Babblefish translations ftw?

[Admiral Donutz]

So, I just played through BiA: Hell's Highway.

An alright game, it was fun to play though I noticed various odd or outright lame or silly things:

- Supress enemy, flank, kill. Take all the time in the world, the Germans won't flank you. I could just hide behind a wall a stone throw away from the enemy and walk away from my computer. They wouldn't flank me a grenade at me. Makes it a bit easy as the only challenge is the number of enemies that are dug in.
- Don't forget, all Germans are evil: Hanging farmgirls from a rope (probably raped her too while they were at it), shooting an other through the head etc. Heer or Waffen SS, it doesn't matter, we need to demonize the Germans. You are fighting hardcore evil nazis afterall, and not a single dedicated soldier loyal to his commanders.
- All Germans look a like and all are regular soldiers: No squads with squad leaders and other Germans commanding the defenses, let alone lead a counter attack (German tactics were "sit tight till the enemy flanks us, then retreat 5 meters and be flanked again untill killed')
- It feels like going down one big alley with an option to flank here or there be going around one small object (house). I don't have any real space to manouvre. It feels much to claustrophobic.

- Is this supposed to look like the Netherlands because of the windmills (I forgive them throwing windmills in places were there wasn't any in real life, spicing up the enviroment with cliché looks), brick houses and the odd Dutch sign?
- I keep walking past the same bakery again and again. Sometimes that sam bakery has three or more shops in the same town within tens of meters from eachother. Starbucks syndrom?
- Civilian with the steeringwheel on the right side? This ain't the UK...
- Why did they used babblefish to translate English to Dutch (and German)? The spelling and grammar errors are all over the place. For example:

• The bakkery sign has "bekkers" it (spelling error) and "bakker". How do they manage to pull of a spelling error if the very sign has the propper spelling on it aswell? Now it reads "Meierijsche Koek en Banket Bakkerij" or "Meier-ian Cookie and Bakkeryproducts Bakker". With in the centre "JW van Bergen" (the name of the bakker) and beneath it "Bekkers". I'd guess this was meant to be "Bakkers" (Bakkers), indicating the Bergen family as Bakkers.
• "Meierijsch" is misspelled, it shoul be "Meiersche".
• Traffic signs: One says "Ultgezonderd" (spelling error, notice the L) and the other "Uitgezonderd" (propper spelling with an I). Looks like they misreaded a photo or something and didn't bother to spellcheck.
• "Paardvoer" , must be bablefish as it should be "Paardenvoer" (plural) translating to "Horsefood". Never mind that most, if not all horses simply ate grass and hey not produced in a factory...
• "Gevestigd 1925" (situated 1925) should be "Anno 1925" (since 1925).
• "Smakkelijk bier" should be "Lekker bier". "Smakkelijk is usually meant to indicate tastful foods and not drinks. Lekker, having prettymuch the same meaning would have made more sense. Though I guess it's not wrong persé. "Smaakvol" would have been better grammatically though.
• Why does the "Theesalon" sign have a double owner name?
  "E. cv. Liempo vd Sande". Was it meant to have two names on there (E. Williams & Liempo vd Sande" nevermind that it's odd to mention one name in full and the other not)? Or was it meant to one name and they somehow added in half a second first and last name ("Liempo vd Sande")? It just looks wrong and messy right now.
• What the fuck is "chocoladeartimelon (Chocolate...some letters that don't form any word at all)?? I guess they meant "Chocolade artikelen" (Chocolate articles/products)?
• What the fuck are "Domestibles"??
• Crate with "Het krat van voedsel" on it ("The crate of food). Can I eat the crate?

- Many signs make no sense at all, having being added for the sake of "looking Dutch":

• A sign indicating "Caution: Cyclist crossing!" (triangular sign red edged sign with bicycle in it) , with a sign below it saying "Scooters and cyclists excepted". The exception signs are added to signs such as one way street signs: ea this is a one way street but cclists are exepted and may enter from both sides.
• A sign indicating parking or standing still is not allowed (round sign with red edge on blue background with red diagonal stripe through it) and the under sign "Handicapped/Disabled people exceped". I'm not allowed to stop here unless I'm handicapped? Signs for Disabled Parkings look very different (P for parking and a wheelchair symbol designated a dedicated wheelchair parking spot).
• The sewer lids in the middle of the street read "Brandkraan" or "FIrehydrant". Why would a sewage system be designated as a fire hydrant access point for the firedepartment?
• "Snoepwinkel - de kinderen verhugen zich" (Candyshop - The children delight themselves". Errr...
• "Het geslachte lam - Word uw drank" (The slaughtered lamb - Will be(come) your drink"). I'll make up my own mind thank you... Nevermind the grammar error in "word" (should be "wordt").

- Streetsigns are all wrong

• Some streetnames are written in all caps, other's only have the first letter capitalized.
• The font looks modern (computer font)
• Modern design traffic signs (bicycle symbol used to be very detailed, the exlimation mark was a simple stripe without period beneath it, the no parking sign was a P on a white background with red edge and red line through it, there were no signs dedicated to handicaped people etc.)
• Placing all wrong: Sign indicating a dedicated bicycle lane halfway along an ordinarry (main?) road, sign indicating a junction/crossing with bicycles along a road with no such crossing, sign forbdding to stop/park (except handicapped people) near a street corner with no parking spaces to begin with.
• Streetname signs placed at places that would make them hard or impossible to read from the street (car/driver perspective), or intersecting eachother.
• Streetsign with exlimationmark, indicating caution doesn't have a sign below it stating what to be cautios of. These signs need such as sign ("Caution: conceilled driveway", or "Caution: obstacles on road") for example).
• Why do the signs mention Scooters? They didn't had those yet...

- The rural area's have houses that don't look Dutch: famrs with a lower balkony etc. Looks pretty American to me.
- The urban areas may have bricks to make them look Dutch but the layout of the street/town doesn't feel "Dutch". Throwing in a few Dutch signs don't make a town Dutch... throwing in a wooden telephone box only makes matters worse (those boxes were made of metal and glass you know, yes also back in WW2), some unidentified containers (vaglue matching modern day mass garbage bins..) don't really help either.
- All in all the levels feel like a hollywood stage decoration: Just throw in a random "Dutch" sign, plaster some "Dutch" looking wallpapers across surfacs (bricks etc.) and you have a Dutch enviroment... right. I guess it may feel Dutch to somebody who never has been in the Netherlands and knows very little about how it looks but come on... it looks like it was based of a cheap and fast google image search and even that research should have indicated the levels are missing a Dutch layout...

/ end of rant so far. I'll add more a bit later on.