Wikipedia:Peer review/Life Is Strange (video game)/archive1

Life Is Strange

I've listed this article for peer review because it is well on its way to good article status and I want feedback on how it looks in light of that, as well as when it might be best to nominate it for such a review. Hugs and kisses, Cognissonance (talk) 22:24, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

How coincidental. I just finished episode five last night, and was interested in improving this article to GA status, but it looks like you already had that intention. I'll take a look at it later today. Famous Hobo (talk) 13:42, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments by an IP

• "Life Is Strange is an episodic interactive drama graphic adventure video game developed by Dontnod Entertainment" Could it be incorporated to succeeding relevant sentences? For better flow. --124.107.75.38 (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Could you please elaborate? I'm not sure what you're asking. Cognissonance (talk) 18:11, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I not quite sure either, but I do think that's a problem sentence, maybe just say episodic adventure game instead? Because right now, episodic interactive drama graphic adventure video game is really long and cluttered. Famous Hobo (talk) 18:20, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I could consolidate the other phrase into "The interactive drama game consists of five episodes and was first released on 30 January 2015". I will also concede to your suggestion, which I think makes sense. Cognissonance (talk) 18:25, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

• "'The game consists of five episodes and released its first on 30 January 2015." Reads like the game released itself. --124.107.75.38 (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)  Done
• "rather than traditional graphic adventure tropes" What is a trope? Is there a link for this? --124.107.75.38 (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)  Done
• "acclaimed by critics, most of which" Shouldn't this "whom" instead "which"? --124.107.75.38 (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)  Done
• "praised the character development" Praised might be seen a POVish. A more neutral word should be used instead. --124.107.75.38 (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)  Done

BTW, while looking for a similar article to base this off of, I found Tales of Monkey Island, which just so happens to be FA status. If you haven't already, you might want to take a look at that. Famous Hobo (talk) 18:35, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Noted. Cognissonance (talk) 18:59, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Beyond: Two Souls could also serve as an effective template. Cognissonance (talk) 19:11, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

The Reception section should mention more than just what the Aggregation websites have on the episodes. Like how Tales of Monkey Island has its Reception section. GamerPro64 14:48, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

 Done Cognissonance (talk) 18:07, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about no activity here recently, been busy lately, but I should be able to post more comments and finish this review tomorrow. Famous Hobo (talk) 06:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Alright, here we go. Since the top section is all cluttered, I'll post my comments here.

Lead

• Themes of memory and identity are used to convey an adolescent sense of nostalgia, while the allegory of inner struggle is derived from the mystical aspects. I'm a little iffy towards this sentence, but since it is sourced in the development section, I'll allow it. However, one problem, what mystical aspects?

It comes from the line the supernatural elements that appear in the storyline were designed as a metaphor for the characters' inner conflict. The source wasn't specific to the rewind ability, so the edit lacks specificity for the same reason. I however changed "mystical aspects" to supernatural elements for clarification.

• At release, Life Is Strange was acclaimed by critics, most of whom commended the character development and game mechanic. Eurogamer described it as "one of the best interactive story games of this generation". Acclaimed is definitely not the word you want there. For a game to be acclaimed, it needs to have at least a 90 on Metacritic, at least in my opinion (Like BioShock, Grand Theft Auto V, and Super Meat Boy) Instead, write generally favorable or simply favorable reviews, like what is stated in the reception section. Also, instead of mentioning the Eurogamer quote (which might been seen as breaking a neutral bias), maybe talk about what reviewers disliked, like in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

 Done

I'm skipping gameplay for now. Since it's such an important part of any video game related article, I want to make sure it's as good as possible

Plot

• This isn't necessary, but you might want to mention in the first sentence that Arcadia Bay is a fictional city, and should not be confused with Arcadia Beach State Recreation Site, which is coincidentally in the same area (I'm sure the developers found some inspiration from that).

 Done

• The plot section could use more wikilinks. For example, lighthouse, tornado, viral video, etc.

 Done

• There are a couple of questions the casual reader might have about the last three paragraphs: Why did Max and Chole investigate the principal's office? Why does David get into an argument, and over what? Who's the Prescott family? (there introduction is sudden and out of the blue) Along with the questions, Mark Jefferson should be mentioned in the first paragraph, because the final paragraph assumes the reader knew that Max woke up in Jefferson's class in the first episode.

First, the previous line Max vows to uncover what happened to Kate and Chloe's missing friend Rachel Amber explains why they investigate the principal's office. Second, the whole David argument didn't amount to much relevance so I removed it and it flows better now. Third, I put influential as a prefix to Prescott family to clarify. The introduction might still be sudden, but there is more context now. Fourth,  Done

Development

• Life Is Strange was born out of the idea for the game mechanic What game mechanic?

 Done

Everything else looks good, but I'll have another look through tomorrow. BTW, when sourcing the Golden Joystick Awards nominations, you could always just cite the actual stream found here [1]. I forgot how to properly cite videos, but for now, you could cite it as a website. Famous Hobo (talk) 05:40, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done Cognissonance (talk) 12:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Okay, well, I got back to it eventually, so that's something I guess :P

Gameplay

• Okay, just by the looks of it, this section might need some reworking. As it stands now, I can understand what's being said, but that's because I've played the game. The casual reader might be confused when reading this section. For example, while the first sentence is good, the second sentence immediately jumps into the rewind mechanic, without any context beforehand. Maybe say something like this after the first sentence: The player can explore various locations in the fictional town of Arcadia Bay, and can interact with other NPC's. Obviously not the most well written sentence, but if fleshed out with a little more detail, I think it'll work nicely. Then mention in the next sentence, you can explain dialouge branches with other characters, and then mention the rewind mechanic. That way, the reader will know a little more about the game itself before being given the major gameplay mechanic. Then after that, mention the butterfly effect, and so on, like what's already stated in the section. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of imposing my ideas on how to improve a section, especially if it means almost completely changing the section structure of an article I don't work on, but I think if written like this, it'll look better. Again, it's my opinion, and because this is a peer review, you can reject my idea.

I did restructure the section and fixed some problems, but as the game has little gameplay anyway, there generally isn't much else to say. And I usually like to describe things generally.

• Other small things for this section are: explain in more depth about puzzle solving (like what form they come in, and how the rewind mechanic is used for the puzzles), and the last sentence, as neat as it may be for trivia, I think it's rather unnecessary for this, or quite frankly any section.

 Done

Release

• Everything looks good here, especially the reception section. Like, it seriously looks good. However, for GameRankings numbers, round up or down depending on decimal places (for example 78.07 becomes 78, while 77.66 becomes 78), and for Metacritic scores, put each score out of 100 (77/100). Also, you might want to remove PS3 scores, because each one only has like 2-3 reviews, and they aren't anything special when compared to next-gen consoles. Famous Hobo (talk) 06:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done Cognissonance (talk) 19:53, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments by IDV

Not going to comment on or even read the plot section, since I dislike knowing a lot about a game's plot before I play it.--IDV^talk 07:49, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

General

• Most of the time, we don't need references in the lead, which includes the infobox, as long as the info is sourced in the actual article. The writers are mentioned in the development section, so we don't need refs for them in the infobox.

 Done

• Several references aren't archived.

archive.org isn't cooperating with Mozilla (all I get is a blank page when I click on an archived URL). In these cases I would go to Chrome or Explorer, but for some reason I can't get them to connect to the Internet. In any case, I've come across sources that can't even be archived, so I don't see the mix of archived and non-archived sources as a breach of quality.

• Ref #128 is credited to GameStop rather than to GameSpot. Yes, I've made this mistake several times myself.

 Done

• Sometimes the websites' names are in italics, sometimes they're not. Sometimes it's ign.com, sometimes it's IGN. I do to this day not know whether to use italics or not for websites that aren't also magazines, but some consistency would be nice.

 Done

Gameplay

• Generally agree with what Famous Hobo wrote above. I only skimmed through their review, so I may be repeating some stuff they have brought up already.
• The mechanic of rewinding time allows the player to redo any action within the last few minutes. Is this real time? Or does the player play through the plot at their leisure, with minutes of events in the plot potentially taking significantly longer to actually play? What kinds of actions are there that the player can do and undo?

I'd rather keep the section more general than specific. Other than that,  Done

• Outfitted with a polarity system,[6] the choices made will alter and affect the story through short or long-term consequences What is a polarity system? What choices? What kind of consequences?

Removed the mention of the polarity system since short or long-term covers it, and clarified things regarding what choices.

• Do we need to say that the director described the game as XYZ? Can't we simply say XYZ instead?

 Done

• The player can also examine and interact with objects indicated by a UI of hand drawn icons, which enables puzzle solving. Not a fan of this sentence. Are them being hand drawn important? Can we just say "The player can examine and interact with objects that are indicated by icons"? What kind of puzzle solving? Are we talking Professor Layton-style puzzles or more traditional adventure game puzzles that are based on the environment and objects? How do you solve puzzles? Is it by combining and using items, selecting actions, etc?

More or less  Done

• Easter eggs are present in all of the game's levels to accommodate exploration. This seems more like something for the development section - "The development team tried to encourage exploration by placing easter eggs in all levels." could work.

My instinct is to defer to Famous Hobo's instinct on this one.

• Not a fan of the image. I would imagine a screenshot of exploration, puzzle solving, or a conversation with an NPC, would work better - you know, whatever average gameplay is like in the game. This thing doesn't communicate what the game is like or looks like, to me.

The current image exhibits the core mechanic of the gameplay. I think it makes sense to keep it.

Development

• I would avoid putting the two titles right next to each other, as I at first interpreted it as one single title before reading on. I suggest changing the first "The game" to "Life is Strange", and "Originally codenamed What If, Life Is Strange" to "Originally codenamed What If, the game".

 Done

• The lead character Max was created to seamlessly supplement this mechanism. How? What is special about this character?

 Done

• We already have one quote by the development team in the first paragraph, and then a lengthy one in the beginning of the second one, and yet another one in the third. Please try to paraphrase these.

 Done

• Might want to specify that The Walking Dead refers to the game, not the comic or the TV series.

I'd argue that that's what the wikilink is for.

• and has been said to "permeate through every layer of story, art and sound". Who said this? Are they important in some way? Is it just some reviewer? If so, it feels kinda weird to me to include it - it's not like the gameplay section includes reviewers' take on the various gameplay elements.

 Done

Release

• Those two quotes can easily be paraphrased.

 Done

• A Japanese version will be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. When? Who's publishing it? Is it going to be physical or digital? I would also suggest switching the order of PS4 and PS3.

At the moment, sources don't say when the release will occur or whether it's going to be physical or digital; time will tell. Square Enix has already been established as the publisher of the game. The order of the consoles are based on the order used on the official website.

Reception

• I notice that some views are credited to the reviewers (Kevin VanOrd, Kimberley Wallace, etc), while some are just credited to the websites themselves. Would prefer if reviewer names were used for every instance.

 Done

• The sales section is quite short. I've seen plenty of video game GAs include sales information in the first paragraph of the reception section when there is not a lot of information known.

Short sections in GAs are not unheard of.

• Attachment rate being strong seems important. Why is it hidden away in a footnote? Actually, this could be said about all the footnotes, now that I think about it.

I added 2 notes to fill the rest of the article, but the 2 others aren't viable for inclusion lest the prose lose its flow. Cognissonance (talk) 19:53, 11 November 2015 (UTC)