Talk:Descent (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Fuchs (talk · contribs) 19:36, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

{{doing}} Should have comments up by the end of this week. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:36, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Overall the article is in pretty great shape. Some points:

• General:
  • Descent is a spacecraft-based first-person shooter and shoot 'em up[1] video game Why is this a) cited in the lead, and b) not mentioned in the body text? The lead shouldn't contain novel information—on this note, you really need to recast the gameplay section to feature the basic gameplay introduction.
  • In June 1995, the Descent shareware version fell to No. 6 of the 10 top-selling budget PC games and the full game to No. 9 of the 20 top-selling full price PC games[48] before dropping off the chart next month.—bit weird construction here, because we're talking about the game falling off the bestseller lists without mentioning it was ever on them. Are there sources for earlier?
• Prose:
  • For two levels, the reactor core is replaced with a boss. In these levels, the objective is to destroy the boss in order to trigger the meltdown and escape before the mine self-destructs. These sentences are kind of redundant; the first sentence suggests that the gameplay objective just swaps the reactor core with the boss.
  • Each level is based in a "claustrophobic"[6][7][8] mine or military installation[6] located in various locations in the Solar System in an outward pattern from Earth. The levels are first set on the Moon, and then move inward through the solar system via Venus to Mercury. The player then proceeds further from the Sun, with a level on Mars before progressing towards Pluto's moon Charon. This is also a bit confusing. "Outward pattern from earth" suggests a linear approach, rather than going closer to the sun and then jumping to the edge of the solar system. Why not just say levels are set on Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Pluto's moon Charon?
  • The story begins with a briefing between an anonymous executive of the Post Terran Mining Corporation (PTMC) and the player's character. He is their best "Material Defender",—not clear the "he" in the second sentence is the player character or the executive.
• References:
  • References look to meet reliable sources guidelines; I did a quick spot-check of statements attributed to current refs 1, 18, 26, 42, 54, 62, and 81, and didn't spot issues.
• Media:
  • File:Descent.png needs a better fair use rational per NFCC than "to illustrate the game". --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:19, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
    • @David Fuchs: I fixed all of the listed issues. I also made other edits, particularly removing unnecessary internal links to prevent overlinking. I do believe that the article is good enough to pass GA, as well as be nominated for FA. I put a lot of effort into editing this article and researching the subject. I even emailed the Parallax Software team at https://www.playoverload.com to request avatars of the co-creators of the game released under a CC-BY-SA-compatible license (unfortunately, I am still waiting for their answer, but at least I tried). Maybe take another look at the Sales and a look at the PC Zone review under Pre-release, but I think they are thoroughly researched and well-written. Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ 22:00, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
      • There is a standard template for NFCC screenshot descriptions at {{Non-free use rationale video game screenshot}}. I boldly updated the tags of both images used in the article. Regards, Lordtobi (✉) 19:47, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
• I have done another pass of the article and did not see remaining issues for GA status, so I will be passing. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:29, 17 September 2019 (UTC)