Lost Planet

Okay, it’s Monday morning, and as I promised, here is part 2 of the interview with my man Eric Bailey, working hard to make sure the dialog and text in Lost Planet is as polished as its visuals and gameplay.

If you haven’t checked out Part 1 yet, you’ll want to start there.

[Brian] How long have you been working on Lost Planet, and what kind of role have you had in the development and localization of Lost Planet? And if you can, talk a little about how the development and localization processes has been going.

[Eric] I’ve been involved on Lost Planet for about a year and a half now. I translated most of the text used in the game along with the script used in the voice recording. I also helped to translate some of the correspondence between the sound team at Capcom and the sound studio that helped to produce a lot of the great music and sound effects in the game. That was definitely interesting since it was a new experience to hear the results of my translation work. Usually translation is a very visual process, but this was one of the rare instances where it was also an auditory process.

Click to read the rest of Part 2.

[More:]

For the script used in the Lost Planet voice recording, the author of the original script was Japanese, so it started out in Japanese. The script was mostly fixed by the time I started working on the translation, but as with everything in the world of game development, there are going to be changes here and there throughout the production cycle. I did have to cover a few additions before the actual recording session, but having a near final script to start working with is ideal.

The in-game text is much more dynamic than the script for the cinematics. Features are always going to get added or changed along the way. That’s why having a native English speaker different from the translator check the actual game over when it’s near completion is crucial. The extra person or people can come at the game with a fresh perspective and make sure that everything sounds natural and fits within the context of each situation in the game. For Lost Planet, both JP (Kellams) and Janet (Hsu), two other translators at Capcom, helped out with that aspect.

[Brian] Have you had a chance to play much of the game yet?

[Eric] I’ve played through the demo that’s up on Xbox Live a lot. I’ve also watched someone go through all of the stages when we did an initial check of the text, so I have seen the whole game in action. Watching someone else play can be frustrating with a cool action game like Lost Planet, because it makes me want to grab the controller and jump into the action myself.

[Brian] What about multiplayer? Have you checked that out yet?

[Eric] At least with multiplayer, I did get to go to the dev team’s testing area and try it out a couple of times. They definitely made sure to try and get as many opinions as possible about the multiplayer aspect of the game. Every day, when our work day officially ended, people would head over to the Lost Planet team’s area to get in on some multiplayer games.

[Brian] What was your first experience with Lost Planet, and what did you think of it at the time?

[Eric] The first time I saw Lost Planet was when I saw a trailer that was being prepared. Lost Planet is a very cinematic game, so when the trailer was ready, they invited the rest of the Capcom employees to go and see it on a big screen TV complete with a surround sound setup. It was quite an experience to see the trailer for the first time in a theater style setting, with all of the visuals, voices, music, and sound effects coming together. The trailer also used one of my favorite lines from the game, so it was cool to be able to hear something I had in a file actually uttered on the screen. It added to the personal impact for me.

[Brian] Did you have any idea Lost Planet would turn out to be such a major title?

[Eric] No, I didn’t know how big it would become. I knew the frozen planet setting sounded great and that it would appeal to me as a gamer because I like action shooters, but I didn’t know until I saw that trailer how well the game would turn out. I’m definitely happy that it’s getting so much attention because the developers and everyone involved have put in a lot of hard work to get it where it is.

[Brian] What’s your favorite thing about or moment in Lost Planet, assuming you can actually talk about it at this point?

[Eric] My favorite moment in the game is a particular place in the story that sent a chill down my spine. It would be a huge spoiler if I were to even hint at it, so I’ll stop before I give it away. I remember running across that part of the story when translating the script and I definitely didn’t see it coming!

[Brian] Lastly, what advice do you have to people who want to get into the game industry in general, or who want to get into game localization?

[Eric] The thing I’ve always heard for people that want to get into the game industry is to start as a tester and then springboard into other jobs. That would be more on the software side of things though, so I’ll try to talk about the localization side of games, since that’s what I know more about.

To be a localizer in a video game company, youâre going to have to have three things to pull it off well.

The first would be knowing Japanese and having the ability to translate.

The next would be a good command of the English language, which means excellent writing skills. This one might actually be the tougher of the two since knowing what the original author wanted to say is one matter, but trying to convey it in a natural-sounding way that excites the players is another. A lot of people are bilingual, but I think it takes a special skill to be good as a translator in general, and that mainly comes down to how well you can write.

The third requirement would be a love of video games. Just as it would make no sense for someone who has never even taken a biology class to write text for a medical encyclopedia, it makes no sense for someone to write text for a video game if they have never played one before.

[Brian] That about wraps it up for my questions. Is there anything else you’d like to add, anyone you’d like to give a shout-out to?

[Eric] I couldn’t possibly localize such a huge game by myself, so I want to make sure I give the other people in our team who worked on it with me the recognition they deserve. Brandon Gay did a great job editing the text after I translated it in the early stages. Jean Pierre (JP) Kellams and Janet Hsu were an immense help with the English testing. And Ludovic Nomura, Florian Seidel and Gianluigi Riccio were all extremely dedicated to checking the European versions of the game. Brian, thank you too for all of the great input throughout the game localization. We are all happy to have had the chance to work on such a big game and I hope everyone out there gives Lost Planet a go!

There you have it! That officially concludes my very first interview for the blog. There are many more to come, so I hope you keep checking back.

Here are a few more pictures Eric sent over to share with you.

Standing in front of Janet’s desk, from left to right: Gianluigi Riccio (Italian Editor), Eric Bailey (English Localizer – you should know him by now), Florian Seidel (German Editor), and Ludovic Nomura (French Editor)

Sitting: Janet Hsu (English Localizer)

Behind the camera: Jean Pierre Kellams (English Localizer), aka JP, the “baby” of the group

Here’s Brandon holding JP, proving he’s the “baby” of the group (and apparently shaking his head so as to not reveal his true identity). Up in the top left corner is Florian Seidel (German Editor), hard at work. This one is at JP’s desk.

All right, that’s about all the fun I can take in one post.

Honja! (‘See ya’ in Osaka dialect)

—Brian



PS – A new Street Fighter movie was announced yesterday!





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