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Article published In:
Digital Translation
Vol. 10:1 (2023) ► pp.58–87

An analysis of the Spanish dubbing of the video game Iron Man 2

ORCID logo | University of Oviedo
Our study was motivated to investigate reasons why the Spanish localisation of the video game Iron Man 2 (Sega 2010) attracted extensive criticism. Scholars and gamers alike labelled it “abysmal” (Mejías-Climent 2021b, 134) and among the worst dubbing in Spanish of all time in the video game history. This article provides a descriptive and empirical analysis of the Spanish dubbing of the cinematic scenes of the game. We have focused our analysis, firstly, on the synchrony of the 50 cinematic scenes following Mejías-Climent’s (2021b) levels of restriction and types of dubbing synchronies, and, secondly, on the voice actors’ performance (acting, pronunciation and diction) and voice quality (character coherence) for the most relevant game characters by applying the methodology for voice quality analysis, drawing on Bosseaux (2015, 2018) and Rodríguez Fernández-Peña (2020). The results show that there has been a chain of oversights in the dubbing process, involving dubbing directors, voice actors and testers, which likely contributed to the negative reviews of the localised version in Spanish.
Keywords: video game, dubbing, localisation, voice quality, performance, synchrony, character coherence, Iron Man
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The voice recording process of a video game
    • 2.1The Spanish dubbing of Iron Man 2
    • 2.2Video game synchrony
    • 2.3Voice casting and character coherence
    • 2.4Performance
  • 3.The Spanish dubbing team
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Sound-sync analysis methodology
    • 4.2Voice quality analysis methodology
  • 5.Analysis of the Spanish dubbing
    • 5.1Synchrony analysis
    • 5.2Pronunciation of relevant words
    • 5.3Voice quality analysis
  • 6.Performance
  • 7.Results and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Gameography
Published online: 24 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dt.22014.rod
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Gameography
Arizona Sunshine (Vertigo Games 2016).Google Scholar
Captain America: Super Soldier (Sega 2011).Google Scholar
Iron Man (Sega 2008).Google Scholar
Iron Man 2 (Sega 2010).Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Rodríguez Fernández-Peña, Alfonso Carlos
2024. From screen to game: Translating Iron Man 2 cinematics into Spanish. Digital Translation 11:1 ► pp. 45 ff. DOI logo

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