The Grand Gaming Project

[Gleaves]

I tried Baldur's Gate a few years ago when my Chinese wasn't quite up to par. I'd also never really played one of the D&D PC RPGs before. Let's just say I didn't get very far. Seemed fun, though, so I'd like to try it again someday.

[neverending]

I played Baldur's Gate in English when I was 12, and ended up absorbing a great deal of new words/phrases, despite being a native English speaker. Having said that, pretty much everything I learned was faux "ye olde English", or specialist vocabulary for discussing medieval concerns - for instance, I learned what a falchion is, and what a midden is. ;) I've only ever really used that sort of knowledge to read history books, fantasy novels and play actual games of D&D.

In other words, it's full of words that are useless in most contexts. Depending on how it was translated, Chinese Baldur's gate may not give the best rate of return for its difficulty in being understood. Having said all that, it's still one of the best games I've ever played!

[rrTea]

I just bought Zelda Minish Cap (along with some other translated games) but it seems my version is buggy: every time Link equips the shield, as soon as there's an enemy on screen that can cause damage to Link, the two bounce off each other even if they are on the opposite parts of the screen. I somehow managed to pass through the first "battle" (where you have to just deflect the projectile) but the game is obviously unplayable like this (I also managed to trigger other bugs, like passing through enemies etc).

My version is translated by a group called CGP (http://i50.tinypic.com/2hhztvr.jpg), so make sure to check who translated your game before buying it (or if you're into emulation before going through the hassle of downloading it etc)!

I also bought Harvest Moon translated by the same group – which works fine for now, but we'll see.

[feihong]

You can actually check the websites listed in the first post of this topic to check which translated ROMs are good. Those with fewer stars (1 to 3) are often rated as such because the translation is incomplete or buggy. Of course, sometimes the rating is low because the game just sucks.

Also, translation groups often release multiple versions of a translated ROM, as they fix issues and tighten up text. It may be difficult to ensure that you are getting the latest version when you buy a cartridge (which is what I assume you did).

[rrTea]

This one? The entry for Minish Cap is not fully filled out at the moment, maybe I should edit it. Also I found this thread only after buying it.

Hopefully the CGP guys will release a better version, but for people like me (yes, you're right – I bought it on a cartridge) it's a bit … I was unable to find their site though, so no idea.

Anybody knows where can I get a working version on a cartridge? If there aren't any I guess the next best thing is to get one of those rewriteable cartridges, get the ROM and save it there, hopefully I can avoid this option.

[feihong]

This seems to be the best translated ROM of Minish Cap: http://games.tgbus.com/1198/. I believe that's the one I played. It was released by a group called 天使汉化组. There is also a traditional version available. The rewritable cartridges are your best choice for quality control, although they require some time to set up.

[feihong]

Recently finished a great puzzle platformer for iOS called LostWinds. If your system language is set to Chinese, the game automatically shows all instructions and dialogue in Chinese. It is by no means a very text-heavy game, but there is a decent amount of dialogue. If you are at an intermediate level, you can probably understand the gist of what the characters are saying without needing to consult the dictionary very often.

In terms of gameplay, I guess it's a little like Lost Vikings (I'm dating myself here) except you only have one character and it's not so easy to die. The controls are touch-based and somewhat imprecise, but you can't fall to your death and enemies don't kill you on contact so it's not that big a deal. Considering the roughness of the controls though, I wouldn't recommend trying to play it on the iPhone or iPod Touch, even though the game will run on those systems.

There is also a sequel called LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, which is more or less just a continuation of the first game except with the ability to switch between different seasons, which changes up the puzzle mechanics a bit.

AppStore links:

LostWinds: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lostwinds/id477973472

LostWinds 2: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lostwinds2-winter-melodias/id488671285

[svota]

Not exactly what's being asked for, but when I was starting out learning Chinese, I would go to 4899.com which is full of random Chinese flash games. In particular, 三国志 is very popular. I didn't like it too much, as it has a lot of grinding, but my schoolmates played it nearly constantly.

[muirm]

I just came across "Age of Wushu" (aka "Age of Wulin"), a 武侠 MMORPG. I watched a

on youtube and it looks pretty cool and very in-depth (I especially like the sweet 轻功 you can learn). I've always wanted to 闯荡江湖, and maybe this is my chance. It's in beta for North America right now, but is out in China. Does anyone know if it's popular in China?

Apparently the Chinese name is 九阴真经Online (haha), and is endorsed by 李连杰. I guess the bigger question, though, is is it endorsed by 金庸? Do they need to license the content they use from his books?

[xuexiansheng]

The game I played the most over Winter break was Sleeping Dogs. It had a great 'Chinese feel' to the game. It's set in Hong Kong and basically tries to make a video game of a John Woo movie. It is a pretty standard 'sandbox game' following a main story line with additional side quests (no multi-player); think of it as Grand Theft Auto: Hong Kong.

There are some great nods to Chinese culture (drink Tea and eat pork buns from street vendors to get buffs, find and pray at shrines to increase your health pool) and you can tell the development team had some people who really know their stuff about China. The actual game play wasn't very different from the Grand Theft Auto franchise, the same mission types (car races, following, find and beat up 某某人，等等）and you can get clothes and different apartments in the four different parts of the island as the story unfolds.

The graphics are excellent with lots of Chinese characters that are generic, but are fun to read as you race around the streets. The voice acting is excellent, the actors all could switch back and forth from English to Cantonese to give it an authentic Hong Kong feel. (I've never been, but if its anything like the movies....!) The combat is mainly fist fighting to start with, but leads to some gun battles later on. Not a lot of customization, but a progression over 10 levels and you can easily get to the top level by the time the story arch is over.

They had some interesting Downloadable Content (DLC). The game is available over Steam, it was on sale during the Winter Sales Event for $25 (EDIT: Price is back up to $50) and $7 for DLC (Bouncing Chinese Zombies!). If you want a Chinese/HK flavored GTA, I recommend the game.

[xuexiansheng]

Just noticed that Sleeping Dogs was on sale in the Steam store for 75% off. (US$9.99)

Sale will end in 6 hours. I just picked up the two expansion packs for US$3.

[dusan]

I've modified the "List of Video Games in Chinese" document mentioned in the first post of this thread to add a new sheet for Android games.

I've started adding two games:

* Inotia3 Children of Carnia (艾諾迪亞3：卡尼亞傳人), has a in-game language switcher

* Final Fantasy III, yo have to change your Android device's language to see the game text in Chinese.

[ashadow700]

Does anyone have any direct download links for any games that are suitable for beginners level? I have been looking over a lot of the games around this thread and unfortunately I have been unable to download them simply because my chinese is still so bad that I can't understand the different web pages. =(

Especially ROM games for genesis, SNES or Gameboy would be great, since those 1,5 hours that I spend on the train to school every day could be much better spent if I had Pokémon in chinese on my phone or something.

[Rilestone]

Some Steam games which can be played fully in Chinese under the language tab: All valve games e.g. Half Life 2 + Episodes, L4D, TF2; Age of Empires II HD; Euro Truck Simulator 2. Obviously there's loads more. These are the ones I know have it.

I have also used a piece of software called KuaiKuai - http://www.kuaikuai.cn/ . It has all the big name games, plenty of small name games too, including the old Star Wars version of AoEII. Most of the games are translated into Chinese, e.g Theme Hospital, Skyrim, Dead Space have all been dubbed and translated into Chinese. As far as i know I think it is only in simplified Chinese.

[secretlyismaili]

Hello everyone -

I'm really excited to start playing gujian qitan which is downloading now. It will be my first real commitment to a Chinese game so I'm pumped to get into it over the summer. I wanted to ask (feels sort of out of place in the context of RPGs, but...) has anyone tried playing 光荣使命, the game that was developed by the PLA originally as a training module but then made into a publicly available fps? I think it would be fascinating to see how conflicts are depicted from the Chinese military game developers' perspective, plus there was a lot of talk about the virtues of getting the youth to be more patriotic by playing the game. Pretty much just interested in it as a cultural document. Anyway I've been able to play the multiplayer vs. and collaborative modes (one mission is an earthquake relief effort) but I can not find the singleplayer campaign mode anywhere, which is why I wanted the game. I really want to see if there are any missions in Tibet at the Indian border or Xinjiang, but I think I remember reading somewhere that the Korean War and the 抗日战争 were major parts of the game. From the trailers it looks like you'll be fighting a modern USA lookalike. I can't play vs. mode because I just get massacred...too much lag here from the States and anyway I would probably just get massacred anyway since it's not usually my kind of thing.

Also, moderator, did you mention that there is a script available for gujian? Can you post a link to it? Thanks.

[secretlyismaili]

nvm on posting the script. found it at the beginning of the thread. Anyway, I just started playing gujian (like, just watched the intro) and it seems great so far. Onward!

[rainybeat]

For those of you who like MMORPGs, I'd like to introduce you to the sequel of my favorite childhood MMO, Silkroad Online, which is currently being developed by a new Chinese studio: http://sronew.com/
Closed beta starts in a week, ETA for the full release is December this year. I suppose most of you know about the Silk Road trading route, I myself think it's a pretty interesting concept for a video game and it's a major part of Chinese history.

With that said, I have a bold request to make. In order to register an account you require a Chinese mobile phone number (typical SMS code activation stuff). I do not own a Chinese mobile phone currently nor do I have a Chinese SIM card so if you are interested and/or willing to help me out with the registration process I'd greatly appreciate your help! All I need you to do is receive the code for me and send it to me via PM or otherwise. Obviously there are no costs involved, though I realize it might be shameless of me to request such a thing in my first post.
I hope one of you can help me out, I'm dying to play this game in Chinese and learn both the language and expand on cultural knowledge in the process.
Thanks in advance!

 

[StormerJack]

i downloaded world of warcraft CN but it says you cannot log in because your in different region

[tysond]

Games I tried recently in Chinese:

 

1. To the Moon - simple graphics adventure game, move around solve puzzles, pick up objects etc.  Mostly dialog based, lots of joking between the characters.   Quite playable, needed to install Chinese UI on my PC to get it to work in Chinese.  At the time I played language was a bit to complex (they seem to have gone for some colloquial translations too), but for mid-intermediate should be ok to understand.  I plan to come back to this and see if I have improved enough to play it.

 

2. Dead Island - The voice acting is still in English but with subtitles.  The game interface is in Chinese and all the objects you pick up too.  So I learned the word for 奖 (oar) and 管 (pipe) and 球棒 (bat) pretty early on.  Pretty easy to play in Chinese because the game is mostly about killing zombies, who by their nature, don't talk much.  But once I learned a dozen weapons or so, it wasn't very good to learn from.

 

3. Skyrim - voice acting in English with subtitles.  Game interface in Chinese including all items, abilities etc.  Written texts largely in English (Elder scrolls games are full of books you can read, lots of history and lore in them, I guess they didn't bother to translate them - would have been very expensive).  Found myself learning words like Imperial Shield and Wool Gloves before deciding perhaps it wasn't my highest priority vocab at the time.

 

4. The Sims - unfortunately it's in traditional Chinese only, but this would be a great game for learning lots of vocab.  Furniture, decorations, jobs, emotions, it's all here, and it's pretty every-day stuff.   When I feel like learning traditional I'll play it.

[abhoriel]

I'm playing a Gameboy advance game currently called Golden Sun in English (黄金太阳 in Chinese).

 

Its a fairly standard JRPG and its part of a series with 3 games. The first two are on the GBA, the newest one is on the Nintendo DS.. All games have Chinese translated versions which can easily be found online with a bit of digging. The game has a *lot* of dialogue which is great for learning.. in fact having lots of dialogue is something that the Golden Sun series as a whole has been praised (and sometimes criticised!) for. 

 

The translation is decent, and is composed almost entirely of spoken dialogue. My Chinese girlfriend had a glance at me playing it and seemed to think it was a decent translation with some slightly old and slightly formal language in places - that could just be the bit she happened to read though. To my inexperienced eyes, its mostly written in a fairly modern style. There are a small number of fairly game specific words (translations of "adept" as a noun, "psynergy", "alchemy", etc), but not many and most of the time you learn real intermediate level vocab. Chengyu are used occasionally.

 

I'd say that the language level is fairly intermediate, perhaps lowish intermediate. Its a step up from Pokemon though!

I'm most of the way through the first game now, and it has improved my Chinese reading (and other aspects of my Chinese) considerably. I've played the game before in English about 12 years ago, so I vaguely remember the story which helps. There is an English script available online which contains the game's main dialogue (its available here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/468548-golden-sun/faqs/40946)... I found the script really useful for some of the harder sentences that I couldn't quite make sense of!

 

Aside from the Chinese, the game has a fairly decent story (for a game), very pretty graphics and fantastic music. Its really a very polished game.

 

Finally, I haven't played that many games in Chinese, just Golden Sun, Pokemon yellow, rain of blood and 古剑奇谭. 古剑奇谭 was a fair bit above my level, but I will reattempt it when I have improved sufficiently as its a beautiful game.