I’m currently writing a dissertation on the localisation of videogames. I say currently, but I’ve yet to really put pen to paper - merely doing lots and lots of reading. Anyway, I wrote this article as a way of focusing my thoughts a little.

Some videogame memories are universal. Burned into the minds of most gamers is Ryu’s ‘You must defeat my dragon punch to stand a chance!’ words of discouragement, or a gravel-voiced Snake checking in with the Colonel, marking the opening of Metal Gear Solid. ‘It’s-a Me, Mario!’ is another to provoke knowing nods and smiles. Raise a glass then, to the humble videogames translator, without whom, we would never have had the chance to create these memories, or the hundreds like them. Without whom, these memories would not be universal, but confined to a cluster of volcanic islands in the pacific.

With Japan traditionally being the most prolific of nations in the sphere of videogame development, and the thirst for Asian gaming ever growing in the Western hemisphere, the role of the videogames translator is more important than ever. However, in terms of accolades, it receives perhaps the least attention. Where are the BAFTAs for the translators? Nowadays, there’s an award for almost every discipline in the industry – from character design to audio production – and yet one of the most crucial is almost universally ignored.

That in itself may be testament to how good a job the videogames translator is doing. A successful translation of a videogame is one that plays like a domestically produced game, with no jarring dialogue to draw attention to the fact that they’re playing a game created on the other side of the planet. Their work ensures that instead of linguistic abominations like Zero Wing getting into gamers’ hands, they instead play slickly realised localizations of the Metal Gear Solids of this world.

If the end result is not enough to deserve a tip of the cap, then the means surely does. The industry has moved a long way since the days of Zero Wing. Money has rolled in, technology has advanced, and games have become much more epic. The Playstation era brought full motion video and high-quality audio, while the Xbox kicked open the online world. Art-teams swelled, programming teams double and tripled in size, and yet the translator’s floor space has remained by in large unchanged, with often a single translator working on an entire game.

Considering that these days, an entire game can mean upwards of 1.5 million words – frequently culturally entwined, presented in a variety of media, and subject to constant change and revision - the challenge is overwhelming. Chipping away at that mountain, and having to do so on a tight deadline, is an unenviable task, and one that deserves huge appreciation from the entire industry.

Still not convinced? Look at your catalogue of games. Remove any games produced in a foreign language. Mario 64? Gone. Ocarina of Time? Gone. Final Fantasy VII? Gone. What are we left with? A near empty shelf, littered with more Need For Speeds than Goldeneyes.

The original Far Cry, when released almost three years ago, turned out to be little more than a plain Jane shooter dressed in a fancy frock. Cutting-edge visuals aside, it failed to bring anything new to the party, and as such the franchise never entered into gamers’ hearts in the way Doom, Halo or Half-Life did.

In the intervening time, the franchise had made its home on Microsoft’s Xbox, before coming to the Nintendo Wii in the shape of Far Cry: Vengeance. Unfortunately, this installment of the series has turned up the party wearing the exact same frock as three years ago, and those blocky shoulder-pads really do stand out against the competition’s more svelte little numbers.

A tropical, jungle environment is always going to be more taxing on hardware than the standard corridor shooter, and this is certainly the case here. Vegetation is big and blocky and rock-faces are ill-defined. And without visual appeal, Far Cry shows itself up to be a bit mundane.

The good points? The controls are the best attempt yet on the Wii. The awful dialogue and plot will raise a laugh or two. The application of feral abilities is by-in-large well done.

However, the game-play is mostly a case of follow-the-yellow-dust road, and straying from the beaten track never offers any reward. There are some drivable vehicles scattered about the archipelago which acts as the backdrop, but the controls are too loose and the vehicles physics too lightweight. And that just about sums up the game itself: too lightweight, too rigid in following the beaten track.

…in order to avoid starting to write my dissertation. Faced with an empty Word document, I’d rather arse around on the internet doing nothing for hours on end. Even that can get tiresome after a while, so I took work-dodging to a whole new level. Firstly, I catalogued what I reckon to be most of the movies I’ve seen in my entire life using listal.

Then I downloaded MacOSaiX and used the posters for these movies to make a mosaic of a photograph of myself. Here it is:

I never got around to writing about Clint Eastwood’s duo of war movies concerning Iwo Jima, but suffice to say I thought they were good. Flags of our Fathers took a sledgehammer to the notion that war brings out the hero in the everyman, and Letters from Iwo Jima, unlike almost any other war film, portrayed the enemy as genuinely human and humane. They were a breath of fresh air, and a million miles from the movies you’d expect Dirty Harry Callahan to be making.

Indeed, if that loosest of cannons were to bring a make a movie, you’d imagine it’d be diametrically opposed to those pair, and indeed a lot closer to Zack Snyder’s Frank Miller’s 300.

300 is a man’s movie. Or, if not quite a man’s movie, then it is a teenage boy’s movie. It doesn’t waste much time in plot exposition - and what exposition there is features a healthy amount of lady-nipple to tide us over until the next of the frequent battle scenes. This movie is all about how men become heroes in war, and when the titular 300 aren’t sticking spears in people, they’re shouting rousing speeches at each other as they pile dead bodies. Flags of our Fathers it certainly is not.

Those two most volatile of places - the internet and the middle-east, erupted with accusations that the portrayal of the Persian army was racist. True enough, the film featured mutated, horrifying Persians, so obviously this is no Letters From… style treatment of the enemy, but this film has no claims of historical accuracy. And as the accusations are based on movie-goers leaving the cinema thinking that yes, King Xerxes was guarded by half-men, half-goats, I would say that it is the Iranians and Internet Pant-Wetters that are racist against movie-goers, for thinking they are so stupid.

Anyway, the battle scenes themselves revel in blood and gore, frequently slowing down to let the audience appreciate that spear through the chest a little more. It is a credit to Snyder, and perhaps Miller, that despite dominating the entire film, the action never feels repetitive or overly-long. Indeed, it wasn’t deeper characterisation (the 300 are differentiated only by haircut, really) or more political intrigue that I felt was lacking, but rather more men sporting ridiculously defined six-packs stabbing improbably large mutated beasts in the eye with big spears.

My deepest thanks go out to all involved in this picture, because I now have the perfect counter-weapon when I’m next asked to watch The Sound of Music by my girlfriend.

Despite Sony’s best efforts, I am still intent on buying, or stealing, a PS3. Sure, it’s over-priced, there are currently no must-have games available, Playstation Home is disgusting, backwards compatibility seems about as compatible as Isreal & Palestine and the machine itself looks hideous, but just as Bonnie Tyler really needs me tonight, so I too really need a PS3.

I’m not an idiot though. I’m not paying the 500 million dollars in gold bullion that is the European RRP (certainly not when good ol’ Irish retailers stick their arm in too). I’m going to wait until I relocate to Japan, and pick it up there, for a comparative pittance. In this way, I can justify spending what would otherwise be a ridiculous amount of money on a box full of technology to sit under my telly collecting dust beside my Xbox 360 and probably quite near to my pristine PSP and DS, safe in the knowledge that all you saps in Ireland are paying almost twice as much. Ha!

All the talk recently has been of the cutdown backwards compatibility that the European (and soon every) model will feature. The internet, as the internet’s wont, erupted with the screams and howls of a hundred thousand fanboys, who proclaimed this move by Sony as a sign of THE END - not for Playstation, but for the universe itself, judging by some of the reaction.

But what does backwards compatibility actually mean to me? I have not once played an original XBox disc in my Xbox360. I guess the XBox can’t really be used as a fair yardstick however, as I have never owned a copy of Barbie Horse Adventure or very much cared for Halo, so I’ve not got too many compatible games lying about. That, and I’m afraid that my brittle Xbox will break into a million pieces if confronted with such a relic.

On the Wii, I’ve played the GameCube classic WarioWare - even though it’s been made somewhat redundant by the Wii sequel. On the Playstation 2? Bishi-Bashi, once. Final Fantasy VII, until I realised it was rubbish. Metal Gear Solid, until the horribly aged graphics made me physically sick. In short, I’ve almost never taken advantage of backwards compatibility.

The Playstation 2’s catalogue being so varied and full of much-loved games and unplayed gems, that I’m a little concerned about being limited to playing games like Mouse Police should I need a previous-generation fix. So I spent 5 entire minutes of my life scouring the backwards compatibility list, checking for games I might possibly want to play. Here’s what my in-depth invesitigation uncovered.

Rez: It’s not even on the list. Which is actually a little comforting, because I sold my copy of it for about 20e, and I’m not willing to pay the bajillion euro people are asking for on e-bay.

Ico: It runs fine - giving me a good 7 or 8 more years to never play it.

Freak-Out: Not on the list, not getting in. A shame, because it looks brilliant.

Frequency: Not on the list, as likely to work as a French public-sector employee. It’s sequel, Amplitude, joins it on the picket line.

God Hand: Will work with noticable issues, perhaps marring one’s enjoyment of repeatedly walloping people in the face.

Gregory Horror Show: Noticable issues.

Grand Theft Auto: GTA III works fine, while mercifully Sony have broken the awful San Andreas. As an unhappy accident, Vice City also works fine.

Killer 7: Works with no issues, but nor does the emulation make any sense of what is the most bizarre videogame in the world. Even more than that Korean anal-probing one.

Guitar Hero: Not on the list, nor is the sequel. Sony clearly hates Harmonix.

Katamari Damacy: Not on the list. I’ve no real want to play it, so I’m glad it’s not playable, as it’s sure to annoy all those pricks who extoll it is as the second coming of Jesus.

So there you go. An inexhaustive list to the old games I will and wont be able to play, and problably wont play regardless, on my PS3.

Mouse Police, incidently, isn’t on the list.

Note: This article originally appeared on GamesToaster.com, here.

Time has not been kind to the scrolling beat ‘em up. Before the arrival of the original Playstation, the genre was regarded as the one-stop-shop for those seeking their fix of action. The subsequent jump to 3D led to various failed attempts to reinvent the genre, before it was quickly laid to rest.

Rockstar then surprised everyone by developing a game based on a cult 1970’s movie that was, essentially, a side-scrolling beat ‘em up on celluloid. In doing so, they managed to create what was a true return to form for the genre - featuring simple yet satisfying fight mechanics and an engaging story. There were criticisms; most notably that one can only punch a faceless thug in the face so many times without the experience feeling a little repetitive.

Rockstar have done well in bringing this game to the PSP. The story-mode is present and accounted for, as is a quick-rumble mode for those wishing to dive straight into the face-punching, on top of multiplayer modes. The controls map well to the handheld, the visual and audio production is top-notch, and the load times are tolerable.

Indeed, in many ways the PSP is the best hardware for this game. Dipping into the game for 10 minutes here or there not only helps to stave off that sense of repetition which hampers the home console version, but is perfectly suited to the simple, accessible game mechanics.

It is not all sunshine and lollipops however, as the screen can get a little overcrowded during some of the bigger donnybrooks, and the fighting engine falls down when faced with such numbers. The abundance of cut-scenes is another annoyance, but thankfully they’re usually quite brief.

So, the rarest of games. a by-the-numbers port of a Playstation 2 game onto Sony’s handheld that doesn’t leave you completely underwhelmed, but rather accentuates the positives and all but removes the negatives of the original

I once visited the historical home of the Iga-Ueno ninja, where - as God is my witness - I watched a ninja exhibition as guitar music wailed in the background. It was AWESOME and SWEET. Much more so than Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja, which I just reviewed for gamestoaster.

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There are, basically, two types of ninja. Of the first specimen, popularized by the internet and Saturday morning cartoons, we know that they are awesome, predominantly mammals, but occasionally mutant turtles, and are totally sweet. The other, and if I may say less appealing, type, is the one who invariably pops up in videogames. This ninja is quick, silent, invisible, deadly. And so it is in Shinobido: Tales of the Ninja.

As if the following needs to be said, Tales of the Ninja sees you take the role of a ninja as you sneak around, jumping walls, throwing shuriken, penetrating castles, assassinating feudal warlords and stealing scrolls and so on. The gameplay is nothing new to those who’ve played the Tenchu series, of which this game was born. On the other hand, to those not accustomed to the game’s home console parents, the controls will undoubtedly feel cumbersome and unwieldy, and the graphics and animation blocky and unrealistic.

In way of innovation, this PSP title does break the mould a little in offering a level editor, a sizable non-linear single-player campaign, complete with 30 unlockable characters. However, these innovations are ill-suited to a handheld game, where accessibility and brevity of loading times are key.

In the end, this is yet another example of a square peg being hammered into a round hole. From the watered down visuals and the clumsy controls to the lack of pick-up-and-playability, this is a game that was patently designed for home consoles, and as such can line up alongside the ever-growing catalogue of substandard ports on the PSP.

Yesterday, at the Game Developer’s Conference, Sony unveiled what it believes to be an ace-in-the-hole in the race to control the space under our television sets.

Playstation Home - an online hub for Playstation 3 owners - will allow gamers to create a digital avatar of themselves, customise said avatar with all sorts of clothes and accessories, and interact with other gamers in a variety of public and private areas, including games rooms, virtual cinemas and their very own virtual apartments.

It has, amongst gamers, been received like the Second Coming.

To me, it is positively disgusting. As it stands, the Playstation 3, with it’s XCross Media Bar, has the cleanest, most intuitive menu of any console or media centre. All your media is laid out in well-defined and easily accessed menus, and when you’re enjoying the media, the menus are completely unobtrusive. With Playstation Home, however, Sony have loaded your media onto a big truck, and crashed it at high speed with Bebo, 14 year old american teenage boys, an ikea catalogue, and the contents of your wallet.

They have showed, again, that they are a company desperately out of step with reality. In theory, it sounds like a great idea to be able to go to a virtual cinema with your virtual avatar to watch a movie - until you remember that you can watch one direct from the media bar without the bother of going to the cinema, virtual or otherwise. It sounds brilliant to be able to invite your online buddies around to your virtual apartment to watch a movie - until you remember that you hate when people talk during a movie. It sounds great to be able to display your trophies in a trophy room, and to browse other people’s trophies - until you remember that you’re shit at games. Being able to meet up and chat with other gamers in a virtual lobby? Fantastic - until you realise that the only people who play games online are 14 year old hormonal teenage boys who want to ‘cyber’ you.

The icing on the cake though, is that Sony are intent on squeezing every penny they can from you. That film you want to see? It’s actually a trailer. That lobby you’re in? It’s filled with billboards and banner ads. Your apartment? Filled with milk-crates, because you can’t afford the ikea furniture. Your avatar? Dressed like a tramp, because you can’t afford the armani t-shirt.

I’m not sure what’s more depressing: that Sony believe gamers are so shallow, so self-obsessed, so vain and so idiotic that they’ll be sucked into buying all this useless virtual shit for real, tangible money or the thought that gamers are actually that shallow, self-obsessed, vain and idiotic. We’ll find out this Autumn, when it’s released, I guess.