German translation help?

[Dave Gilbert]

Hi all,

Adventure Europe recently posted this review of Unbound, but aren't able to provide a translation.  Can any kind German translate this review for me?

http://www.adventure-eu.com/de/index.php?option=com_contentask=view&id=569&Itemid=1

I'll post the translation on my site along with the name of whoever translated it.

Thanks muchly!

-Dave

[Nikolas]

heh...

They took all the BGs from Legacy for screennies for the review of Unboud? Could leave a couple for a surprise!

anyways here's the translation:

"With Blackwell legacy (2006) and Blackwell unboud (2007) has Widget eye games..." That's as far as I got.

:p

[Akatosh]

I'm working on it right now, but you'll need a little patience 

[Akatosh]

Review of "The Blackwell Legacy" and "Blackwell Unbound"

With „The Blackwell Legacy“ (2006) and „Blackwell Unbound“ (2007), Wadjet Eye Games (lead by Dave Gilbert) laid the foundation for an interesting series of adventure games, carrying the subtitle „A Supernatural Mystery“. The series is developed using the Adventure Game Studio (AGS) and is currently available in English language only. This review deals with the already released first two parts because they are quite similar in their general structure*. You can view screenshots and rating for both parts via the following links.

Screenshots and Rating "The Blackwell Legacy"
Screenshots and Rating "Blackwell Unbound"

Package, Manual and Installation

The game is available both as download only and CD version via the developer's homepage.  The installation did not cause any problems and took up 240MB for part one and another 205MB for the second part of the series. A short description of the game's main features is included in a simple text file. In the options menu, subtitles, speech, the automatic tutorial and the Making-Off comments by Dave Gilbert (more about this later) can be accessed. Another menu button leads to the bonus material, but it needs to be unlocked later in the game or via a password found in the credits first.

Story and Background

In means of general background, the series follows the fate of the Blackwell family whose female members have to fulfill a special task. Under the spiritual guidance of Joey Mallone, who appears to them from a certain point in their lives on, they have to guide the spirits of the deceased out of this world. We enter the thrilling story with Rosangela Blackwell, who is just strewing the ashes of her deceased aunt Lauren down from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Aunt Lauren had been lying in a coma for years before, but after the early death of both of her parents, she had been Rosangela's only remaining person of reference**. Upon visiting the doctor who had been taking care of her aunt for the years she lay in her coma, Rosangela discovers that there appears to have been a mysterious secret her aunt appearantly took along in her grave. She finds further clues in the letters her aunt Lauren left behind and starts to get upset. Soon Rosangela (after a heavy headache attack) was to find out what the dark secret was that caused her aunt to fall in a coma and drove her grandmother into madness many years ago...

The first part puts the focus on introducing the story framework around the Blackwell family, which turns out to be very interesting. Rosangela explores the past of her family and it is not long until she meets Joey Mallone. The second part is a little more shallow in terms of tension because it deals more with confronting the spirits of recently deceased with their own death in so-called "cases" and leading them out of this world. It is, however, interesting in that the second part is more of a prequel and the focus is put on a new main character. There is, of course, a clear relation to the general background story, but in a much less detailed way. Due to Dave Gilbert, the second part technically consists of "flashback material" that originally had been made for "The Blackwell Convergence", the third part of the series (not released yet), but was not included because the authors felt it would have simply been too much. Because of the episodic nature of the games, it is only natural that the big picture will only be revealed part by part. The story however has a great potential, many things have been left open and there is hope for more thrilling episodes that hopefully will actually reveal further details of the background story.

Graphics, Sound and Speech

Admittedly, the low resolution and the resulting pixeled graphics mag seem little attractive on first sight, but a low resolution does not necessarily result in bad graphics. This adventure is a very good example for this. The locations and characters have been designed with a lot of love for details, it is really nice to see what can be done with few pixels (=low resolution). The animations are, too, well done, and especially the movements of Rosalenga Blackwell are very good-looking. Close-ups of the currently talking characters are shown during the dialogs, presenting different expressions fitting to the current situation. Unfortunately these close-ups of the characters are only present in the first part and are entirely missing in the second one, which is on the whole graphically inferior to the first part.

All dialogs on the game have been synchronized with a good to very good quality. Some mild interferences have sneaked in (especially in the first part) now and then, but this isn't that bad. The voices have been chosen very well, especially that of Rosangela Blackwell (spoken by Sande Chen). In general, all speech is very clear, without strong accents and comprehensible so one should, with some knowledge of English, not have any problems following the dialogs; the optional subtitles further aid in this. The music is extremely good in both parts of the series, even though the soundtracks have been done by different artists and thus are not very similar. It is always fitting to the current situation, location and/or plot, full of variations and, especially in the second part, a small highlight.

Gameplay

The controls consists entirely of a Point&Click-Interface, and you can even switch between two playable characters in the second part. For those new to the genre there is a comfortable tutorial explaining everything you need to know about controls and gameplay. It can be activated via the options menu. A special gameplay element is the inclusion of a notebook which automatically tracks all collected information. Links and contradictions can be found via the combination of two pieces of information, unlocking new dialog topics and possible actions. The inventory can be shown on the top of the screen, from where you also can access the comfortable save / load menu. The difficulty of the game definitely is "easy" and the playtime of both parts combined is about 7 hours. A very special feature are Dave Gilbert's optional Making-Of-Comments. If activated, spoken explanations and background information is included in the gameplay every once in a while. This is very interesting and even funny in parts. This feature alone motivates to play the game at least a second time. In addition, there is a lot of bonus content unlockable via competing the game. The passwords needed for this are displayed during the credits at the end of the game. While the first part only features a few outtakes that happened during the recording of the speech, the second one also has concept art, additional music, comments of the developers and director's orders of the speech recordings.**

Summary

The first parts of the Blackwell series are very good adventures; let's hope for an interesting continuation. During the first part, we are introduced into the thrilling story of the Blackwell family, whose female members have been assigned to the task of leading the spirits of the deceased out of this world for several generations. Each of these "leadings" is something of an own case, which the second part clearly puts the focus on. Unfortunately its plot does not quite reach the quality of the first part. Both part's graphics look very pixelled due to the low resolution. Nevertheless, they have been lovely designed with a lot of details, so don't be scared by the low resolution - after all, it's not the graphics alone that make an adventure good. Both parts feature very high quality speech and music. The game is only available in English right now, but all dialogs have been spoken very clearly and should be understandable with some knowledge of the English language. Also, there are English subtitles. The integrated tutorial, bonus material and optional Making-Off comments further increase the value of the games. Playing time is about 4 hours for the first and 3 for the second part; both ran without any technical issues whatsoever. In conclusion, if you're not scared away by the pixely graphics and possess some English skills, don't miss these great series!

- Michael Schachinger / 06.10.2007

Final Rating

HIGHS: Great soundtrack
LOWS: Low resolution

QUOTE: Interesting story, lovely integrated

GRADES:

Story: 84%
Graphics: 69%
Sound: 79%
Gameplay: 81%

Overall: 78%


* very rough translation, word-by-word would be "in their way of making"
** no idea if this is any correct as a translation

There you go, one translation! I'm not sure about how I translated some of the more idiomatic expressions and I most likely made a lot of capitalization mistakes, but it should be ok. 

[Dave Gilbert]

T H A N K S ! ! !

[Akatosh]

You're welcome