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GA Review

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Reviewer: S@bre (talk · contribs) 01:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hullo! I'll be reviewing this article's GAN for you. An initial appraisal looks promising, though I have noted a few issues. I'll be following up shortly with the full review after I've spent some time looking through it. Watch this space! -- Sabre (talk) 01:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I look forward to your input and getting this to GA! :D Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I saw the request for a copy-edit and I'll be dropping by here on a near daily basis to copy-edit this big guy, one part at a time, so any suggestions would be more than welcome (to avoid me doing superfluous work) :) Mathijsvs (talk) 05:40, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do apologise for the delay in getting the review up, I got hit by a few off-wiki things that require more urgent attention. It'll hopefully be ready by Monday. Though I'll try to keep up with the copyediting progess mentioned above. -- Sabre (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Take your time, I'll hold back until your review is up, so we can do this in an orderly fashion :) Mathijsvs (talk) 23:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Alright, we have a potential for a very strong article here. I may be a little harsher than is possibly required for GA standards, but I think its necessary as this has very much got the capacity to go to FA. At the moment, we're on hold pending some changes.

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose quality:
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
    See below for both of these.
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. Has an appropriate reference section:
    B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:
    Reply: I'm removing all redundant reference tags (since half of the references are repeated several times in the same paragraph). Mathijsvs (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    C. No original research:
    No obvious issues here.
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    B. Focused:
    See below, the main issue here is the reception section, which I believe to be fundamentally flawed in its approach. There are also a few extra sources that can be used for development.
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
    Some ongoing activity, and occasional expansion, but nothing to really disrupt stability.
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
    The video is unconventional, but I'm convinced of its usage and purpose. The captions for the two people images could be more interesting though. Take a look at Brütal Legend for example.
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:
    On Hold until issues resolved

Introduction

  • "fighting to reclaim the Empire" – since the Empire is something that isn't really elaborated on at any point (and remains vague within the game anyway, I'd suggest either "fighting to reclaim the throne" or "fighting to reclaim Dunwall".

Gameplay

  • "which affect the effectiveness" – the similarity in the wording breeds some awkwardness in the flow. Replace either "affect" or "effectiveness" with a suitable synonym that doesn't sound similar.
  • "health and mana potions, and enemy awareness, damage delivered, and responsiveness" – I would suggest "health and mana potions, as well as enemy awareness, damage delivered and responsiveness"
  • The first use of NPC is should be spelt out in full, wikilinked and then have its abbreviation introduced. Currently, this is done in the second usage of NPC.
  • Link Health (gaming) in at an appropriate juncture.
  • "rather than having a specific "hacking path" and "sneaking path"" – would suggest "rather than specific paths aimed at particular gameplay styles" or some such derivative.
  • "Features and abilities" – technically we've been talking about features since the gameplay section started, so maybe run with a title such as "Player abilities", "Abilities and powers" or something similar?
  • Increase the size of the thumbnail for the video a bit. Its a little small to see what's going on.
  • "Corvo's body" – why not simply "Corvo"?
  • "Enemy AI will respond to sound and can be distracted by the player creating a sound in one place to lure a guard away from their position" – AI should be spelt in full and linked to Artificial intelligence (video games). Since the next pararaph continues to discuss AI, I would recommend moving this entire sentence to the second sentence of the paragraph below it.
  • "aware of the players presence" – missing possessive apostrophe.

Setting

  • "late 1800s - early 1900s" – would be better as simply "late 1800s to early 1900s". Wrong dash anyway.
  • "—known in the city as trans—" – something about the "trans" part of this feels like its missing something, like there's an omission or spelling error. Is there?

Cast

  • The more appropriate section title would be "Characters", since it isn't a cast list, and the content is more focued on the roles of the characters, not the actual cast members.
  • *"The Outsider" – is it really necessary to capitalise every usage of the "the" when it is not the first word of a sentence? It isn't his first name.
  • "Hiram Burrows" – clarify quickly here that Burrows is the Empress's spymaster. The spymaster is referred to at several points in the plot section, but its never explicitly linked that it is Burrows.
  • "the cities religious order" – should be "the city's religious order" (ok, perhaps it maybe arguable that the order extends to other cities in the fiction, but since the game's setting is entirely focused on the single settlement of Dunwall, the singular form works better.)

Plot

  • "a gang leader Slackjaw" – make this either "gang leader Slackjaw" or "Slackjaw, a gang leader".
  • "neutralize" is used four times in this section, and quickly begins to feel repetitive. Try to come up with some appropriate synonyms to reduce the amount of repetition.
  • "and gives him a lowered dose of poison" – following the previous sentence, the tense here implies that Samuel gives Corvo a second dose, which saves his life. Changing to "and had given him a lowered dose of poison" will rectify this.
  • "Corvo awakes as the prisoner of the assassin Daud and his men, the people who carried out the Empress' assassination, and have captured Corvo to claim the bounty put on his head by the now Lord Regent Havelock." – Change this to "''Corvo awakes as the prisoner of the assassin Daud and his men, the people who carried out the Empress' assassination, and who intend to claim the bounty put on his head by the now Lord Regent Havelock." We establish at the beginning of the sentence that Corvo has been captured, so the second iteration of that is redudant.
  • "an idea supported by Emily's gift to Corvo previously – there's been no discussion of any of Emily's gifts, so simply modifying to an idea supported by a gift of Emily's to Corvo previously will eliminate any misinterpretation that the reader should know what and when this gift was.
  • "If Corvo does not manage to save Emily, the empire crumbles and Corvo flees from the Empire by ship." – inconsistent capitalisation on "Empire", but since the article never really defines what the empire is anyway, perhaps use "If Corvo does not manage to save Emily, Dunwall crumbles and Corvo flees by ship."

Development

  • Rock, Paper, Shotgun offers some useful articles to enhance the development and reception sections, it would be a good idea to rake them for useful information. The one about the heart in particular. [2][3][4]
    • Reply - I looked at the first 2 sources but couldn't see anything of note related to the game, can you give me an idea what you were seeing? I added the Heart stuff from the 3rd source. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The interview with Smith touches upon the origins on the game based on his personal experiences, while the one with Houston discusses the nature of the freeform playstyles and their variable levels of violence in testing. Is there not anything out of either of those that you think could be integrated? -- Sabre (talk) 17:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Reply - So I've re-read the Smith one and while interesting I can't really see anything strictly related to Dishonored, its an interview about Smith and goes into his history but he doesn't really say anything about how that specifically influenced the game, it seems like info what would be in his own personal article. At least I can't see how to integrate his parents deaths into this one. EDIT - I added in some stuff from the violence source. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 00:31, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The full Arkane team including their officers in Lyon, France, and Austin, Texas worked on the game" – I assume this is meant to be "offices" not "officers". I'd link the Lyon, France and Austin, Texas too.
  • "2-dimensional" – change to "two-dimensional"
  • "late 1800s-early 1900s" – again, probably better as "late 1800s to early 1900s".
  • "on side streets and alleyways to better suit the gameworld" – change to "one side streets and alleyways that would better suit the game's world"

*Given the discussion of Tallboys, especially visual elements, perhaps an image wouldn't go amiss. Concept art or character render would be appropriate for analysis in the caption, but an appropriate screenshot (take a look here for some potential ones) could also give you an oppportunity at the same time to discuss other visual elements in the same shot.

    • Reply Which would you suggest? this or this? There is also this which is concept art similar to the final mode but not exactly, the feet seem to be different. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The concept art one is doing it for me, I wouldn't worry that the feet are different from the final version. Throw on a suitable styled caption that links in with the text, and it'll fit in fine. Its always nice to have these WIP images to give a look into the development thought process. -- Sabre (talk) 17:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Release

  • "Spring 2013" – only for the northern hemisphere. Use a financial quarter estimate.

Critical reception

Ok, as far as I'm concerned, this entire section has a fundamentally flawed structure. This may be where I'm overextending into something closer to FA standards rather than GA ones so feel free to argue against this, but if you want to take the article further (and there's no reason it can't) then this is probably good advice. The entire thing essentially reads as an amalgamation of back of box quotes from reviewers or otherwise a review-by-review summary. This isn't a good approach, as it doesn't lend any depth of analysis to particular elements of the game. It just scratches across the surface of general critical opinion.

A better structure would be to have separate paragraphs discussing how reviews felt about particular aspects of the game. Theme the paragraphs by gameplay and design, plot and atmosphere, graphics and technology, etc etc, then do a final summary paragraph that draws similar reviewer opinions together. You'll probably need to use more reviews to get such an approach to bear fruit and be truly comprehensive, so be sure to use the reliable sources found in Metacritic and GameRankings, along less conventional (but still as reliable and attached to decent publishers) critical approaches that don't ascribe scores, such as Rock Paper Shotgun and Zero Punctuation to build it up. The end result is a far stronger reception section, that provides good detail as to individual elements of the game's reception. Take a look at Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force, Brutal Legend or Halo: Reach for some inspiration.

Ok, that's the review. Other than the reception section, there's only really small things. The article overall is in great shape, well done on the work so far to all involved. Even with the reception section, there's not much holding back the article, and I can easily let it pass once these are dealt with. Sorry for the time its taken to get it done. -- Sabre (talk) 18:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

K, I'm just reading Batman for the week because I can't wait to see what is going on, then I'll take a look. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
K K, I think I'm up to date with your requests. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 01:10, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I've made a couple of minor tweaks, and I'm happy to Pass the article now. You've done good work here, keep it up! -- Sabre (talk) 17:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
:D Thanks Sabre! Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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