Okay I know I am part of the "vast" minority of people in Europe and especially Germany who are able to actually talk and communicate in English ... right? WRONG! People learn English in our schools. They learn English because it is a common language. A language people are able to speak all over the world.  
  
So now to my problem (this is kinda becoming a rant I guess *sigh*) LOCALI-F***ING-ZATION. I found out today that Deus Ex - Human Revolution will not hit the shelves with the original audio on disk and that Square Enix decided to completely localize the game. This is not only the case for Germany this is the case for nearly every country in Europe. I understand that, although I have stated that a big part of the European population SHOULD be able to comprehend English dialogue, some people are glad to come home after a stressful day and do not struggle with a foreign language while trying to relax etc. Those people ... okay I understand that. I will not try to come up with some bulls*** elitist talk about how they "should learn English those damn n00bs" etc. My problem is that localization has (in my opinion) never EVER been kind to a games immersion.
 
I experienced this previously on (for example) Mass Effect 2 where Sheppard’s German voice made me turn of my speakers because I just could not stand how stupid everything sounded. Yes I've played Mass Effect 2 without ANY sound after the first 30 minutes of the game. I turned it on when one of my friends or my girlfriend where visiting me but otherwise I played through this 40 hour long game with its audio turned off because it immediately killed any immersion. This is somehow a quality thing when it comes to voice acting and also a translation thing that i simply cannot endure i don’t know why.
 
And now after thinking about cancelling my pre-order for Deus ex - HR I kinda hope that I will not play through another game in complete silence.

Okay I know I am part of the "vast" minority of people in Europe and especially Germany who are able to actually talk and communicate in English ... right? WRONG! People learn English in our schools. They learn English because it is a common language. A language people are able to speak all over the world.  
  
So now to my problem (this is kinda becoming a rant I guess *sigh*) LOCALI-F***ING-ZATION. I found out today that Deus Ex - Human Revolution will not hit the shelves with the original audio on disk and that Square Enix decided to completely localize the game. This is not only the case for Germany this is the case for nearly every country in Europe. I understand that, although I have stated that a big part of the European population SHOULD be able to comprehend English dialogue, some people are glad to come home after a stressful day and do not struggle with a foreign language while trying to relax etc. Those people ... okay I understand that. I will not try to come up with some bulls*** elitist talk about how they "should learn English those damn n00bs" etc. My problem is that localization has (in my opinion) never EVER been kind to a games immersion.
 
I experienced this previously on (for example) Mass Effect 2 where Sheppard’s German voice made me turn of my speakers because I just could not stand how stupid everything sounded. Yes I've played Mass Effect 2 without ANY sound after the first 30 minutes of the game. I turned it on when one of my friends or my girlfriend where visiting me but otherwise I played through this 40 hour long game with its audio turned off because it immediately killed any immersion. This is somehow a quality thing when it comes to voice acting and also a translation thing that i simply cannot endure i don’t know why.
 
And now after thinking about cancelling my pre-order for Deus ex - HR I kinda hope that I will not play through another game in complete silence.

I wish more German-developed games came with the original VO, especially adventure games. English localizations usually are quite cheap.

How about steam, does it allow you to get the English version?

Buy it on PC or PS3. But yeah it's always annoying when it happens. Some games have english VO as free dlc so disc space is not really enough of an excuse.

Get ready to be pissed when Skyrim comes out...

Always like me some original VOs. Knowledge of whatever language it may be or not.

... Though I don't really know the quality of German voice acting, so I can't honestly say I understand your pain.

I kinda know what you mean. In Stalker, the English localization is god awful, even though that totally adds to its charm. For a game built around atmosphere and immersion, having some terrible voice actor shout "Howdy ho!" every few minutes just kills it. So glad it's easy to replace the localized voices with the originals in that game.

For a second I thought this was going to be a complaint about it being localized from Canadian to American. I was wrong! 

Yeah, localization in Poland sucks too. Although it's not that terrible since not that many games or movies are dubbed, and if they are you're usually given the option to choose. As far as I'm concerned though everything in German, from movies to video games, is localized. Man oh man did I have a laugh when I heard The Dark Knight's Joker speaking German when I saw the trailer on German TV 3 years ago ^_^
 
I remember how surprised I was when it turned out that there was no option to change the language to English in my Polish copy of StarCraft II. I admit, I was pretty pissed when I had to download the whole 7gb client again from Blizzard's servers (with original audio this time), and when it then turned out that that client didn't properly want to install for some reason, I was enraged. I had to download the client again, only this time it was a torrent. Fortunately everything worked out great in the end ^_^

I totally know what you're talking about. When I bought my copy of Mass Effect 2 a while back and then realized it was German only, I sold it back to amazon and ordered a copy from GB. I'm glad I did, since the voice acting is an integral part of every story-driven game.

One more reason to buy Deus Ex for Pc I guess.

I don't understand why story based, dialogue heavy games can't just have a language select.

Well , maybe your are in luck , aparently most reviwers are complaining about the lack of quality in VO on the game , mayhaps the german version has better VO ... granted it may not be the case .... but hope dies last no?

I don't understand why story based, dialogue heavy games can't just have a language select.

@SethPhotopoulos said:

I don't understand why story based, dialogue heavy games can't just have a language select.

It's usually a factor of lack of disk space. At least on 360. All that audio takes up a lot of space. 

@MooseyMcMan said:

For a second I thought this was going to be a complaint about it being localized from Canadian to American. I was wrong!

yeah i love listening to the original canadian voice acting much better then the horrible American dubs

From the U.S. Steam store:

Title: Deus Ex: Human Revolution™
Genre:Action, RPGDeveloper:Eidos MontrealPublisher:SQUARE ENIXRelease Date: Aug 23, 2011
Languages:English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish

It's not on disc, but it's a Steamworks game, so just select your language in Steam (right click game title -> properties -> language -> English) and download the files there.

Oh, sorry, I thought you stated you were playing the PC version. I'm not sure where you're playing it. Good luck.

@Commisar123 said:

@MooseyMcMan said:

For a second I thought this was going to be a complaint about it being localized from Canadian to American. I was wrong!

yeah i love listening to the original canadian voice acting much better then the horrible American dubs

Don't take away my "Eh"!

Word. I always like to watch movies, play games, or experience anything else that uses audio in the language it was created in. Sucks they're taking that option away from you over in Europe.

@Commisar123 said:

@MooseyMcMan said:

For a second I thought this was going to be a complaint about it being localized from Canadian to American. I was wrong!

yeah i love listening to the original canadian voice acting much better then the horrible American dubs

Don't take away my "Eh"!

Hell this better not have Dutch VO over here. I couldn't think of a stupider thing. This also severely pissed me off downloading Beyond Good & Evil for XBLA only to realize I'm stuck with Dutch voices. Fuck the publishers that think they are doing everyone a favor with this shit, I assure you 99% of people are intelligent enough to understand English and want to play the original goddamn game!

For a second I thought this was going to be a complaint about it being localized from Canadian to American. I was wrong! 

It's times like these that I'm grateful that we don't have any localization here. They only do it to animated films, but you can see them in original as well, so it's all good. For now.
 
But yeah, I despise localization. Saw The Fresh Prince of Bel Air on a German channel once... Never again.

@the_red_mage: Let me restate that. Dubs are dumb. It's not the original product or even piece of art without the original VO direction. I'm not hating on people who don't speak English (which in The Netherlands would be about as stupid as not picking up on Dutch along the way since they're about as prevalent in the media), just publishers not realizing a option for both would be nice. I don't like being catered a version deemed suitable for me like I need to strain my brain on the original native language.

Oh and if you really don't understand English, subs > dubs for Christ's sake.

@MooseyMcMan said:

For a second I thought this was going to be a complaint about it being localized from Canadian to American. I was wrong!

yeah i love listening to the original canadian voice acting much better then the horrible American dubs

@imsh_pl said:

Yeah, localization in Poland sucks too. Although it's not that terrible since not that many games or movies are dubbed, and if they are you're usually given the option to choose. As far as I'm concerned though everything in German, from movies to video games, is localized. Man oh man did I have a laugh when I heard The Dark Knight's Joker speaking German when I saw the trailer on German TV 3 years ago ^_^ I remember how surprised I was when it turned out that there was no option to change the language to English in my Polish copy of StarCraft II. I admit, I was pretty pissed when I had to download the whole 7gb client again from Blizzard's servers (with original audio this time), and when it then turned out that that client didn't properly want to install for some reason, I was enraged. I had to download the client again, only this time it was a torrent. Fortunately everything worked out great in the end ^_^

But Human Revolution isn't localized in Poland, right?

I love that games aren't being localized in swedish.

Just the fact that Saint's Row 2 had swedish text was ridiculous, but if they also would have talked swedish, then I don't think I would have been able to play that game...

Also, I hate Germans for dubbing everything on TV... Why not just have subtitles, damn it!

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

@valrog: Animated movies (I assume you mean asian ones) are suprisingly well localized in Germany most of the time ... movies tend to suck but are at least bearable ... videogames on the other hand are suck pure SUCK.

I don't understand why story based, dialogue heavy games can't just have a language select.

Have you ever heard of EYE: Divine Cybermancy?   I think they're speaking
German in that game, though it might be gibberish. :)

@Lind_L_Taylor said:

Have you ever heard of EYE: Divine Cybermancy? I think they're speaking German in that game, though it might be gibberish. :)

I don't know what it is, but it's definately not German. What language would a space viking speak?

@Lind_L_Taylor said:

Have you ever heard of EYE: Divine Cybermancy? I think they're speaking German in that game, though it might be gibberish. :)

I don't know what it is, but it's definately not German. What language would a space viking speak?

im gonna look up german commander shepard right now....and wow, thats terrible. im glad i live in an english-speaking country

@Kaibar said:

@Lind_L_Taylor said:

Have you ever heard of EYE: Divine Cybermancy? I think they're speaking German in that game, though it might be gibberish. :)

I don't know what it is, but it's definately not German. What language would a space viking speak?

Scandinavian? Death Metal? I don't know.