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GA Review

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Reviewer:MuZemike 19:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming this is written in British English, so if I make any grammar corrections/recommendations not consistent with that style, please let me know or go ahead and correct.

Prose issues
  • Some sentences are too long and drawn-out (long, drawn-out paragraphs tend to lose readers; keep them of reasonable length and to one thought if possible, and don't forget about semicolons also)
    • In September 2009, EA petitioned to have EDGE Games' trademarks cancelled, alleging continued threats of legal action, to which Tim Langdell, president of EDGE responded by accusing EA of engaging EDGE in settlement talks as a "play for time", and claiming true legal ownership of the phrase "Mirror's Edge" among other variations of "Edge".
    • Gamespot gave the game an overall score of 7 out of 10, praising the immersive gameplay environments, but criticizing the inconsistency of gameplay speed.
    • Eurogamer rated it 8/10, praising the game's ambition and general game-play, but admitted the game would not have an appeal to everyone, saying ...
    • In order to address the issue of simulation sickness ... removed from the in-game footage shown.
    • The reticle serves as an aiming point and as a focal point ... dance technique called spotting.
    • On October 7, 2008, EA announced the release ... and Armand Van Helden.
    • On May 19, 2009, ... in online-only form.
    • Faith earns her living as a "Runner",... via highly-monitored telephone and e-mail channels.
    • This is achieved not only with the exercise of parkour, but also by tying camera movement more closely with character movement, such as the increase in rate at which the camera bobs up and down as Faith's speed builds up while running, or the camera spinning when she rolls.
    • With a heavy focus on movement, the character's momentum becomes an asset, which is maintained through fluidity of physical actions, creating a chain of moves.
  • The beginning and end of this sentence in the Gameplay section seems redundant to me: Failing to string these moves together results in a loss of momentum, which can mean that Faith falls off or short of an object if a certain level of momentum is required to traverse it. See if you can rewrite that one.
  • The second-to-last paragraph in the Receiption section has too many citations. Cut down on them by just using the highest-quality reference, and try to keep some of them at the end of the sentence. I've spread them around and cut down one or two
  • Other prose issues:
    • Gamespot --> GameSpot
    • "Gametrailers.com --> GameTrailers
    • Is there a difference between IGN and IGN UK?
    • Long quote in the second para of Reception not needed. Remove and paraphrase.
    • Quotes are normally not italicized.
    • Inconsistency in how ratings are presented. Some are a/b, while others are "a out of b".
  • There are quite a few weasel words/excess wording throughout the article. Removing them and rewording will make the tone more neutral and professional.
    • "on the whole", "as well", "also", "however", "even", "though"
  • The first paragraph in the Reception section is too small. Merge it into following paragraph.
  • Plot section not written very well prose-wise or content-wise or IAW WP:WAF.
    • Full paragraphs are necessary, as with the rest of the article.
    • It needs to be written in an out-of-universe perspective.
    • I'm sure there are some secondary sources out there regarding the game's plot. Use them and cite them.
    • Characters subsection could be expanded.
  • Some passive voice:
    • In the Development section, the sentence starting with In June 2007 it was revealed that DICE was working ...
    • Same section as last point, At the Sony PlayStation Day in London on May 6, 2008, the first video featuring entirely in-game footage was revealed and released.
MoS issues
  • Ditch the subsections in Expansions and sequels and Release sections. That should just be a couple of paragraphs of prose.
  • I recommend merging Development and Release sections into one section to stay consistent with the lengths of the other sections.
  • Inline citations go after the end-punctuation per WP:CITE. In a couple of the citations, you have them before the end-punctuation.
  • Article full of common words to avoid, such as "although", "however", "although" and forms of "to state" (e.g. "IGN stated that ...).
  • More of a general writing guideline for video game articles, we normally don't include prices of games or packs thereof.
  • Citation issues are poorly and inconsistently formatted.
    • Go through all unitalicized instances of "Mirror's Edge" and italicize them.
    • Change all dates in your inline citations to the ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) format

Other individual citation issues (will collapse the following section; I'll try to help you out when I can with fixing these citation/referencing issues):

Verifiability issues
  • There are two {{fact}} tags in the Download subsection that need to be addressed.
  • The last sentence there in the first paragraph of the Release section (unless bought from Steam) is not sourced.
  • The last sentence in the Characters subsection, Another of Merc's Runners and a close friend of Faith's, Celeste, plays an important role in the Mirror's Edge story. → Not only is this unsourced, but this looks like original research. While I understand some stuff in the plot is nigh-to-impossible to source (i.e. events in the game not involving text), stuff like this needs to be sourced or otherwise removed.
  • Ref #36 goes to a dead-end. I'm sure that is supposed to go to some SecuROM list, but that's not it. I think the website might have moved the link without redirecting it.
  • Ref #40 is a deadlink.
  • Refs #27 and #28 are return 110 errors (connection timeouts, similar to deadlinks).
  • Ref #44 returns some weird "415 download error". Did you get the URL correct there?
  • Ref #8 is a forum posting, an unreliable source.
  • There is no "Test of Faith" trial listed in Ref #17.
  • Ref #24 is unreliable. (Though, as mentioned above, you can remove this reference easily without having to change anything else.)
  • Ref #37 doesn't look reliable to me, as it seems to be an individual gamer blog (and not a field expert or anyone like that).
  • Ref #65 is also a deadlink.
Image issues
  • The fair-use rationales need to be strengthened on all the images except the cover (which is fine); File:MirrorCity.jpg has no fair-use rationale. You need to explain specifically why these images expand the readers' understanding of the topic. That is, if the image was removed, would readers have less understanding of the context? (see WP:NFCC#8). I've removed the city image, since it adds little. I've added a new "cutscene" image, that comes from a video found on EA's own site, as well as an image that depicts one of the time trial maps, which have a very different look and feel than the rest of the game.
  • Also note that I had to tag File:Mirrorsedgeanimation.png for speedy deletion for invalid non-free usage. Basically, it's not coming from EA itself, but from a YouTube video someone uploaded (very likely in violation of copyright) by someone not affiliated with EA. If you can re-upload one that comes directly from EA (i.e. an official EA video, site, etc.), that would be fine.
    • The new uploaded image (File:Faithclip.png) looks fine. The fair-use rationale is a bit weak as far as NFCC is concerned, but it's good enough as far as GAN is concerned. (You probably will have to strengthen it when this article approaches FA.) One reminder that non-free images must be of minimal usage per WP:NFCC#3b. I went ahead and reduced the size (pixel-wise and filesize-wise) of the image for you. I'll also help you out on the others as well. Just remember that for future articles. –MuZemike 17:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Other things to remember

Note: the below is not counted against the GAN, but they also should be addressed, especially if this article may hit FA someday.

  • Citations in the lead - If the information in the lead is already mentioned and cited in the article's body, then inline citations aren't needed in the lead. Try to make sure they are mentioned and cited in the body and remove those inline citations. It makes the lead easier to read and more presentable to readers.
  • Watch out for overlinking.
  • Unless there is end-punctuation, per WP:ELLIPSIS, spaces are needed before and after ellipses.
  • Alt text is needed in the images. See WP:ALT for more information.
    Personally I think ALT text comes under criteria 6b as Wikipedia:Captions says Alt text should be used. CrimsonFox talk 13:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Conclusion

On hold. There's enough issues that need to be addressed that I would normally not pass at this time, but I'm going to place on hold for now, as I think we can get more stuff accomplished at the least by doing that. I Recommend going through WP:1A; even though this is not an FAC, it's a great tool to tighten up the prose and get it to good quality, especially for GA. –MuZemike 19:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whew! That's most of it, except for the plot section and pre-FA stuff. I'll try to get the rest of it done later this week. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 09:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One comment I would make is that dates in the references section should be consistent. Some are written in full and some in different variations of shorthand (eg yyyy-mm-dd, dd/mm/yyyy, 12 January 2001) CrimsonFox talk 13:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in the citations, they should be ISO 8601 format. Thanks, –MuZemike 16:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All done except for the plot, which I'm working on expanding. If anyone would like to contribute, that would be great. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 06:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Alt text for the cover art does not describe the image currently. A blind person would not know what "Mirror's Edge cover Art" is. CrimsonFox talk 12:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I had already put alt text in an "alt=" field in the infobox, does that not work? In any case, I've replaced "Mirror's Edge cover art" with the alt text. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 12:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This script, Altviewer.py, helps you see the alt text in the images as they would be displayed. In any case, I'm not counting alt text as part of the WP:GA?#6, but you will get hounded for it when the article approaches FA. –MuZemike 18:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Plot section looks good and much more appropriately written than it previously was. Passed. –MuZemike 21:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! Thanks for your efforts! AniRaptor2001 (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]