Talk:Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: ElijahPepe (talk · contribs) 00:20, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Comments

This is my preliminary review from what I can observe currently. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 00:20, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Prose

General

This article capitalizes the first word of a sentence after a semicolon, which is incorrect.

Lead section

Its plot follows the Guardians who... repeats the it pronoun from the previous sentence. It may be preferable to combine the sentence structure of the previous sentence, in that the sentence approximately reads, Set in an original universe based on the Marvel Comics superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy, the game's plot follows the Guardians who...
The second paragraph mentions, The game is singleplayer and has no downloadable content or microtransactions. In conjunction with the previous sentence and the sentence that follows it, this passing mention is irrelevant to the purpose of the paragraph as a whole—that is, to partially describe the development of the game. That the game does not have downloadable content or microtransactions is a detail that answers a question the reader does not have or that they were expected to have. With knowledge of Eidos-Montréal's previous game with Marvel Entertainment, it seems as though this sentence alludes to Marvel's Avengers. This is particularly noted with relation to the previous sentence, which also alludes to their previous game. It may be more cohesive to switch around the sentences and experiment with including Marvel's Avengers; the contrast between the two games is mentioned later on in the article, so this is likely intentional omission. From an inexperienced perspective, the development of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy must have had to relate to Marvel's Avengers in some way, so a sentence such as The game is strictly single-player and has no downloadable content or microtransactions, marking a departure from Marvel Entertainment and Square Enix's previous game, Marvel's Avengers.
With regards to the sentence, Marvel collaborated closely with the team at Eidos to create a unique version of the Guardians, more elaboration may be necessary to explain how the Guardians are unique. The article goes on to state that this differentiation occurs in how the characters are presented in comparison to their appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the comics, but
In the sentence, While the game features a light-hearted tone, themes of trauma and grief are central to the story, you have an adverbial dependent clause followed by an independent clause. The flow here is passive; there are several ways to improve upon this. The use of "while" is antithetical to the contrast in the sentence here. I would suggest using "although" to highlight that difference, or, for a stronger contrast, use something like, Despite the game's light-hearted tone, themes of trauma and grief are central to the story.
Describing the soundtrack as comprising the original work of Richard Jacques is fine, but 1980s-inspired leaves the reader confused as to what specific element of the 1980s is being referenced. I question the relevance of the following sentence, The orchestral score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios. As a reader, Abbey Road Studios evokes imagery of The Beatles—and I am aware this is not the point—who would have been disbanded at that point. I believe the point of this reference was to clarify where it was recorded, but such details aren't relevant to the overall point.
In the third paragraph, the use of was to describe the Nintendo Switch version suggests that the cloud streaming version is no longer available. In the following sentence, the title is an uncommon term for a game. The more conspicuous issue is that neither The game was nominated for several year-end accolades by gaming publications nor Despite positive critical reception, the game did not meet Square Enix's sales expectations. are expanded in detail. What kind of awards did Guardians of the Galaxy win? How many copies did the game sell?

Gameplay section

The term elemental guns is used exclusively from GameSpot's review. The sentence assumes that Star-Lord's weaponry is familiar to the reader and can be used in passing, such as Star-Lord's elemental guns. The relationship between the guns and the comics could be expanded upon, particularly from an audience that may only be familiar with Star-Lord from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Regarding what abilities the other Guardians can do, as a form of crowd control is redundant and does not assume that enemies are enemies. The word easily is relative, as is powerful. The verbiage here appears to be synthesis of Rock Paper Shotgun's reporting.
Admittedly, I have not played Guardians of the Galaxy, but I found myself wondering what a "Call-to-Action" attack entailed. In gameplay videos online, I see that a "Team Huddle" involves discord among the other members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. It would be important to mention how a good speech is made and the conditions surrounding the speech. As a "Team Huddle" relates to dialogue options, it may be prudent to combine these paragraphs together.

Characters section

The list format is unnecessary here. Additionally, I would suggest that this section include the setting of the game. While looking at footage online, I saw a variety of settings, including in Meredith Quill's house in the 1980s.

Synopsis section

The em dash in the first paragraph should read, Many years later, Quill—now a mercenary called Star-Lord—is the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy... In the second paragraph, job is repeated twice; I propose using "mission" for the second mention. Lady Hellbender is not defined, but Centurion Ko-Rel is. The third paragraph uses unsuitable terms such as Completely broke, scam, and thoroughly shaken. I agree with the specification tag. Nikki Gold is referenced several times as "Nikki" rather than "Gold". In one of these references, "Nikki" is used to end a sentence and start one sequentially, ...the Matriarch is revealed to be Nikki. Nikki is using the yellow gem..., suggesting issues with connecting the two clauses.

Development section

The reason why this is Square Enix's last game with Marvel Entertainment is not explained in prose, but Mashable suggests that the sale of Square Enix to Embracer Group would make Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy the last game that the two companies worked on together. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided needs to be written as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016).

Music section

Use music from the 1980s rather than 80s music.

Release section

As mentioned previously, the repeated mention of Nintendo Switch suggests a clause issue. In the first paragraph, I would use ...and Nintendo Switch through cloud streaming on October 26, 2021.

Critical response section

The elephant in the room is the woefully short music and technical issue sections, which run afoul of MOS:PARA.

References

No glaring reference issues, but note the verification and citation tags. This Game Developers Conference presentation may be of use.

Images

The gameplay image may need to be shifted to just below the header. I question the relevance of Eidos-Montréal's logo. Richard Jacques's picture is too tall and may need to be shifted to the left.

I'm not the nominator, but I recently did a major copy edit of the article so I will try and address the issues with wording/syntax/etc. (for the record, the GOCE request didn't mention that it was a potential GA candidate). While I'm here I might as well to put in my $0.02 on a few other comments:

The term "elemental guns" is used exclusively from GameSpot's review. The sentence assumes that Star-Lord's weaponry is familiar to the reader and can be used in passing, such as "Star-Lord's elemental guns". I disagree; The key word is "elemental", as in the guns deal damage using the elements, and that they are Star-Lord's guns is only relevant because Star-Lord is the player character (which is clear from context). Perhaps it might be slightly better to say The player can attack enemies with Star-Lord's guns which have four elemental shooting modes....

GameSpot uses "Star-Lord's ... iconic elemental guns". The issue is not that they're elemental, but perhaps that needs to be defined or—instead of Star-Lord's guns—elemental guns is better. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 03:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The mention of the "call-to-action" attack is from the IGN article combat article, but it offers no information on what the attack actually does, just that it can deal a lot of damage but can only be used on certain, tougher enemies.

There's a GameRant article that roughly covers it. If you still can't find sources, don't worry about it. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 03:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I know it isn't necessary, but I put the characters section in a list format specifically for the Guardians because it was a mess of commas, semicolons, and parenthesis which didn't scan well.

I would try something like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy features the eponymous team, the Guardians of the Galaxy, including Star-Lord (Jon McLaren), a Terran-Spartoi hybrid and leader of the group; Gamora (Kimberly-Sue Murray), the "deadliest woman in the galaxy"... Semicolons or em dashes may work well here. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 03:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An issue with saying released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Nintendo Switch through cloud streaming on October 26, 2021 is that it could be interpreted as all the versions using cloud streaming, not just the last one in the list. I'll just split it up into two sentences as I did in the lead.

— TheOnlyZac (talk) 02:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@TheOnlyZac: and @ElijahPepe: - most issues have been fixed. OceanHok (talk) 04:16, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good job all around, the article looks great! — TheOnlyZac (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]