I'm Polish - this is a piece of information quite important for this topic. Mass Effect was translated and put into stores by CD Projekt - a bigger firm you could remember from being the mastermind behind The Witcher, an awesome RPG.
Mass Effect had subtitles in Polish on the X360, but they made a full translation on the PC, including dubbing.
We all remember Wrex - the funny, Chandleresque (though a bit single-minded) tough guy. In the PL version, he's a bit... different?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UidJxt5joMA
Here's a rough (rough, because the Polish language has more insults and curses than English) translation of the dialogue's script from the youtube clip above:
Wrex: Nice fucking ship, Shepard. Need a hand?
Shepard: Can you tell me something about yourself, Wrex?
Wrex: Nothing to talk about. Wanna hear stories? Talk with the Quarian.
Shepard: You Krogans live very long. There's nothing interesting on your mind?
Wrex: You know... Once, the fucking Turians almost entirely wiped out my race. Fucking awesome.
Shepard: I heard about it. We, humans, met practically the same fate.
Wrex: No. You fucking didn't.
Shepard: Oh yeah? Well, I can't tell any difference.
Wrex: Are your homies battling some fucking genetic mutation? A mutation that makes only a few of thousand children to survive the damn birth? And that's what fucking destroys your entire race?
Shepard: Ok, there is a difference.
Wrex: I knew you wouldn't get it, Shepard, but don't compare humans to Krogans. It's an advice.
Shepard: I only wanted to talk, not to irritate you.
Wrex: Your shit ain't gonna irritate me, Shepard. About the Krogans... The hell with them. I abandoned them a long time ago. There is the genofagium, but that's not what kills us.
Shepard: Is your race really dying?
Wrex: Well, we surely ain't getting stronger. We're scattered. Nobody wants to stay in our system.
Shepard: Many species left their homeland. They prosper quite good.
Wrex: But they left to colonise other worlds. We're not fucking settlers, we're warriors. We want to blast shit up. So we leave. We work as mercenaries and the most of us never returns home.
Shepard: What can you tell me about that genofagium?
Wrex: Chat with the Salarians. They've made it. I only now this - because of the genofagium, we can't reproduce. Kids die on birth. Shit, some even earlier. Every Krogan is ill. Every fucking one. And nobody's looking for a cure.
Shepard: Why aren't the Krogans looking for a cure?
Wrex: For fuck's sake! You know any Krogan scientists?! If you ask a Krogan if he wants to find the cure, or blast shit up in a bar, he'll tell you he wants to blast shit up. That's who we are, Shepard. I can't change it. Fuck, nobody can change it.
Shepard: See ya, Wrex.
Um. Well.
So, it looks that in the PL version, they turned Wrex in to some stupid thug with an unimpressive vocabulary. Basicly, entirely changing his character. And this is just a little bit. There's even a more blatant example here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMmw4h2YVvI
Wrex's first phrases are replaced by "Go fuck yourself" and "Tell it Fist. I'm gonna rip that dickhead apart!" respectively. Wow.
My question is, are other localisations so... inventive in terms of dialogue? Because the change in Wrex's speech is completely dumb. I can't find any explanation why would someone decide to make it this way. But someone did. Are other versions - French, Spanish, German, whatever, so fucked up like the Polish one?
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