Being a games translator, I have to say the argument "jokes get lost in translation" is a very overrated one - since there are not that many such jokes in usual games. It's different with overly humorous games of course but that is not a big part of the cake. And of course there ARE translators who actually are good writers and can save the humour/style/spirit of the original. It goes without saying that you don't find them in Far Asia working for 3 Cents per word.
What people from countries without translation tradition don't know/understand is that this kind of translation/dubbing usually is quite good in Germany for example... another fine example seems to be Hungary (in movies at least). The people have long experience with it and manage to deliver good work - which you can't compare some lame localisation from other countries. Plus games are nowhere near to movies yet... most games have mediocre voice acting and/or texts at best. So, even if you don't translate them to German, they are not perfect anyway. (Obviously, that's not the case with movies.)
Personally, I prefer the original game, too, of course. But I don't agree with the general criticism of game/movie localisation.
