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Apparently, Google Translate isn’t just good for translating websites. You can ask it to translate StarCraft II unit names into Chinese.

This little experiment all started when I learned that Blizzard released a Chinese-language version of StarCraft II in Asia. The version is fully localized and dubbed in Mandarin. And when I say fully, I mean ever road sign and background poster has been redone in Chinese. The developers spared no expense in their attempt to penetrate the China market.

Before you ask, there is no Japanese version. Japan remains the land of the consoles and handhelds. However, there is a Korean version. It makes sense because everybody in South Korea with a PC has played StarCraft. And if you’re living in South Korea, you’ve probably socially connected to somebody who at one point or another has contemplated becoming a professional gamer.

Anyway, on to the translations:

Apparently, the term Zergling translates to xiao gou, which means little dog. Anyone familiar with StarCraft II know that the Zerglings are not dogs. But I seriously doubt the millions of Chinese gamers playing in cafes care about the lore. For those who do care about the lore, Zerglings are evolved from the Zz’gash dune runners. (I had to search for it on the StarCraft Wiki.)

Yes, you can even translate Raynor into Chinese. It translates to basically a three-syllable phonetic spelling of Raynor.

What about the Mutalisk? It’s called fei long, which means flying dragon.

The Protoss are known as shenzu, or god-race. If you’re wondering what the Terrans are called, they’re renzu (human race). The Zerg are known as chongzu (insects).

Anyway, I thought it was impressive that Google Translate understood the contextual meaning behind the StarCraft II terms and translated them correctly. Of course, I didn’t have success with every term. For example, when I searched for ‘marine,’ the translation in Chinese was for ocean. I had to search for ‘terran marine’ to get the correct translation. But that’s to be expected.

Before I go, I did have one final observation to share. In the regular English version of the game, the SCVs and Marines can be disrespectful to you when you give them orders. “What do you want?” “Alright, I’m going.” They seem downright hostile to the idea of having to work. In contrast, the SCVs and Marines in the Chinese version sound happy and excited to work when you order them around. It surprised me at first. But after thinking about it for a bit, I can understand why the change was made.

If I were an overzealous government regulatory committee member, I’d be pretty skeptical about exposing six million people to a game where the most common worker units endlessly complain about working. I’m not saying that the decision is right or even that such a discussion ever took place. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers took that into consideration when they localized the game.

By the way, here’s the game’s installer recap in Mandarin.

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According to this German preview:

  • Heroes VI is a prequel to Heroes V and takes place 400 years in the past
  • There are 5 factions in the game (Haven, Inferno, Necropolis have been confirmed so far)
  • Two hero classes per faction, one might one magic
  • Exploration, artifacts, and overall gameplay will stay the same
  • Combat system has indeed reverted to ‘turns’ rather than initiative
  • New boss battles
  • Three of the secondary resources (mercury, gemstones, and sulfur) have been removed from the game because the designers want more players to fight for the same resources
  • City-specific screens have been changed (or removed); cities are more dynamic and customizable?
  • You can now completely convert enemy towns to your faction after you’ve captured them
  • 50% of creatures are new (e.g. ghouls and juggernauts) while many classic creatures have been retired (e.g. trolls, gremlins, and gnolls)
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Whoa, it’s Heroes VI. What a lucky day!

It’s wonderful to wake up one morning, scan some gaming sites, and realize that your favorite game series is coming out with another title. As you can imagine, my morning was filled with jubilation.

There hasn’t been a lot of solid information revealed about the game beyond a few screenshots and a teaser video. But here are my thoughts based on the marketing materials that have been floating around.

Read the rest of this entry »

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One Winged Angel and Soulja Boy? Hey, it kind of works!

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Apologies for the lack of interesting posts and updates. This is what happens when Blizzard releases a new game. On Saturday, I completed the Wings of Liberty single player campaign on normal difficulty. Now I need to replay the game on a harder difficulty.

Here are the choices I made the first time around:

1. Burned the civilians
2. Sided with Nova
3. Disabled zerg air units

As for the technology decisions, here’s what I chose:

Protoss Tech

1. Increased attack speed over additional defense
OPINION: Either one would have been fine. I chose the attack speed boost after realizing my play style was 90% offense, 10% defense. (Note: This is also why I suck on Battle.net). Since I had medics and SCVs follow my squads to repair any damage they sustained, it was less important to take the defense boost.

2. Instant supply depots over faster refinery production
OPINION: I’m very happy with my decision. The instant supply depots helped me tremendously in later missions because I could grab a single SCV, plop down 5-6 supply depots, and send him back to work. On the other hand, I had more gas than I knew what to do with. So the faster refinery production wouldn’t have helped me at all.

3.  Automated refineries over 2x SCV training
OPINION: Again, I’m very happy to have chosen the automated refineries. It freed up a lot of SCVs for mineral harvesting and also allowed me to go around maps and just build extra refineries without having to worry about the consequences. There was really no need for me to pump out extra SCVs, ever.

4. Science Vessels over Ravens
OPINION: I never used a single Science Vessel. Next time I’ll have to research the Raven.

5. Combined Tech Lab/Reactor over drop pods
OPINION: I picked the Tech Lab combo over the drop pods for a very simple reason: I never build reactors, period. Who needs two Marines being trained at the same time? I need Marauders, dammit! With this upgrade, I could finally take advantage of the reactor’s benefits without having to build it. As for the drop pods, I didn’t pick them because I prefer to gather my troops at my base in a glorious legion before sending them out. Dropping units in the middle of the battlefield one by one would require too much micromanagement on my part.

Zerg Tech

1. Bunker turrets over bunker defense enhancement
OPINION: It could have gone both ways, but I liked the extra turret.

2. Perdition turret over planetary fortress
OPINION: Loved the flame turret. It definitely made the final missions against the zerg a lot easier to handle. It also allowed me to substitute the Firebat for a Marauder in the bunker. I’ll probably go for the planetary fortress next time. But I skipped it the first time because I figured that if the enemy was that close to my command center, I’d be screwed regardless. Also, I didn’t like the fact that it would prevent the building from lifting off.

3. Predator panther robot over Hercules super dropship
OPINION: I went for the panther but ended up building it only once. The Predator is incredibly expensive and falls easily. On the other hand, I decided against the Hercules because I realized I rarely needed to transport any units by air, period. Also, the Hercules can’t heal units.

4. Mechanical regeneration over energy boost
OPINION: Picking the mechanical regeneration was definitely the right choice for me as it made my Battlecruisers last twice as long as they otherwise would have in the final missions.  My philosophy has always been to reduce micromanagement. Eliminating the need for SCVs to repair my machines was a plus. On the other hand, giving units an energy boost would only make sense if I handled a lot of units with energy (Wraiths, Ghosts, Science Vessels, etc.). I chose not to use those units.

5. Psi disrupter vs. Hive Mind emulator
OPINION: I chose to slow down the Zerg rather than control them. I think I would have been happy with either decision. But in the end, the decision was made when I realized I had a lot of trouble against Nydus worm attacks. It was much better for me to slow down the swarms of zerglings so I could blast them with my tanks than to mind control the occasional Ultralisk that lumbered its way to my base.

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Blizzard Entertainment managed to sell 1.5 million copies of StarCraft II within the first 48 hours of the game’s release. This makes StarCraft II the fastest selling strategy game of all time. I can believe it. I spent all weekend playing the single player campaign.

But who cares about sales and revenue? It just means some bigwig at Activision is going to be stuffing his pockets with a big bonus, taking credit for the company’s success in order to appease shareholders. Also, more money just means a bigger buffer against lawsuits.

I’m far more interested in discovering the aggregate number of hours spent by StarCraft II players on Battle.net since the game’s release. I’ve personally logged about 12 hours so far. But I have acquaintances who live and die by their ladder ranking and carry on with all-night binges . Their gaming habits scare me.

If Blizzard announced that gamers wasted 10 billion hours on Battle.net within the first week of the game’s release, I would not be the least bit surprised. Oh, I’d weep for humanity. But I wouldn’t be suprised.

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I’m a big fan of the Android mobile platform and a proud owner of a Nexus One. But for some reason, I’ve never quite warmed up to Verizon’s “Droid Does” marketing campaign. Something about the commercials just felt odd. Subconsciously, they made me chuckle rather than want to run out and buy a phone. I’m not talking about the robot hands and gizmo eyes. Those are cool.

I may have finally discovered the reason for my subconscious distaste. While reading an article today on 1UP.com titled: Twenty Years Ago In Advertisements, I noticed a familiar ad for the Sega Genesis.

When Sega first released the Genesis in 1989, most kids had an 8-bit NES. Sega couldn’t compete on the strength of its titles because Nintendo’s library was simply too massive. So they decided to emphasize the Genesis system’s amazingly powerful (for its time) 16-bit processor. Guess what slogan they used?

Genesis Does What Nintendon’t.

No, I’m not kidding. You can watch this classic Genesis Does commercial on YouTube.

Well, we all know what eventually happened in the console wars. Nintendo released the Super Nintendo two years later and Sega never quite recovered. Today, the Nintendo Wii is the best selling console in the world. Meanwhile, Sega lost the console war and hasn’t released a new console since 1999.

I thought it was peculiar that Verizon’s marketing team basically retooled Sega’s entire campaign. The similarities are just too eerie. In both cases, a company with big marketing dollars (Sega/Verizon) with a new and fairly unknown system (Genesis/Android) attempted to dethrone a market leader (NES/iPhone), that possessed a very strong library of games and apps. Both Sega and Verizon chose to emphasize their respective systems’ hardware superiority as a result. In the case of Sega, they constantly reiterated that the Genesis was a 16-bit console. That’s twice as fast as the NES. Similarly, Droid commercials emphasized the fast processor, open architecture, and multitasking ability.

Did Verizon know about the Genesis campaign or was did just a strange coincidence? I have no idea. But I certainly hope history doesn’t repeat itself.

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