Thread: Strange Cover

Hi, I know there is different between American and European cover.

Ratchet & Clank 2 (European cover)
http://blogs.gamefilia.com/files/imce/u348054/European_Ratchet___Clank_2.jpg


Ratchet & Clank Going Commando (American cover)
http://i28.tinypic.com/242vcio.jpg
http://spawnkill.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/going-commando-box-art.jpg

BUT what is LOCKED and LOADED
http://www.progamingshop.sk/ratchet-clank-2-locked-and-loaded-platinum-pi-2408.html


And what is the different between GOING COMMANDO (1st and 2nd link)

the European one you have was a design for the box, locked and loaded was the final version of the European box :oui:

Yeah, I have the "Locked and Loaded" once since it's the European version

All of the R&C games have a different box cover for the American and European versions.
Although only Deadlocked and Going Commando have a different name in the European and American versions. The other R&C games have the same title in both versions.

To set a final word to this, the American version is called Ratchet & Clank Going Commando, as everyone knows. In every American cover, Ratchet holds the Megarocket Cannon, as in your second Going Commando link. That's the only American cover of those you posted.


All of the three others are different European covers. The UK/Commonwealth PAL version is called Ratchet & Clank 2 Locked and Loaded.


In most of the European countries it's called just Ratchet & Clank 2. That's because it would've been difficult to translate the title to all of the required languages. Only exception is Spain and the Spanish-speaking world (South America) where the game has its own name in Spanish.


Though, in Scandinavia and Finland (ie. Northern Europe) the game is called Ratchet & Clank 2 Going Commando. That's because it wasn't localised to these languages at all, and as these countries are more liberal than the conservative UK and Ireland (why the title was translated there in the first place because some found it "offensive" for a 3+ game), so there was no need to ditch the original title. Although, to go in line with the other European countries, 2 was added to the title.

(sorry for the large pics)

Though, all of the continental European and Commonwealth PAL versions have just Ratchet & Clank 2 in-game, regardless of the cover.

And to be completely random the Japanese version is completely different then all of them!



Rachetto & Kuranku 2 : GaGaGa! Ginga no Komandossu lit. Ratchet & Clank 2: BangBangBang! Commandos of the Galaxy.




Sorry just had to add it, the Japanese versions are awesome! XD

Though, in Scandinavia and Finland (ie. Northern Europe) the game is called Ratchet & Clank 2 Going Commando. That's because it wasn't localised to these languages at all, and as these countries are more liberal than the conservative UK and Ireland (why the title was translated there in the first place because some found it "offensive" for a 3+ game), so there was no need to ditch the original title. Although, to go in line with the other European countries, 2 was added to the title.

Not localised into Scandinavian languages???

That sounds ridiculous to me somehow.

Not localised into Scandinavian languages???

That sounds ridiculous to me somehow.

It was completely English despite the back cover and instruction booklet were translated, though it had the same language select as the central European version with German, French, Italian and Spanish as optional languages. As it was localised to these languages, it couldn't go under the original English name in the countries as it couldn't be translated as "Going Commando" would've lost its meaning in the process. But because it wasn't localised to the Scandinavian languages nor Finnish, there was no need to change the title as the game was completely in English, and that's the best foreign language to most of the Northern Europeans.

As well, the audience would have been be actually rather small there, as the countries' (Sweden 9m, Denmark 5.3m, Norway 4.9m, Finland 5.3m) total population is less than 25 million, and the trouble of translating it into four languages, or even the three most similar (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), would've taken too much work for the benefit.

And at least in Finland and I think Norway even the TV programmes aren't dubbed (if you don't know what dubbing is, like most non-Europeans don't, it's making localised audio replacing the original speech in a film), just subtitled with the original English audio(or whatever it was, German, French or so on).

Anyway, the Future trilogy is localised to the languages without any means to choose the language yourself unless you change PS3's system language to get to play it in English. And the localisations aren't that good, only Ratchet, Tachyon and Nefarious's voices perform on-par with the English voice actors in the Finnish version.

As well, the audience would have been be actually rather small there, as the countries' (Sweden 9m, Denmark 5.3m, Norway 4.9m, Finland 5.3m) total population is less than 25 million, and the trouble of translating it into four languages, or even the three most similar (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), would've taken too much work for the benefit.

So can people in Scandinavia understand English?

So can people in Scandinavia understand English?

Well, in Finnish schools English becomes mandatory at age 9 (something around 9 in the other countries), so everyone playing R&C doesn't understand it well enough, but they'll figure it out as the instruction booklets have detailed instructions of what to do. Of course the story might be a bit hard to follow if you don't understand a word the characters are saying.

But every 12-year-old Scandinavian knows English well enough to understand at least the main plot.

So can people in Scandinavia understand English?

Well, in Finnish schools English becomes mandatory at age 9 (something around 9 in the other countries), so everyone playing R&C doesn't understand it well enough, but they'll figure it out as the instruction booklets have detailed instructions of what to do. Of course the story might be a bit hard to follow if you don't understand a word the characters are saying.

But every 12-year-old Scandinavian knows English well enough to understand at least the main plot.

Doesn't sound like much help for the under-9's…

Is anything else left in English in Scandinavia or is it mainly video games?

Doesn't sound like much help for the under-9's…

Is anything else left in English in Scandinavia or is it mainly video games?

As I said, TV programmes are English-spoken if that's the original language - why bother changing the audio when translated subtitles work as well. Of course those that are meant for little children have their audio localised as 3-6-year-olds can't or aren't fast enough to read subtitles.
But apart from that, video games are pretty much the only thing that has been completely left in English (computer OS's have the choice to choose between English and localised). Nowadays a lot more of the games have been localised, like the Future trilogy is and A4O will be. Some games, like EA's NHL series have always been localised here as ice hockey is something that's played a lot more in Scandinavia than in Central Europe. EA also has made a lot of games which have Swedish localisations (but usually not Danish/Finnish/Norwegian) as one of their developers, DICE is Swedish.

Out of all of my video games, only the following have been localised to Finnish and Swedish, not all of them are even localised to Danish/Norwegian: ToD, QfB, CiT; NHL 2001, NHL 10; WRC II Extreme, WRC Rally Evolved; Formula 1 2001; Battlefield 2142; Burnout Revenge; Civilization V - and that's it. Those underlined are the ones for which Scandinavia is an important marketing area, so that explains them. EA Games is pretty much the first publisher that included Scandinavian localisations in most of their games; multi-million sellers like Gran Turismo, HALO, Uncharted, Call of Duty and Battlefield (apart from that 2142) aren't localised even nowadays.

Back when I got my PSone in 1999, it was my father who helped me with the games, of what to do and how to save and such. Children of that age learn quickly, so I guess they'll understand that the same "Save Game", "Load Game" do the same in all games. But how well they get the story is something I don't know, as only games I played that had story back then were Crash Bandicoot series and it wasn't so emphasised on the story, more of the gameplay itself.

Some of the localisations are really poor, some just have those missing-in-translation moments and only those series which've been localised for a long time have fine translations, so I don't see it a big issue that all games aren't translated. Especially story-based games are almost always played in English rather than the localised version as the localisation would've to be perfect for it to really work.
I'd rather have the localisation in the form of English audio-localised subtitles and menus than completely localised. That's how it works on DVD's.

But aren't we going quite a bit off-topic?