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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Graham Colm 10:55, 4 May 2014 [1].

Infinity Blade

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Nominator(s): PresN 05:01, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In Summer 2010, Apple wanted to show the world that you could make good-looking games for the iPhone, and Epic Games wanted to show that their upcoming iOS version of the Unreal Engine wasn't just good for tech demos- so they told a 12-person company they had just bought to make a game for a system they'd never developed for with an engine that wasn't finished yet, and to have a demo ready in 2 months and the game done in 5. No pressure! Presenting for your consideration Infinity Blade - if you saw an Apple advertisement in late 2010/early 2011 with a 3D game, it was this one, the game that told large developers that it was possible to make money on an iPhone game that involved no birds at all, no matter their emotions. Passed as a GA by J Milburn in 2012, despite his FAC recommendation I hadn't touched it since until Hahc21 mentioned that we could take it to FAC together; I couldn't wait for him to be free once I realized that the article was a lot better than I remembered. I've rewritten/polished the entire article in the past couple weeks, so now the sentences are grammatically correct, the images are rationale'd, the links are archived, and everything should be ship-shape for what will hopefully be a double-first: the first FA about an iPhone game and my first FA that is neither an indie game nor a Final Fantasy game. Thanks for reviewing! --PresN 05:01, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Driveby comments From "A version of..." onwards, the lead basically becomes an iteration of "On X date, Y product was released." Why don't you instead say what you've said so lucidly here, "Apple wanted to show the world that you could make good-looking games for the iPhone . . . the game that told large developers that it was possible to make money on an iPhone game"?

The Legacy section should probably be renamed Sequels. Something's legacy is the influence it had, and how it is remembered; in this case, it is that Infinity Blade paved the way by proving that high-end iOS games could make truckloads of cash.—indopug (talk) 08:54, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, if that's a well-documented statement about it, Infinity Blade's article should include something about its recognized influence. That's necessary for completeness at an FA level. Tezero (talk) 22:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not in the article because it's completely OR. If it was a well-documented statement then of course it would be in the article. I was just trying to make the nomination statement interesting. --PresN 23:10, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Review from czar

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In the interest of transparency: both the nom and I participate in the WikiCup czar ♔ 15:13, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Review archived to the talk page czar ♔ 00:52, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Responded inline to Czar's comments; I'll give your article a review when I get a chance, though I might review some VG articles that are lower down the page first. --PresN 21:58, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The prose has a lot of "comma and" I edited a few into two sentences—not sure who is responsible for this, but wanted to point it out for future awareness
  • It was me, I like commas
I like commas too. Murder your darlings. ♔
  • Consider splitting the gameplay and repetition parts into separate ¶ to avoid redundancy
  • It's only two sentences so I'd rather not; what do you see as redundant?
It's fine, but I meant a split in the last Reception ¶ so one would address gameplay and one would address redundancy, as they're separate ideas ♔
  • I don't see why the novellas need to be named in the lede—they're garnish (not imperative to understanding the article)

Support on prose. I'm really contented with how the prose turned out. I need to move on to other things but ping me if you ever need an image review or source spot check (on this FAC or others) and I'll help out. And if anyone is interested, I'm looking for feedback on the Deathrow FAC. czar ♔ 00:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image review by czar
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czar ♔ 22:20, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well done czar ♔ 00:19, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from J Milburn

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Glad to see this article made it to FAC!

  • "In the game, the player fights a series of one-on-one battles and journeys through a derelict castle in a fantasy world in order to fight the immortal God King." The player controls a character who does this. Perhaps you could also use this sentence to say who the character is?
  • "show off" is a little colloquial
  • In the lead, could we have a link for Unreal Engine?
  • Already linked in second sentence.
  • "It made US$1.6 million in four days and over US$23 million by the end of 2011." There's a tense switch here- perhaps you could go for "In the four days following its release, the game made US$1.6 million, and it had made over US$23 million by the end of 2011." My way's still not quite right- perhaps you could work something out?
  • "It was reviewed favorably by gaming critics. Reviews heavily praised the graphics, comparing the game favorably" Very repetitive
  • Is Infinity Blade: Redemption worth a redlink?
  • "as the player travels" Player character, not player
  • "Players can use two special abilities located at the top of the screen." The ability isn't at the top of the screen- presumably, you mean the abilities are activated by pressing a button at the top of the screen
  • You should probably link to Role-playing video game, rather than role-playing game
  • "The player is then given the option of either starting the next bloodline, or resetting the game and losing all gold and items, but maintaining their experience level, letting the player remaster the items and level up even further." I'm not sure I follow
  • "This expansion also added new equipment, enemies, and a new ending to the game where the player-character defeats an ancestor of his" Is this what you have already discussed?
  • "code libraries' lack of support" There are multiple code libraries?
  • "The five-month development was completed by a team of twelve people" As there's only 12, perhaps you could list them?
  • "an uncommon game based" Type of game? Style of gameplay? Something like that?
  • "and Nick Chester of Destructoid said that although the combat wasn't very complicated, it was fun to play." Is this a direct quote? There are no quote marks. If it's indirect, you shouldn't be using contractions
  • "The other role-playing game elements" Other?
  • "Destructoid called them "satisfying" and IGN said that they added to the game's difficulty. Eurogamer, however" Avoid personification (there are more later)
  • I switched to this because the review above said that just saying "Brown said blah" got confusing keeping track of who was who; what would you recommend?
  • "addicting" isn't a real word. Perhaps consider making it an indirect quote, and use addictive?
  • Sorry, tongue was in cheek. I agree it's generally accepted (in US English at least), but I think a lot of people (with good reason) don't consider it particularly good form. J Milburn (talk) 21:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • How about "Sequels and spin-offs" for the section title?
  • "Like its predecessor, a novella by Brandon Sanderson set between Infinity Blade II and III, Infinity Blade: Redemption, was released on September 9, 2013." Instead of "Like its predecessor", how about "As before"?

Very nice looking article. J Milburn (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • All done; comments more substantive than "done" inline. (notification) Thanks for reviewing! (again) --PresN
  • The article's looking great- I'll be happy to support (pending the source check) apart from the hanging personification issue- I'll hold off for now and see where we end up. J Milburn (talk) 21:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's about the series as a whole instead of just this game, though at the time the series was just the first two games, but added the "most profitable series" bit; the sales numbers were already in the article. I threw in the Kill Screen review, since I liked it, but I couldn't do much with it; while certainly clever, it doesn't actually say much new about the game itself- we already have 8 reviews that mention that the game is cyclical, with small, evolutionary changes between each bloodline. Its draw is that the "feel" of the review is similar to the "feel" of the game; that's not really paraphraseable in a review section of an encyclopedia article. You should try to get the magazine/website added to WP:VG/RS, though. --PresN 01:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Czar and Hahnchen - Czar, are you satisfied with the responses to your review? Hahnchen, are you willing to do a full review or support/oppose the nomination? --PresN 02:50, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Responded above czar ♔ 00:54, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; no significant problems. I might prefer a bit more coverage of Awakening and Dungeons, but regardless, I feel that this is satisfactory for the FA criteria. Tezero (talk) 17:44, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for the time being. I should've looked more closely before, but as someone had to do a source review, I took it on, and there are serious problems with misattribution as specified later. Tezero (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support one again following source-related fixes. This FAC still needs an image review, which czar has announced plans for, so it should be good to go before too long. Tezero (talk) 00:16, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  • I realise we've had some experienced reviewers looking through this piece but to me the lead left a bit to be desired prose-wise, which suggests the rest of it might benefit from a copyedit.
  • We still need image and source reviews. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:32, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Ian Rose: I think you caught some changes to the lede, but the rest is fine overall. I did a spotted tightening but I found much of it acceptable, occasionally "brilliant". czar ♔ 15:39, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Tezero

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I wouldn't have supported if the sources didn't look fine from my glances, but here I go because someone needs to. Tezero (talk) 18:25, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • All sources look reliable and adequately archived. However, I'm running into problems with the sources not confirming what's attributed to them. Unfortunately, I'm going to temporarily rescind my support until these are cleared up.
  • 1. "Upon defeating the mechanized warrior, the chamber is revealed to be controlled by an ancestor of the playable character, who chose to serve the God King" and "New Game+".
  • 2. Likewise: "decreases the player's experience gain by 20%".
  • Also, why are four citations given at the end of two sentences comprising four reviews, rather than two citations after each sentence?
  • 3. "incorrect counters damage the player-character" - a little misleading; the source seems to state that you'll get damaged if you counter incorrectly because the sword will slice through it, not that the countering will actually damage you.
  • 4. Doesn't look like any of the end of the first paragraph of Gameplay is confirmed in the source, other than mentions of magic vs. Super.
  • 5. MP3s aren't mentioned, though the other additions are.
  • 6. Only mentions that there is a twist, not what it is.
  • 7. The source specifies very little about Arena mode.
  • 8. Doesn't talk about the previews.

More to come. Tezero (talk) 18:48, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Half of these are unsourcable minor details, while the other half are bits that got changed/moved in a copyedit sometime since the GAN. Grrr.

  • 1 - Plot points are generally implicitly sourced to the game itself, as no third-party source/review is going to cover every minor detail of the plot of a game. This is true even if (as here) the plot is merged into the gameplay section. As to NewGame+... that... is not where that sentence used to be. Added another source to replace that Destructoid cite that explicitly calls out what New Game+ does.
  • 2 - the 1UP source says that you don't earn experience points once an item is mastered; there's 5 items, that's 20%. Also, because it used to be one sentence and someone changed it; fixed.
  • 3 - Changed to "result in damage to", which is ironically the exact wording I used before all these copyedits.
  • 4 - Except that the source does mention that you have to swipe in the right direction, and that there are combo attacks (the actual sentence it is at the end of). The assertions that you reset after most battles right where you are and that some specific attacks can't be parried are left unsourced- there's no review in the world that's going to get that detailed. I'll drop the statements if you want, but the idea is that all claims that are likely to be challenged should have a source, not minor gameplay details that can be verified within 5 minutes of starting the game.
  • 5 - I'm just going to drop the MP3 bit, there's no point trying to hunt down another source for such a minor detail.
  • 6 - See point one. Also, the plot details are a restatement of an earlier mention in the gameplay section; the source here is just citing that it first appeared in that update, which is the new information.
  • 7 - added another source that gets more detailed about Arena mode
  • 8 - dropped the details as the only source I can find is the update itself, and it doesn't matter much that there's a preview for IB2 in IB1, even if it's on the main title screen.
  • Rest of them:
  • New sources - good
  • 11 - good
  • 12 - good
  • 13 - good, but I'd prefer "licensed" instead of "sold" as Epic got to keep the engine
  • 14 - good; interesting way of using two sources
  • 15 - good
  • 16 - good, I assume
  • 17 - December 9 not in source, and the bit about Apple is in a comment
  • 18 - good
  • 19 - good
  • 20 - good
  • 21 - eh, I'd change it to "Xbox 360" from "console"; that's less interpretive
  • 22 - there may be a slight difference between "effective" and "fun"; also, I don't notice any mentions of addictiveness

I have to take a phone call quite soon, so I'll be back with the last few soon. Tezero (talk) 21:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • 13 - done
  • 17 - I didn't bother sourcing the release date, as it's not likely to be challenged, and the bit about Apple is from page 4 - "We had Apple touting us a lot, which was nice, but we didn't spend any marketing money on this."
  • 21 - done, not because its less interpretive but because console is ambiguous unless I said "contemporary console"
  • 22 - If we're not allowed to paraphrase what the reviewers say I might as well make the entire section one giant quote block and be done with it, but actually you misread it- 22 is the Pocket Gamer review, and is used to source "Tracy Erickson of Pocket Gamer described the swipe-based combat system as "easy to understand, though tough to master"" and "Erickson's review for Pocket Gamer said that the game had problems with repetition".

Remaining citations:

  • 23. Isn't it 1.6 million, not 1.4 million?
  • 24. good
  • 25. good
  • 26. good
  • 27. I don't see it directly stated that that's a metaphor for life.
  • 28. good
  • 29. Not in the text; I'd look for a more stable source, i.e. one that doesn't rely on videos or Java/Flash apps, which won't stick around if the site's layout is changed and archiving becomes the only option. Nevertheless, it's fine for now. (Dramatic, foreshadowing music plays.)
  • 30. It should probably link to this instead.
  • 31. good
  • 32. good
  • 33. good

That's all of them. Tezero (talk) 22:22, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • 23 - Done
  • 27 - That is a hard source to find direct quotes for, but did you watch it all the way through to the end? (The text changes slowly when you move to the next bloodline, up to 5 times). When it starts changing the words to be instead "Infinity Blade may be a commentary on [...] the tiny, gradual ways we improve on ourselves. Mostly, we die like our fathers." "but to continue is to live better than before" etc., and bring up the metaphor of going to the same job every day?
  • 30 - Done
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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