku Brasil]
Naughty Dog Responds to Portuguese Voice Acting Complaints in Uncharted 3 [Examiner]
Braaains
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 2:28 AMThey weren’t missing out with Killzone 3. The acting in that was terrible in English, too. Although even that was a vast improvement over Killzone 2.
DiEgOw
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 5:12 AMWe are not asking for a favor!
We are costumers, and we deserve for a better dubbing in game, why does the PT-PT dubbing isn’t so bad as the Brazilian one??
Thanks
Ry34
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 8:19 AMI don’t see anything wrong with this…
Dark_Templar
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 8:41 AMLearn english?
Dark_Templar
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 8:41 AMThat was a joke btw
McGarnical
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 9:10 AMIs everyone else seeing “localisation” (sic) in this story?
Wonderbread
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 10:08 AMI don’t see the problem there
mattroe
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 10:19 AMIsn’t that how we spell it in Australia? Maybe this article has been localised, hurr hurr…
Dmoli
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 9:12 PMYep, that’s some non-American English right there
Zico
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 10:19 AMToo much reverb. Sounds like they haven’t added any plugins to give the room/outside sounds… Plus very monotone
Clancy
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 10:50 AMOh noes :(
Pioneer
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 11:50 AMI find it very difficult to detect tone in other languages. Unless they are crying or shouting, I really cannot tell if they’re being sarcastic or bitter or anything. I guess getting people to localise the voices internationally is kind of hard when different cultures approach emotions and tones differently with the language.
Still, the quality of the dub seems dubious.
scott
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 12:06 PMWhy don’t we get an Australian dubbing!? why!!?
Mr Waffle
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 3:30 PMYou’ll have to ask Microsoft, they seem to have had the most trouble grasping the crazy Australian accent with their Kinect voice recognition (or lack thereof)…
mattroe
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 5:07 PMUgh, would you really want that? I hate there being different voice actors between English speaking countries, cause then I would get attached to a certain one, and when I watch trailers or fan videos or even just cutscenes on YouTube there’s like a 1 in 5 chance of it being the voice actor that I’m used to.
Not to mention that they probably couldn’t care less about the Australian dub and will get someone cheap (and bad) in to do it.
Now I’m not sure if you were kidding or not but have that little rant from me anyway.
DeeDub76
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 8:05 PMI thought they were still playing Techtoy Megadrives over there? :)
vinicius
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 11:37 AMAt least my country is not in crisis.
Carioca
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 1:06 AMAt Least we got Netflix working here.
XOXO