General perfectionism aside, I don't actually recall what spurred me to use native-language voicepacks for Fegel-Alert, besides the necessity of replacing the default RA voices with something more immersive to the setting. The ensuing adventure has seen me going to some extraordinary lengths to obtain localized files for several popular computer games, and in the process I've made some interesting observations that I've indexed below for fellow linguiphiles:
Company of Heroes
CoH was the first game I mined by virtue of the Eastern Front
mod for the original CoH, which I only later learned used the Russian
translation of the American units and wasn't actually original work.
Both German and Russian sets are mostly direct translations of the
original English, albeit with less individual lines (usually due to
redundancy). I haven't done extensive research, but despite several
(possibly deliberate) misuses/mispronunciations in the English set, at
least some of the German actors may actually be bilingual and did both.
Although first credited as Maximilian Voss in Opposing Fronts,
I'm told Oliver Strizel voices the Wehrmacht Commander—however the
German-language VO appears to be a different person.
I haven't dug into CoH2 too deeply (yet), but I do know the
English and Russian sets are done by different teams.
Red Alert 2
The German dub is a work of beauty: like the original English, each unit
has a distinct personality. Sometimes they mimic the intonations,
sometimes they bring a new flavour—the German Spy has a nervous
undercurrent, the Engineer is an unassuming worker, et
cetera... the voice for Tanya is a close match for Kari Wuhrer, and
I'm still debating whether to go for a side-specific VO just to show it
off. The crowning glory, Udo Kier does all of Yuri's lines, and I'm
trying to figure out how to work him into the mod.
The Russian translation, by contrast, is basically a phone-in. The same
person does almost all the voices in a matter-of-fact monotone, and even
with Yuri's Revenge most of the units use the same 'default'
template with hardly any variation to the individual replies. Even the
few female voices are so flat they're barely worthwhile as placeholders.
Whoever handled the localization did not have high QA standards.
Red Alert 3
As in RA2, the German voices match the originals in tone, even if they
don't copy every line exactly. Between this and RA2, it allowed me to
provide side-specific VOs for all the original RA units, including
multiple 'generic' sets for ships and aircraft.
This time, the Russian dub is on par with the German, and in fact I like
it more than the base game for one small-yet-critical change: whereas
the English voices are frantic and/or overblown stereotypes, the Russian
VOs are more controlled, replacing the mania with a quintessential
Slavic tongue-in-cheekness—they actually sound like soldiers,
not cosplaying tankies.
XCOM: Enemy Within
Expansion pack to the 2012 XCOM, it introduced multiethnic
voicepacks for operatives and was recommended to me by Omega124 as a
source for female Russian voices. (The adventure of trying to get the
file to me inspired the mini-arc that touches off Fegel-Alert's Soviet
campaign.) The lines are simple and straightforward, but there are
enough variations that it doesn't get too repetitive, even when using
multiple sets side-by-side.
Cold War Crisis
The mod for Zero
Hour, not OFP. Totally original voices for both factions; some
of the actors are a bit dodgy but at least it's not derivative. In
earlier versions the Soviet rifleman was voiced by a Bulgarian; other
than the unenthusiastic delivery most people probably wouldn't even
notice, but the pronunciations were prominent enough to local ears that
they were later re-voiced.
World in Conflict
I scouted this for the DYOS mod, mainly as a prospective source for the
FWA. The most notable feature is that the VAs for the Soviet tactical
aid missions are Russian natives and voice both English and the
translated set. While the Berlin Spetsnaz from Soviet Assault
sound bilingual, other units are radically different between
localizations. The EU mixes British, French, German, Italian, Danish,
and even Norwegian voices in English, though of these only French,
German and Italian have official localizations. Interestingly, even in
foreign translations the units will have at least one line or word
spoken in their original nationality.
Voices I Have Known by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)
Originally submitted as a journal on DeviantArt October 2017, this is an overview of my experience compiling native Russian and German voice lines for Fegel-Alert, a Downfall Parody-themed modification of OpenRA. I would later track down several different Russian fandubs for C&C Generals, which never got an official localization; they were surprisingly professional, and make me wonder if anyone ever did a "proper" redux of RA2.
One minor source not listed here was the pre-SWR version of the Rise of the Reds mod for Zero Hour. Both it and the SWR successor used a mashup of different sources for the Russians, some English and some native, including to my nerd cred the obscure German RTS World War III: Black Gold, whose remarkably short shelf life I remain convinced was influenced by its unfortunate timing with the oeuvre of the War on Terror. ROTR was sourced for the Russian sniper; they did not list their credits and I don't know its original providence.
Comments & Critiques (0)
Preferred comment/critique type for this content: Any Kind
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in and have an Active account to leave a comment.
Please, login or sign up for an account.