New shots of The Settlers on DS

Despite being a relatively small media behemoth, Pocket Gamer has thought of opening a German branch. Mainly because we like the Germans.

We like how they find us funny and yet they never trouble us with jokes of their own. We like how they keep pushing our lazy football team to try harder. We also like their hearty food, beer, and blonde maidens.

Most of all, though, we admire their mastery of the German language, and thus their handy ability to decipher, for instance, the infuriating German-only press release that accompanied these attractive new screenshots of DS strategy title The Settlers.

We already know a bit about the DS-incarnation of this much-loved PC strategy game. As we reported last month, the grow-crops-and-conquer affair will feature four vying races to chose from (Roman, Viking, Nubian and Asian), 30 job types, six soldier types and at least two distinct campaigns (Roman or Global) plus a quick free-play option.

We've also gleaned from the latest German press release that the game is due out in the last quarter of this year – presumably Europe-wide, rather than just in Germany.

But to be honest, anything else is a guess. What does, "Stufenloser Zoom ladt zum Beobachten der wuseligen Siedler ein" mean, for goodness sake?

We think it means, "Some loser called Stuffen zooms away with the lads after he's called a wuss by his mate Siedler." But we don't mind admitting that interpretation seems less than 100 per cent likely, given the civilisation-building theme of previous Settlers games.

Nope, there's nothing else for it but to pester Ubisoft for an English translation. Until then, we'll all have to settle for drooling over these charming looking screenshots.

Update: A thoughtful German reader has translated that phrase for us: "A smooth zoom invites the player to simply watch the busy settlers moving around." We were close!