Audio Atrocities (TM) :: Disaster Report (aka SOS:Final Escape) (Playstation 2)

When this game was brought over from Japan, there was a Helter Skelter approach to making it seem American. The main characters were given a Caucasian makeover, black hair became blonde, the city became a generic international city...and yet Japanese signs were left, Janglish spelling errors linger in the graphic backgrounds of scenes, and Japanese culture still seeps through (there's a joke about taking off your shoes before entering a wasted house, amongst other things).

But the real problems for this title aren't so much in the gameplay, but in WHAT the people are saying. Sometimes it's a bad performance. Other times, a combination of both a bad performance and a retarded line. Having two people having seemingly parallel conversations is not uncommon here, but the overall effect is still charming rather than annoying (unlike, say, Robot Alchemic Drive). Listen to the clips here, have a laugh, then go pick up the game on Ebay!

Exhibit A: “...as it should be, children are rescued in priority.”
There's no editing of this line. That's just as goofy as it sounds in the game. Someone was asleep at the translation wheel on this one.

Exhibit B: “...you can stay here and do filing.”
Let's see. The whole island is collapsing into the sea. The editor is high in a skyrise building working by candlepower, and interrupted only by aftershocks that sink his building a little more, but there's time for a little sexist back-and-forth over a ridiculous job that has no purpose save to separate the player from his tag-along ward. High school dramas have better scenes than this.

Exhibit C: “I have to stay alive and write this article before I die.”
I have to stay awake and write this paragraph before I sleep. Typical Japanese flow to a sentence that was not corrected at all for English. What kind of a newspaper editor would talk like this? Where did he get his English degree, Mongolia?

The Rest:
Haven't had enough? Here's some additional clips for your amusement:
Clip 4, Clip 5, Clip 6, Clip 7, Clip 8, Clip 9, Clip 10

“I have to stay alive and write this article before I die.”