Talk:Doom 3/Ashnard's review

FAC style review by Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 19:22, 17 July 2008 (UTC) by request of Sabre (talk) 19:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead

• The article refers to it as a "science fiction survival horror video game", yet the genre's listed only as first-person shooter in the infobox. Reading old version
• "develop into fields such as teleportation, biological research and advanced weapons design." A Minor quibble here, but the "into" has thrown me in regards to what this statement means. Couldn't the meaning be the same without "into"?
• "The player, a lone space marine". If he's unidentified, then it's probably worth mentioning that in the lead.
• "stop Hell before it can attack Earth". The common usage of "Hell" is as a location. If it adopts some different type of form such as a political structure in this game, then that needs to be explained because the above quote doesn't make otherwise. Alternatively, do you mean that the residents of Hell attack Earth?
• "licensed out to other developers" Is there a more formal way of phrasing this?
• Lead should give a brief idea of how the gameplay works because stating the genre is insufficient.
• "for id Software, who sold more than 3.5 million copies of the game," Maybe I'm wrong, but technically, it's the retailer that sells the games, and not the developer.
• "although reviewers were divided by how close the gameplay was to that of the original Doom and was therefore not either revolutionary or evolutionary" Seems needless to extend an already long sentence with this. Last part should be saved for the "Reception" section; not necessary for the lead.
• "Nevertheless, Doom 3 signalled a return of the Doom franchise to the forefront of the video games industry." Hmmm, not sure about how verifiable this claim is. Will need a source, as other things in the lead are sourced.

Gamplay

• Reagrding the caption in "gameplay", that would only be appropriate in "Reception". Please move it to there or change the caption.
• "first person" should be hyphenated, as in the WP article.
• "ranging from conventional firearms such as submachine guns and shotguns, experimental and plasma weaponry, as well as the traditional BFG9000 and chainsaw weapons of the Doom franchise." Grammar: whenever using a "from" in this format, "to" must follow somewhere.
• "Enemies come in multiple forms and with different abilities and tactics, but can be categorised as either zombies or demons." "Can be", are they categorised or not?
• "Zombies are humans possessed by demonic forces, who attack the player using their" Make sure that you don't confuse the player with the player's character. Correct similar examples.
• "using melee methods such as claws and spines" This part is quite awkward. Can't it just be "their claws and spines"?
• "The corpses of demons evaporate after death, leaving no trace of their body behind." Doesn't say anything about gameplay, unless you're trying to say something like "the demons don't respawn".
• "Although the game's levels are fairly linear in nature, they incorporate several horror elements, the most prominent of which is darkness." "Although" is used although I don't see how linearity is incompatible with the horror genre.
• "Many areas in the game have little or no lighting." Seems to say the same thing as the preceding sentence. Seems like a needless standalone sentence. Again with the next sentence. Three sentences have been used to establish a very simple concept.
• "This design choice is not only intended to foster feelings of apprehension and fear within the player, but also to create a more threatening game environment because the player is less likely to see attacking enemies." Seems like orginal research. I'd prefer the reader to draw their own conclusions. Seems quite obvious anyway. Again, with the last sentence of the paragraph. To be honest, this whole paragraph reads like a "Setting" section. Please remedy similar sentences, as seen in further paragraphs.
• The next paragraph is exactly the same in regards to original research about how atmosphere is created. Please remember that this section is supposed to describe how the game is played.
• "This device serves several purposes in-game, and is the only game mechanic that operates in full-screen as opposed to in real-time in-game." Confusing
• "PDA's contain security clearance" Neither a possessive nor a contraction, so doesn't require an apostrophe.
• "Additionally, the PDA can be used to read e-mails and play videos received during the game." Needs to specify whether this an online feature or these are in-universe videos and e-mails.
• "four-player multiplayer component" Need to swap the word "component" to something that specifies what this is, because I'm slightly confused.
• "However, the game's community created a modification to boost this to eight or sixteen players,[15][7][16] and the player limit was later increased in the Resurrection of Evil expansion." Not clear on whether this was an increase from the original game or from the modification.
• "A team variation of this involves exactly the same principle, except with the players grouped into two teams." Last part is pointless since you've already said that they're in teams. Shouln't use "exactly".
• "The final game mode is "tournament", in which two players fight one-on-one while the other players watch as spectators." "one-to-one" can be saved by writing "each other".
• "The victor of the battle remains in the arena, facing each other player one at a time until they are defeated." Until who is defeated, the challenger or the victor? What happnes if the victor is defeated?

Synopsis

• "Much of the game's story and dialog" Conflict between BrE and AmE. Most of the article uses British English, so it should be consistent. Fix similar examples.
  • Article should now be in American English.
• "As the player progresses through the game though, they learn that the employees on the base are on edge due to a large amount of incidents involving hearing voices, unexplained sightings and increasing cases of paranoia and insanity, often leading to fatal accidents with the facility's machinery." Watch out for informal language such as "on edge" and "though".
• If you're going to make references to the influences for character design, then this should be cited.
• "tipoff" is two words. I'd prefer a more formal word, though.
• "Carrying a BFG9000, Campbell is voiced by Andy Chanley." Strange to have these two statements together. Seems to imply that Chanley's holding the weapon.
• The caption is reiterating what has already been discussed ad nauseam in gameplay. This section would probably be a better place for that info, though.
• I hope you don't mind, but I have absolutley no desire to read the plot section, and neither will the average reader. Generally, try adopt a summary-style and not a point-by-point structure. I won't be offering a review of this part.

Development

• "designer John Carmack posted a plan announcing the start to a remake of Doom" Posted to where? To whom? Why not say "the remake of Doom" as opposed to "the start to a reamke of Doom"?
• "This plan revealed controversy had been brewing within id Software over the decision." Where has this came from? How? "Brewed"?
• "This later fell through due to" Again with the informal phrasing
• "Eventually, Nine Inch Nails' former drummer, Chris Vrenna, did the game's theme song." Compose? Wroye? Sung? What did he do to it?
• "fully dynamic per-pixel lighting and stencil shadowing". Any chance of wikilinking or explaining.
• "most light sources are computed on the fly" What does "on the fly" mean.
• "This allows lights to cast shadows even on non-static objects such as monsters or machinery" "and" instead of "or".
• "To increase the interactivity with the game-world, id Software designed hundreds of high-resolution animated screens for in-game computers. Rather than using a simple "use key" to operate these computers, the crosshair acts as a mouse cursor over the screens allowing the player to use a computer in the game world. This allows for in-game computer terminal to perform more than one function, from operating security door codes, activating machinery, toggling lights or unlocking weapons lockers." This seems like "gameplay" information, not "development".

Reception

• "whilst PC Gamer UK put the graphics and non-player character modelling and animation as simply flawless." "put"? Where are the quotation marks for the last part.
• "IGN's reviewer" Best to give the name on first mention.
• "that the game's presentation made up for a remarkably high proportion of the game" Change "made up for" to "comprised".
• "players would realize that picking up a lone armor vest would cause a variety of zombies to emerge from hidden compartments in the dark." Not clear whether this is added explanation in the article or more views from the reviewer.
• A general note, but "finally" sounds better than "lastly", in my opinion.
• "the game's multiplayer was seen as lacking," Lacking what? I know what's meant, but it probably shouldn't be used this way in an encyclopaedia.
• Is it possible to make a reference to the game's audio in particular in this section?
• "Eight months after the release of Doom 3, the game received the expansion pack Resurrection of Evil from Nerve Software, further developing the rebooted storyline and enhancing Doom 3's multiplayer." Repeat of what already exists earlier in the title.
• "and was critically panned" Again with informal phrasing.
• "novelize" Change to "novelise" to be consistent
  • Article should now be in American English.

References

• Is Box Office Mojo a reliable site? It may seem harsh, but this would most probably get asked at FAC.
• Ref 58 won't load for me, although it may be something wrong at my end.
• Ref 50 lacks author information, even though it's contained in the article.
• Ref 49 won't load
• What makes Shacknews reliable? Same for Inside Mac Games