Contacted J. Pataki [S3/Spinball tester]

drx · Jun 26, 2007

Contrary to what you might think at first, a tester might give some very nice info from the development of a game. There's probably going to be more, here's what I got so far:

During testing of the cartridge games, the lead tester
would burn several copies onto EPROMS, and then
distribute them to the testers on his team. Each EPROM
was numbered, and had to be signed in and signed out.
EPROMS are more expensive than CDs, so they were very
careful about knowing where they were at all times.
Also, after the final version of a game was burned,
and had gone through testing, the chips would then be
reused for future games until they wore out.

If games were burned onto CDs, such as the Sega Saturn
or 3DO (for Electronic Arts), the CDs were generally
destroyed or used as coasters, wall decoration, etc.
They were as ubiquitous as those AOL disks that were
everywhere.

Most games had been programmed overseas by the
Japanese, so when they came to us, the English
translations were just horrible and the better
grammarians in our group would work on making them
sound less foolish. As gamers know, many of our
corrections never made it to the final cut -
programmers and producers care about gameplay, not
text.
However, in one of the Sonic games, Sonic had to hit a
lot of blue balls. The game screen said "Get Blue
Balls" and our (mostly male) testing team sniggered
all over the place, as will happen, because that was
just funny. The text was later changed to "Blue
Spheres" and I have no idea what made it to the final
cut. I think they changed into red spheres.
If I think of any more changes, I'll let you know.
Click to expand...

Enjoy =)

Fred · Jun 26, 2007

lmao. I actually wondered where this change happened, since in the japanese manual (Strategy guide? I forget) they're referred to as ?????? (Blue Ball). Good stuff, drx.

Lostgame · Jun 26, 2007

That's very cool, thanks!

Ashura96 · Jun 26, 2007

o_O

Another close encouter with Engrish for Sonic.

Oh yeah -

In before someone hacks the rom to say "Get Blue Balls"

Rika Chou · Jun 26, 2007

Hahahahaha, oh I wish that would have made it to the final cut.

Flame · Jun 26, 2007

Hah, that's awesome. Someone should seriously look into putting that back in.

JoseTB · Jun 27, 2007

=P

Anyway, good stuff, thanks for the info drx.

RAMPKORV · Jun 27, 2007

GET SONIC'S BALLS

Ashura2k · Jun 27, 2007

Interesting stuff. I hope he remembers more...

drx · Jun 27, 2007

Ashura2k said:

Interesting stuff. I hope he remembers more...
Click to expand...

She =)

Contacted J. Pataki [S3/Spinball tester]

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