The Grand Gaming Project

[dutchgertjan]

你好，玩遊戲的朋友！
 

I have difficulty finding roms for the gba. Can somebody recommend me a site where those sweet sweet chinese gba games can be downloaded? I tried the websites at the beginning of this psot, bt for some reason i'm not able to 下載......
also, is it possible to get patches for some games toreplace the english in-game text with chinese characters? I would love to play skyrim in chinese, but unfortunately I don't know how to switch between languages.

Anyhow, thnx in advance!

[murrayjames]

It's been almost three years since I posted in this thread. So here's an update:

 

Here are some games I've played in Chinese since 2011. For each one I included a basic description, screenshot, and even some example sentences A few of these games have been recommended here before. Most of these games require an Intermediate language level to play. (Except maybe possibly the first one.)

 

======================

Microsoft Solitaire Collection

======================

 

 

Because, why not? There's more Chinese than you think, if you read the game rules, Tip of the Day, etc. Also, check out my custom 草泥马 theme. Booya. Downloaded for free from the Windows 8 app store.

 

不能在第一轮出黑桃皇后或红桃。

You cannot play the Queen of Spades or a Heart on the first turn.

 

=====

Adera

=====

 

 

Another Windows 8 app. I downloaded this for my laptop in early 2012; at the time, it was one the few games in the store. It's basically a puzzle game. You find clues and click on things to solve puzzles. The story is about some girl trying to find her grandpa and her helicopter crashes or something. Nothing special.

 

The game is good for vocab, it comes with Chinese audio and subtitles, and the entire interface is in Chinese. (You need to be connect to China's app store to get the Chinese version, though.) Professionally made and free, the game is mindless and works great with a touchscreen.

 

这个地方好像吻合一块六角形的瓦片。

This place seems like it could fit a hexagon-shaped tile.

 

我不想杀死这条蝎子……

I don't want to kill this scorpion...

 

======

Freeciv

======

 

 

An open source version of the Civilization series. It plays a lot like Civ II. I had fun with this on and off for a year. For a Civ fan, it's great to see Chinese versions of those tech trees, and have Atilla the Hun threaten you in Mandarin...

 

You can download this for most operating systems here:

http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

 

Instructions on using a Chinese localization here:

http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Interface_Language

 

两栖作战 使能　陆战队

AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE enables MARINES

 

兑现您对我们光荣同盟的承诺吧，您的名字将会被永世不忘！

Honor your glorious alliance with us, and your name will be never be forgotten!

 

=================

Civilization V《文明5》

=================

 

 

Eventually I just bit the bullet and went all in. Civ V! Spent a day on Baidu looking for a working link and put a virus on my computer in the process.

 

It was worth it. This game is beautiful and addictive. The version I found was translated by a community of users, but it is professionally done. There's tons of Chinese if you stop to read everything. It even includes full translations of the add-on packs Gods & Kings and Brave New World.

 

The game is a time vampire, though. It will ruin your marriage.

 

科技停滞！

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY is stagnating!

 

===========================

Civilization Revolutions《文明变革》

===========================

 

 

The same deal but you can finish a game in an hour. I bought the iOS version for 18 RMB. There are many different versions available. The Chinese translation is official, though, and comes if you buy the game in the China App Store.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/wen-ming-bian-ge-ipad/id439611147

 

Gandhi野蛮地攻击了我们

Gandhi savagely attacked us!

 

==================

To the Moon《去月球》

==================

 

 

I downloaded this game after seeing it twice recommended here. "To the Moon" is an RPG with a 16-bit retro feel to it. The game is not difficult -- it's not one of those combat, level-up type RPGs. It's mostly dialogue. The Chinese translation is funny and colloquial, and the story is touching. Good music, too. Highly recommended.

 

The original English version is available on Steam. I searched for the Chinese version on Baidu and eventually found it.

 

那是因为它们受不了你喋喋不休地胡说八道。

That's because they can't stand you jabbering on and on with nonsense.

 

=================

Half-Life 2《半条命2》

=================

 

 

Perhaps the greatest action game ever made. Gordon Freeman mashes headcrabs with his trusty crowbar in a race to save City 17. This game has amazing action, great plot, loveable NPCs and an advanced graphics engine (for the time). It also has a large amount of dialogue, at least compared to its predecessor. Set Steam language to Chinese to get the Chinese version. It comes with subtitles and full Chinese audio.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/220

 

=====

 

Well, that's my quick update Keep gaming everyone!

 

[tysond]

Regarding "To The Moon"

 

Attached are the full Chinese dialogues for the game.  It opens fine for me in Word using UTF-8 encoding.

I jumped through a number of hoops to extract this from the game, maybe it will be useful for others.

 

[As a note -- I used all-decrypter to decrypt the files, used DreaMaker (in French) to extract the dialogs]

 

You can import this into Chinese Text Analyzer and use it to pre-learn vocabulary.  

Or you can play the game and use it to revise what you think you understood (search for key phrases to find the corresponding text).

 

This file is designed for translators to translate the text.  

The dialog in each scene is in order, but the scenes are not in order.  

So you might accidentally "spoil" the game by reading stuff that hasn't happened yet.

Or you will see what happens if you made different choices.

dialogues.txt

[xuexiansheng]

Civ 5 in Chinese!   That would be like crack wrapped in heroin for me. I must resist finding a copy!

[chinabro]

Hey awesome post.

I was reading back a bit in this thread from about 2 years ago and noticed someone post: To the Moon
http://www.verycd.com/topics/2914655

I think it just recently became popular in English speaking countries, but would love to get my hands on a Mandarin version.

Also, it may have already been suggested but I hear Castle ( 幽城幻剑录) is a really cool game.

http://www.verycd.com/entries/1349/


I downloaded Castle from here:

http://www.yxdown.com/SoftView/softview_128.html#ANew
But my Anti-virus is saying it has a trojan. Could be just my Anti-virus mis-detecting but don't really want to risk it if there is a safer place to download.

I think VeryCD is supposed to be pretty legit, but I don't understand how to download from the site. There is no 下载 button anywhere.
Anyone know how to download from VeryCD?

Thanks guys,
Hope to find more games in the future

[tysond]

I bought To The Moon on steam I think. But it was the English version.

Then I used yygamebox to download the Chinese version. This is not legal but since I already bought it I think its acceptable. But yygamebox installs a lot of weird software so I recommend not using it on an important PC (or make a dual boot if you only have one PC).

I am on a phone now so hard to check but I think I posted the dialog transcripts from To The Moon so you can study it separately. Good luck!

[tysond]

One more thing. Downloading software from Chinese sites is full of danger. Your antivirus is probably right. Be careful. I recommend a totally different installation of windows for anything you download. At best, popup advertising and changing of your default apps. At worst, malware that will steal your banking details.

[rrTea]

Has anybody managed to get Animal Crossing on iQue (Nintendo64)? It's a game where you go around and talk to villagers, there is no violence nor fights of any kind. The language is very everydayish and conversational. I only played the Japanese versions on GameCube, but if the Chinese version is anything like it it should be fantastic for learning. The translation is official so I'd expect it to be good, Nintendo products are usually very solid. If I could, I'd get an iQue solely for this game.

 

Recently I bought (traditional) Chinese version of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training on 3ds, and the localization is fantastic. Everything is translated! The voice acting is really good, there are a few sentences here and there where the volume drops a bit, but that's about the only complaint I have. All ingame text is also in characters, even what is embedded in images. I've been playing it for a few months now, and regardless of your level of Chinese you'll benefit from playing this game... maybe your brain will get a good workout in the process - highly recommended! It was fun to discover I actually can't count properly in Chinese Reading the credits implies there is also a simplified Chinese version, but I never saw it anywhere. Where can I buy it?

 

(I can't post the links, so I'm attaching them.)

剪贴板文本.txt

[murrayjames]

UPDATE: Since I posted last July, Firaxis has released traditional Chinese versions of some recent Civilization games, including Civ 5 (+expansions) and the new Beyond Earth. So for those of you who wanted to play Civ in Chinese without getting a virus on your computer (like I did), now you can :-)

 

Civilization V - http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/

Civilization V Complete (w/Gods&Kings and Brave New World) - http://store.steampowered.com/sub/36075

Civilization: Beyond Earth - http://store.steampowered.com/app/65980/

 

UPDATE 2: If you have a 淘宝 account, check for deals on these games. I just bought a legitimate version for Civ V Complete for 75RMB. Quite a deal, considering it sells on Steam for $50 US.

 

UPDATE 3: You can download a simplified Chinese localization here ( http://www.civclub.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=75416&extra=&page=1 ). It's different from the 繁体 localization provided by Firaxis, using different words for units, technologies, etc. that will make more sense if you studied in Mainland China. I installed this on my own Steam copy and can confirm it works.

[murrayjames]

chinabro,

 

When I first came to China, you could find anything on VeryCD. Those days are long gone... In 2009, they were forced to remove download links for a lot of content, including American TV and movies, and later, video games.

 

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2011-01-23/03165121782.shtml

 

According to the link above, they were shut down not for distributing pirated content, but for lacking the necessary broadcasting license    

 

“7年的心血和积累，说关就要关，说停就要停。现在所能做的，维有面对现实…… 全面正版是社会进步的表现，我们对此并无怨言，VeryCD去盗版化是顺势而为，目前所需要做的，是如何帮助用户便捷得获取到正版内容。”

[kangrepublic]

I haven't played it yet but Shan Gui (山桂) is in the Steam sale at 50% off (£1.99) and is probably worth checking out.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/307050

 

Comments by users say it's a visual novel but without any choices or different endings so may be more like an illustrated short story. I'll probably buy it just to see what it's like. Reviews seem positive and I'll get some listening and reading practice out of it.

[murrayjames]

kangrepublic,

 

While the user reviews are positive overall, the negative ones are pretty entertaining.     Some examples...

 

• This user is not sure a visual novel counts as a game:

 

按住空格不到30秒30块钱花完了

 

• This bilingual review reads quite different in English and Chinese（三鹿奶粉 doesn't translate so well）：

 

制作商说话当放屁就算了，游戏的画风也是恶心，两个主角四肢跟枯柴似的，胸前还能长两颗斯伯丁篮球，脑袋也跟吃了三鹿奶粉似的，看着像娘化大头儿子一样，审美观扭曲得跟旧社会的那种裹脚布美学有的一拼。剧情一小时，说短吧喝一小时白开水你试试看，说长吧我又卜是匹诺曹，谁买谁傻逼！

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Female characters look like poor tortured Gollum from The Lord of the Rings

Plot written by some filthy patriarchal men

Sexist, garbled mess...

There is no way to play this game and not feel like a dirty, crusty, leering old man.

It is trashy. It is gross. It is pandering.

I feel ashamed to play this game.

 

Shangui is deeply misogynistic.

 

• And some users, well...

 

一开场女主角的胸太大了，受不了，原谅我是贫乳控~

[kangrepublic]

I hadn't delved too deeply into those reviews.

 

 

...I can say nothing after I playing Shan Gui

[rrTea]

Continuing from Brain Training (previous post), I went ahead and got Chinese (traditional) versions of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Resident Evil: Revelations.

 

Zelda doesn't have that much text and there are lots of names and slightly useless terminology, but what is there is localized well and thoroughly. Just like in Brain Training, you can even input your name in Chinese! I didn't really like the choice of font but it's still readable, so maybe it's just my personal preference. During certain cutscenes (a minority really) the text proceeds automatically and slightly too fast for me which I didn't like. So overall, not that fantastic for studying but not bad either. In any case I don't regret buying it at all because the game is great and fits perfectly on 3ds (the textures and some other things are slightly tweaked / updated for 3ds, I think)!

 

Resident Evil: Revelations is... completely useless for Chinese. Lots of text and all spoken dialogue are in English (the Japanese versions of REs that I played were also like that), except for a few buttons / items and short scene descriptions (which vanish from screen automatically, so no way you'll have enough time to look up a word!) which are in Chinese. The game is basicallyRE4 (which I enjoyed a lot, played through GC version some 5 times): the protagonist girl even looks / behaves like Leon, the controls are good... but I still didn't like it (Edit: I must have been blind, see next post), it feels like it misses the vision of RE4. I'll give it another try once I'm done with Zelda.

[rrTea]

Went back to Resident Evil: Revelations and actually there is quite a bit of properly translated text later in the game, but it comes in largish chunks (various diaries, log files and similar)... Which in my opinion isn't very practical. The font is relatively readable (I have a 3DS XL so maybe that helps a bit), except on some rare occasions (interface mainly) where it gets a bit blurry. Old characters especially should have nice and sharp AA for best readablity (good luck guessing certain parts of a character unless you already know how it's written), here they have an extra outline of black? and the AA looks "glowy". No big deal but it is a bit grating. Luckily that's just a minority of cases.

 

As for the game itself,... after playing it a bit more: it is much better than I orginally thought! Many parts are directly based on RE4 (good thing in my book), from story, graphics, various effects to overall design, but some parts are tweaked, for example instead of Mercenaries mode there is the new Raid Mode, which also plays great. The weapons system is also fun to play with: you get various "upgrade" parts that can be combined (similar to how it worked in upgrade system in later MegaMan BattleNetwork or Solato Robo, but without the puzzle element). The Italian voice acting is very good!

 

So I still wouldn't call it super useful for language purposes (like Brain Training) but it's not as useless as I originally thought. At least it's a fantastic game!

 

I also got demos of a few games from 3DS eShop, some of them have good localizations, I'd probably get them immediately if it weren't for the fact you can't buy Nintendo points easily where I live >.<

[Walkingtree]

I played Skyrim in Chinese, but it was in traditional characters and I'm learning simplified. I was able to make out a decent amount but obviously my understanding was highly contextual. Also the voice acting was still in English.

 

Currently I dink around on a cellphone game called 天天酷跑。 Anybody else here play that?

[MichaelJames]

Slightly off-topic, but I have found that changing my iPhone/iPad language to Chinese has forced me to learn or at least recognise quite a few new words (mostly tech-related of course).

[murrayjames]

@Walkingtree,

 

Finding simplified versions of AAA titles like Skyrim has never been easier. Do a search for "Skyrim简体” in Baidu and this is the first result, a fan-made localization that patches the original game:

 

http://bbs.3dmgame.com/thread-2547421-1-1.html

 

You can tell it's legit because there's a 100+ page thread with people thanking the uploader, updating the translation, etc.. In general, you want to search Baidu and add 简体 or 汉化 to the name of the game in English. Ignore all websites that look suspicious. Another option is buying the game on 掏宝. Search for the game title in English. If the cost is over 50RMB and the merchant has over 95% positive reviews, it's a legit copy of the game. Read product descriptions for the instructions. Some games require Steam activation, and the localization is a mod. Other times you may have to patch（补丁）the game .exe directly.

 

My wife sometimes plays 天天酷跑 against her friends   

 

@MichaelJames,

 

Good point. Another reason to set your computer or phone OS to Chinese: games usually default to the language you are using.

[mouse]

murrayjames,

 

Does《文明变革》has any Chinese audio, or is it just all text? Also, from my memories of Half Life 2, while there's a fair bit of talking in a few cut scenes and interactions, there are long stretches of the game without any speech. Did this bother you while playing? I mean, did you feel you were learning while playing?

 

Thanks

[murrayjames]

@mouse,

 

There's no spoken audio in《文明变革》, unless you count the nonsense syllables your advisers and other world leaders make when they appear 

 

It's been a while since I played the Half-life games. If I recall correctly, the first Half-Life had some weird Chinese. Half-Life 2 was professionally translated, though the voice acting still paled from the Alyx, Breen and Barney of the English version. Both games use Taiwanese speakers. To give you an idea, watch this video of the Chinese localization of HL2: Lost Coast:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ohAika_Oc

 

I was playing mainly to enjoy the game, so I didn't mind the lack of audio. I'm also from the AJATT school that says do whatever you want to do, so long as its in your target language. That may not be the fastest way to learn, but it does increase your contact with Chinese, just like using Chinese localizations of Gmail, Facebook, Microsoft Word, etc. Also, with a lot of modern PC games, you can turn on tool-tips, closed captioning or subtitles to see more of the written language.

 

I learned some Chinese weapon vocabulary that way 

 

撬棍 crowbar

重力枪 gravity gun

左轮手枪 revolver

冲锋枪 assault rifle

霰弹枪 shotgun

弩弓 crossbow

手雷 hand grenade

火箭筒 rocket launcher