Cause and Effect (“All hands, abandon ship!”)
FIFA Soccer 09 includes play-by-play by Clive Tyldesley and commentary by Andy Gray. Where’s John Motson? Anyway, I dunno about the other versions, but on the PSP, this game’s commentary has a ridiculous glitch where after a whistle for an offside, save, or what not, Andy Gray, thinking he saw one player bumrush another, claims that someone’s been hurt and needs to be wobbled away on a stretcher. Not only that, but he has been recorded crying the same conspiracy theory in every imaginable way:
| "Well I think he may have to come off. It was a brilliant slide tackle, but I think he's injured himself." | Was there even a slide tackle, let alone a brilliant one? Two players bumped into each other, and neither is rolling around with his hand in the air, looking in the ref's direction with the one open eye. |
| "Well, it was a great tackle; you have to admire that. But, he may have to come off -- I think he's injured himself. | Well, that's an interesting observation. But, you just rearranged the clauses and downgraded "brilliant" to "great." I think I'm going to sidegrade the quality of that one from "dubious" to "repetitive." |
| "He may have to come off. He never held back with that slide tackle. But he's come off second best." | Wait. What exactly are you saying? The guy who didn't hold back on the slide tackle is hurt? |
| "That was a great slide tackle. You have to admire that, but he may have to come off. He may have injured himself." | Hold on. The player who's hurt is the one who didn't hold back on that slide tackle? What are you saying exactly? |
| "Well he didn't hold anything back with that slide tackle, but I think he's hurt himself." | You sure are holding everything back on the variety. By chance are you burstin' for a pee, and need to quickly mail this one in? |
| "Well that was a brilliant slide tackle, but I think he's come off limping. Let's see if he can go on." | OK. You're starting to sound like a crazy. Let's see for how much longer you can go on before you crap yourself and start drawing pentagrams on the wall with a chunk of your own stool. |
| "Well it was a lovely slide tackle, but I think he's come off limping. It'll be interesting to see of he can go on." | Well blabbety blabbety slide tackle... this commentary is limping. It'll be interesting if it goes on in FIFA 10. |
| "That was a thunderous slide tackle, but I think he's injured himself in the process." | I think you've injured your brain in the process. |
As you approach the end of a game and hear one of these gems for the sixteenth time, you just want to punch someone in the mouth: Andy Gray, yourself, the testers who thought this was OK, the QA manager who doesn’t listen to testers, Billy Mitchell, Tyldesley — just ’cause he’s in the same room as Andy, the guy at EB Games who always asks me if I want the used version of the game I’m buying…
What’s that? Don’t shoot the messenger? Well it’s too bad I’m not playing the PS3 version. I could then download one of the non-English-language commentary packs, and while still getting some sense of atmosphere from the general tone of the play-by-play, hopefully not realize István B. Hajú or Evert Ten Napel are reading the same stupid lines over and over. Not exactly intended use, but it can serve a good purpose.
“Goed was dat een briljante diauitrusting, maar ik denk hij limping. Zie of kan hij gaan!”
Gee. Thanks a lot, Babel Fish.