Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/God of War (video game)/archive1

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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 not promoted by GrahamColm 18:49, 16 January 2013 [1].

God of War (video game)

God of War (video game) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): JDC808 ♫ 06:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I have put a lot work into the article since the beginning of the summer (not including over the past couple of years, but these past few months have been a greater improvement to the article than the past couple of years). It became a GA in August and received a copy-edit in September. A Peer Review was just archived about a week ago and I tried to address all the issues brought up in that PR in which the purpose of that PR was to get this article ready for FAC. JDC808 ♫ 06:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment the last few sentences of the lead completely digress from the subject by naming sequel after sequel. I think you can move the "God of War series" phrase from before and summarise "It is the first installment in the God of War series, which feature ## sequels as of 2012."—indopug (talk) 17:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I had done it that way was because I was using Halo: Combat Evolved (which is an FA) as a model and it similarly does that. --JDC808 ♫ 06:19, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Halo earned the bronze star six years ago, when standards were a lot laxer, and in any case didn't have the long lists of sequels in the lead. Featured articles aren't perfect; often they gather a lot of cruft as the years pass. You have to be careful which articles you choose as models, and also take care to avoid their less-than-stellar features.—indopug (talk) 16:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, implemented your suggestion. --JDC808 ♫ 23:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by Hahc21
  • Okay. I'll take a look.
    • "features four sequels and a prequel with another prequel in development" I am afraid that "features" is not the right word. Maybe "The game's story has been expanded into, as of 2012, four sequels..." or something like that. Also, "a prequel with another prequel" reads a bit odd. My recomendation is to write: "Two prequels, one of them in development." or something similar.
Changed.
    • "it is revealed," Unnecessary detailed, in my opinion.
That was what a copy-editor wrote, but I removed it.
    • I suggest to expand a bit on how the game ends. It is pretty notable that, at the end of the first game, he successfully defeates Ares and becomes the god of war.
I'm not sure how much more can be said about their fight without over-detailing it. Ares death and Kratos becoming the God of War is all there. I may have confused where you're talking about.
Oh. I am talking about the lead, sorry.
Okay. Done.
    • " and forms part of a saga with vengeance as a central theme." You have already explained above that it belons to a series. I think it's a bit redundant to state this again. You may add that "Chronologically, God of War is the third chapter in the series, developed with vengeance as a central theme."
Changed.
    • Nitpicky: Why add this to the lead: "in 2012, Complex.com named it the eleventh best PlayStation 2 game of all time."? Complex.com is a relevant videogame website? A highly valuable honour? I guess you should expand onto the original awards.
It's the most recent (that I know of) "best of PS2" list. I have no idea of its relevancy as a video game website. From what I know, it's reliable though. It is in the Awards section.
Okay. Although my point was if it was notable enough to be on the lead. But it's okay :)
    • "for the PlayStation 3." The second usage seems a bit redundant to me. My recommendation is to merge the last two sentences to avoid repeating unnecessary words.
Merged.
    • "and platforming and puzzle games." games? or elements? or else?
A copy-editor removed "elements." Not sure why, but added it back.
    • "neutrally colored chests." Actually, the chests are white colored. You should add this, as "neutrally" is a bit confusing.
They're actually grey like a metal or maybe rock. Anyhow, a copy-editor chose "neutrally" as the word to use.
Mmm Okay. The issue is that neutrally does not resemble any color, but it may do the trick, after all.
Most have been done, a couple may need responses. --JDC808 ♫ 06:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --JDC808 ♫ 08:14, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Reception
    • "Mikel Reparaz of GamesRadar criticized the amount of detail in the game which he said meant "the graphics occasionally stutter"" I don't find the sense here.
A copy-editor reworded it like that. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by "I don't see the sense here?"
What makes no sense gramatically [or semantically] is using "which he said meant" (??) and starting the quote with "the graphics...". This should be fixed writing: "..criticized the amount of detail in the game, elaborating that as a consequence of the aging hardware of the PS2, "the graphics occasionally stutter or even slow down". However, he gave the game a perfect score concluding," [the use of still us also useless]. Another issue is that I'm not sure that he criticized the amount of detail, but how "the developers pushed too far the boundaries of the PlayStation despite of the console's hardware limits." This should explain it better. Notwithstanding, I will read the review to see that the reviewer tried to say.
Okay. I have extracted what the source says: "The PS2's aging hardware, unfortunately, can't always keep up with the sheer level of detail the developers shoehorned in. As a result, the graphics occasionally stutter or even slow down." Then, stating that the reviewer "criticized the amount of detail in the game" is incorrect. He noted that the hardware limits of the PS2 were subpar to the graphics the developer have crafted, and as a result, they "occasionally stutter or even slow down."
Okay, I implemented your suggestion, but changed "criticized" to "noted", so it's "Mikel Reparaz of GamesRadar noted the amount of detail in the game, elaborating that as a consequence of the aging hardware of the PS2, "the graphics occasionally stutter or even slow down." However, he gave the game a perfect score concluding,"
Good :)
    • I feel that the reception section, the reviews, is a bit too short for such an influential game. Also, you should avid using that much number of quotes and try to synthesize the information, writing in your own words what the reviewers tried to transmit, and quotate only when necessary.
Will try to have this fixed, or at least better, by tomorrow.
Reception expanded. --JDC808 ♫ 23:03, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Soundtrack
    • "Spence D", Spencer?
"Spence D." is how his name appears in the source.
Ooh, then you got it wrong on the references... [ref #42, "Spencer D. (March 25, 2005)..."]
Woops, fixed.
    • "but complained of the uneven transitions between tracks", what about writing "but criticized the transition between tracks" or similar?
Done.
  • On Novel
    • I think you need to [brifely] state, out of quotes, the plot of the novel. Has it differences from the game? Was it a best-seller? Or is it all the information available about it?
I need to read it to be able to expand upon the plot differences. I'll try to search more online to see what I can find, as well as sales info etc.
Expanded section. --JDC808 ♫ 22:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Film
    • "and he eventually" this second usage of "he" is redundant.
Done.
A couple are done. A couple others need further comments. --JDC808 ♫ 02:22, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I'll still look for info on the novel though. A friend has let me borrow it so I'm actually able to read it now. --JDC808 ♫ 21:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As noted above, novel section has been expanded. --JDC808 ♫ 22:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Archive and access dates should be in the same format.
Okay, I had only been informed that date and accesdate format don't necessarily need to be the same, but all dates need to be consistent and all accesdates need to be consistent. I'll fix archivedate. --JDC808 ♫ 06:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --JDC808 ♫ 22:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to thesixthaxis, I can't say for sure. It's not listed as reliable and it's not listed as unreliable. There's a discussion about it and the OP makes good points of how it could be considered reliable, although the only response doesn't agree. --JDC808 ♫ 06:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the about page for that site. The best claim for the source is in the last paragraph: "A large proportion of the site's success is due to the contributions of staff members and the site administration led by Chris and Don. Its staff include journalists from GameSpot and IGN, producers of the Eminence Symphony Orchestra and Video Game Orchestra, game designers at Capcom and Ubisoft, and graduates from the University of Oxford and Berklee College of Music." —Torchiest talkedits 02:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moved my resolved comments to talk page.
  • Suppport: I already commented on the problems with improperly quoting in the development section; those have since been corrected. I checked sources 13–17 (the first paragraph of the release section) and 36–40 (the awards and accolades section) and they were all fine. Taking all that into account, along with the fairly extensive copy editing I've done and all of the other corrections, I think this is good to go. —Torchiest talkedits 20:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!! Both for the support and for helping correct issues. --JDC808 ♫ 20:59, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. --JDC808 ♫ 21:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Will the reviewers who are using the green template please read the instructions at WP:FAC and refrain from doing so? Templates at FAC cause errors in the archives per Wikipedia:Template limits triggered by transclusions; that is why the use of templates at FAC is discouraged. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Review by SandyGeorgia

Oppose: There are glaring prose issues throughout; I do not intend to list all of them. Check for "also" and "as well as" (which are almost always redundant), and here are two samples demonstrating the need for a thorough independent copyedit:

  • It's received aggregate scores of 93.62% from GameRankings[24] and 94/100 from Metacritic. It's ??
It's as in "it has"
I think I forgot to pint it out, but guidelines recommend not to use abbreviations. I think I overlooked this. — ΛΧΣ21™ 00:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • God of War began production in 2002 ... It began its own production?
...No.

Please locate a copyeditor; fixing these few samples will not address my concern, and FAC is not the place for a line-by-line copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two different copy-editors have already copy-edited the page. Once in September (and this editor did a couple of more edits where necessary afterwards) and another editor just last week. --JDC808 ♫ 23:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with JDC808. — ΛΧΣ21™ 00:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are contractions throughout the article, check for "it's" and "they're". Check also for preceding ellipses in quotes; these are not normally needed unless it is particularly important to emphasize that the quotation is drawn from part of the way into a sentence. I also noticed several instances of the use of curly apostrophes rather than straight apostrophes (particularly in quotes that were probably copy-pasted from elsewhere); see wp:MOSQUOTE for recommended usage. Another issue: the frequent use of "claim" when "say" (or equivalent synonym) is better; see WP:SAY for pointers. Hope this helps. Sasata (talk) 01:59, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Sasata too. — ΛΧΣ21™ 02:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I believe I took care of all of those issues ("it's", "they're", and the issue of "also") though it's possible I missed some if someone could double check. I think I took care of the elipses issue, unless I misunderstood what you said. I think I took care of the apostrophes. It was kinda tough so I may have missed a couple if you could double check. Changed "claim" (or "claimed" or "claiming") to "said" or ("stated" or "stating"). --JDC808 ♫ 04:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second visit from SandyGeorgia: Thanks for addressing the earlier issues.

  1. There is a considerable amount of prose that doesn't make sense to me (as a non-gamer); I could list it all, but there's a lot of it. So, generally, how about having a non-gamer go through and check for jargon? For example, what are "dial in combos" and what is the significance of the game being the antithesis of one?
  2. "because Sony gave him nearly complete creative control to create a game of his own design" ... creative ... create ... repetitive prose. Please review throughout with an eye to varying the prose.
  3. Logical puncutation issues are throughout: See WP:MOSLQ.
  4. In one para, there's a lot of Jaffe said, Jaffe elaborated, Jaffe etc ... but no other person is mentioned in that paragraph, so why not just "he"?
  5. Do you want a comma in here? Commenting on the story of the game, Tom Lane said that it was "compelling"[33] while Chris Sell said that the story is well laid out and that it rarely stalls.[34] Also, said, said in same sentence, try to vary ?

These sorts of prose issues persist; please give a thorough going over or locate someone who is not close to the text to copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I've went through and tried to fix some things, including your examples. --JDC808 ♫ 01:19, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will read the article again and try to make it non-gamer compliant. — ΛΧΣ21 03:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third visit from SandyGeorgia: An independent copyedit is still needed; JimmyBlackwing (talk · contribs) just copyedited another video game FAC, perhaps he can be consulted. For a random sample of the prose, I went to the "Release" section, random issues:

  • The game itself was released on March 22 ... it was the first product containing PS2 material to be available via download.[21] PlayStation Plus subscribers can download a one hour trial of each game.
  • PS2 is an undefined acronym (it should be defined on first-use in the article), and one-hour should be hyphenated. I have no idea what "containing PS2 material" means, so ...

Still opposing on prose, please locate a copyeditor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed what you pointed out and contacted JimmyBlackwing, but he cannot help. --JDC808 ♫ 05:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Darn. Have you approached David Fuchs (talk · contribs) ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now. He said he'll look over it this week. --JDC808 ♫ 22:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
He made a couple of edits. I thought he would have made more, but I guess he didn't see anything else. --JDC808 ♫ 05:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fourth revisit, I went to the Development section:

  • it was unveiled two years later at SCEA Santa Monica Gamers' Day
  • I had to click on the citation to understand what the acronym SCEA is.
  • GameSpot noted that players would be able to "sunder enemies with a single move, such as by ripping them in half." GameSpot said the ...
  • GameSpot noted followed by GameSpot said, can those be merged together somehow to avoid repetitive prose?
  • At E3 2004 in a meeting with GameSpot, the developer said that there would be about 15 to 25 different attack moves with the Blades—the player's main weapon—in the final game, and the combo system would be free-form so that players can string these moves together in just about any order.
  • Holy cow :) By the time I finished that sentence, I didn't know which end was up.
  1. Why must I click on a link to discover what E3 2004 is? And even when I click, I'm plopped in to the middle of some article where I still don't know it is. Then when I go to the top of that article, I find I'm in a History of article that still doesn't tell me what E3 is. So, many steps later, I figure out the first part of the sentence may mean " "In a 2004 meeting between Electronic Entertainment Expo and Gamespot (is that what is meant ???) ...
  2. ... the developer said the final game would include between 15 and 25 attack moves using the player's main weapon—the Blades.
  3. Next, why is the combo system added to this info, making the sentence harder to sort? How about, new sentence, and why would be ... can ... "The combo system would be free-form, allowing players to string moves together in almost any order" ???

I'm not sure what else to do here ... the article is close, but the prose needs work throughout-- I am only pointing out samples from one section each time I visit. I haven't checked for accurate representation of sources yet, either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, okay, I'm starting to get what you mean about a non-gamer having trouble. I parse E3 so instantaneously that I'm not even able to see it as a problem, but clearly it's meaningless for someone who isn't deeply involved in gamer culture. I've been doing more work on this, so I'll tackle the issues you mentioned and look for more cases of confusing lingo. I checked about a dozen sources before supporting, and got corrections on a number of them, so I think that part at least is fine. Thanks for the comments. —Torchiest talkedits 21:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC):[reply]

  • "Furthermore, he obtains a relic called Poseidon's Trident" Instead of the meaningless fluff word "furthermore", perhaps it would be more helpful to state when this happens in the game. Even "Later in the game" would be better.
Changed.
  • The majority of the content in the Setting subsection is redundant with the Plot section. I suggest merging the unique content into Plot and deleting Setting. I also suggest renaming Synopsis to Story.
I get what you're saying, but I don't agree with removing the section altogether. Any video game article (other articles as well) that have both a Setting and Plot sections are going to have some redundancies.
Thought of a way to expand it and explain the environments without being redundant as much as possible. Will work on tomorrow. --JDC808 ♫ 07:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With the help of Torchiest, the section has been expanded with a focus on the environments and what kinds of enemies are found in each. --JDC808 ♫ 23:32, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Much better. I have just now noticed that the Setting and Plot sections are entirely without citations. If it is common convention for a synopsis section to be written in such a manner? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
From my experience and from reading into that issue, at least in regards to video game articles (and maybe films too), yes. --JDC808 ♫ 02:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Referencing Prince of Persia, he said that while each puzzle in that series was a slight variation of the last" This phrasing can be simplified: "He said that while each puzzle in the Prince of Persia series was a slight variation of the last"
Changed.
  • "He praised how quickly the game progresses and noted its extreme violence." Noted how? Was the extreme violence seen as distasteful, or did it add to the fun?
Changed. --JDC808 ♫ 00:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]


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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