Star Controller

Zarla matched dialog with audio files to translate the speech:

In the beginning of January 2010, I got my hands of the Japanese version of Star Control II.  Although I don’t understand Japanese, it’s a great addition to anyone’s collection.

Here are some things I noticed in this version:

• The default name of the flagship is Kamui.  It is a Japanese word that can be used to describe a god or divine spirit.
• The default name of the captain is Isamu.
• The paper starmap is not included; instead there is a hint book at the back of the manual listing the coordinates of each star system.  Everything is packaged in a double CD case, like the ones for 2-disc PlayStation games.
• The VUX are the only race not translated in Japanese.
• The screenshots in the manual and packaging are from the English version.

I thought about translating some Japanese text such as the the game’s translated title and names of the aliens.  Since I don’t understand any other languages other than English, I opened Microsoft Word and pulled out some Japanese characters so that I can enter it into an online Japanese-English dictionary.  Unfortunately, it was a tedious process; I looked at each symbol and matched them one at a time.  In addition, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is still impractical to use for this purpose.  With the time I spent on this, I was able to translate two things:   Star Control II is called Star Kosotororu II and the Orz are called Orth.

I remember a few years ago I wrote a letter to Alex Ness on my 19th birthday and he told me that when he was 19, he worked at Crystal Dynamics as a lead tester.  The first game he tested was the Japanese version of Star Control II:

Hey that just reminded me. You know what I did when I was 19? Became a lead tester at Crystal Dynamics. So what, right? Well guess what my first game as lead was? The Japanese version of Star Control 2!

That was also when I met Paul Reiche and Fred Ford. I was a huge fan of Archon and Mail Order Monsters as well so meeting them was like some kind of crazy dream. I remember seeing Paul’s picture on the Archon box when I used to play it religiously on the Commodore 64. It’s still weird to think that I now work with that dude.
- Alex Ness

When I got this game in the mail, I asked Alex what is was like testing the Japanese version:

Nice going with that Japanese version of SCII. I remember thinking the voices were pretty good although a ton of the humor was lost in translation. I used to sit with the Japanese translators and play through the game, asking them what each thing said and the way they explained it to me never quite sounded right. I think that’s just because our languages are so different and Paul’s style of writing is very American so they didn’t really understand it. Especially when it came to creatures like the Orz/Orth! The Mycon turned out pretty well, as I recall. What do you think of the voices?
- Alex Ness

Alex took on the role of producer at TFB in 2000, when they were developing 102 Dalmations: Puppies to the Rescue for Eidos.

I remember a few years ago, there was some talk of taking the speech from the Japanese translation and creating an addon for The Ur-Quan Masters.  However, with the years that has passed by, it is complicated to determine who owns the rights to the audio and whether or not it is okay to freely distribute it.  Serge asked Paul Reiche about finding the Japanese bitmap fonts and legally using the audio.  Here is his reply:

Hi Serge,

Man, I don’t really know the answer to that question — especially the Japanese font — because we contracted the Japanese version to Free Fall Games, and I don’t know what kind of legal encumberances might exist.  I don’t think anyone on the planet will give you a hard time about using the VO and font though, but that’s just my opinion.

Hope that helps!

- Paul

There’s more e-mails that Serge quotes in the thread and it’s worth reading.  It shows a complicated side of video games that has popped up many times in video game news:  Rights ownership.  Because Atari owns the title “Star Control”, its open source release is called The Ur-Quan Masters.  It’s great to see that this legality didn’t stop UQM from happening.

I’d like to thank Alex for taking the time to write to me.  It’s awesome to learn new things about the people at TFB and how people are connected to Star Control.

Links
SC2 in Japanese

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I purchased the March issue of PC Gamer and discovered that the top 100 list is not there; after looking at the CD included, I found the previous February issue in digital form.

This is NOT the list that was made from user votes:

These 100—chosen globally by the staff of PC Gamer and PC Gamer UK and other PC gaming experts around the world—represent not just the highest of PC gaming culture, but also its variety, its daring, and its pioneering spirit. Each of our writers was asked to nominate 15 of their favorite games, in order. Their votes were collated, and arranged into the list you find here. Writers were then free to comment on their choices, or those of others. The results are the essential curriculum for every fan of PC gaming. The results are the essential curriculum for every fan of PC gaming. And now you can get in on the action, too! We’re offering our readers, the chance to produce your own Top 100. To take part, visit www.pcgamertop100.com and let us know what’s in your Top 100!
- “The Top 100 PC Games of All Time”, PC Gamer, Feb 2010

Star Control II was #55 on this list. Here’s what “D” had to say:

It combined the space adventuring of Starflight (or Star Trek) with the simple but addictive combat from Asteroids, and populated its openended universe with misfit aliens who ranged from genocidal Xenophobes to rude pterodactyls and taught us that Frungy was the sport of kings.
- “D”, “The Top 100 PC Games of All Time”, PC Gamer, Feb 2010

Dan Virkler sent me an e-mail a while ago about how Star Control II was listed as one of “30 commercial games released as FREE” on GamesRadar:

Star Control II was the best reasons to own a 3DO. Explore space, interact with other species, gather resources to improve your ship, and blast your friends to bits with this classic piece of sci-fi software.
- Tyler Nagata, “30 commercial games released as FREE”, GamesRadar

When I think of the 3DO, I realize that the first time I heard about this console was when I started to learn more about Star Control; when I first discovered that The Ur-Quan Masters was based on the 3DO code released by Toys for Bob, I started to wonder what the 3DO is.

The March issue of PC Gamer does not have the top 100 list of fan-chosen PC games; it only has an article titled “Games of the year award” for PC games in 2009. This is the second time I attempted to spread the word about something I’ve seen in PC Gamer; the first was voting TFB as the 50th best developer to be added in their “top 49″ list. With regards to that, they’ve never posted the results to that and they were probably curious about what we would have chosen.

The thing that confused me is that the February issue of PC Gamer mentioned voting on pcgamertop100.com now, when the site was up months ago!  I wrote to someone, asking if our votes still count; I still haven’t received a response.  Lukipela posted something on the SCDB that I agree with:

My thoughts are that I usually ignore these things. Star Control II may be a great game. It may even be the greatest game. But I don’t see how voting it up on whatever list is currently topical helps much. In this case though, since meep has started his initiative and all I can see a point to it.
- Lukipela

Voting for Star Control has no direct impact on Star Control itself. It’s great to see it pop up in countdowns and it will take more than that to show that there can be new Star Control games made today that will be successful.

I don’t have a subscription; I only buy the magazine whenever I hear about something interesting. I’m probably not going to use anything from PC Gamer for Star Control-related things anymore. It’s a great magazine and very popular; I respect their editor’s choice reviews, mainstream coverage and strong support for PC gaming. They’re very busy people with plenty of competition and I respect that. Based on what I’ve tried to do with 2 of the things I read from PC Gamer and the fact that they haven’t followed up with either one as of this posting, I’m not sure that it’s something that could benefit Star Control.

With regards to the “Campaign for a new Star Control”, I think we should take into account TFB’s current unannounced title; it will be something new, with a classic TFB feel, not based off another license and their biggest project yet.  If this game is successful, it can prove that TFB  is highly-talented with great ideas that can generate profit.  I wonder how many video game ideas they have in their minds.

I’d like to thank Dan for the GamesRadar link, Tyler for saying kind things about Star Control II and also “D” for saying some kind things about Star Control II in the March 2010 PC Gamer magazine.

Links
GamesRadar: 30 commercial games released for FREE
A campaign for a new Star Control
Vote Toys for Bob

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