Talk:Anachronox/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tezero (talk · contribs) 18:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()

3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()

Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

The article's pretty good. Most of my issues with it are in terms of non-standard or ambiguous wording. There's one more substantial issue that'll take longer to fix, but that's later in the list. Tezero (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"The game features a science fiction story influenced by cyberpunk, film noir, and quirky humor": It doesn't look like the game was influenced by quirky humor; it looks like it had it. Change this to something like "The game features a science fiction story influenced by cyberpunk and film noir, as well as unconventional humor."
- Changed the sentence. GamerPro64 04:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"spliced together sequences and cutscenes": "Sequences" is ambiguous. Do you mean "gameplay footage and cutscenes"?
- I checked the machinima and it does seem to use gameplay footage in it. So the sentence has been changed. GamerPro64 04:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"It offers gameplay in the style of older role-playing video games, such as Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series." Why is this relevant? It seems to be true of most RPGs. Is it that this was unusual for an American developer? Unusual for its era? Unusual for something not produced by Square in general? Was it influenced especially heavily by those games? Was the use of Active Time Battles unusual? State what you mean in that sentence.
- Later in the article producer Tom Hall mentions Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy as being inspirations for the game so I added that in. GamerPro64 04:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Players can use MysTech to inflict damage upon enemies, plagues them with certain status effects (such as freezing them in place), or heals party members": Reword for grammar.
- I believe I fixed the grammar in it. GamerPro64 16:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Special Hosts with two or three different functions": What's a Special Host?
- So in the previous sentences the section mentions there being different types of Hosts in the game. I guess what the sentence is saying is that there are Special Hosts in the game with two or three different functions and such. GamerPro64 22:40, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - You mean "special Hosts". Okay. For some reason I thought "Special Host" was a proper noun. Tezero (talk) 17:49, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Anachronox is a small planet floating inside a huge artificial sphere known as Sender One." While I'm fine with this in and of itself, game article convention says you should make this more explicitly fictional. Change it to something like "The game takes place on Anachronox, a small planet floating inside a huge artificial sphere known as Sender One."
- Changed. GamerPro64 16:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"MysTech was first" → "MysTech were first"
- Changed. GamerPro64 16:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"her book 'MysTech Awake!'" → "her book, MysTech Awake!"
- Changed. GamerPro64 16:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"With Daikatana, it became known as one of the 'crown jewels' of Ion Storm": What does this mean? Did they consider it one of their most valuable projects? Who said "crown jewels", anyhow?
- I removed the sentence from the article. Didn't seem to be that important overall. GamerPro64 16:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"planned to use Magpie Pro": Hasn't been introduced. What about "planned to use software called Magpie Pro'"?
- Changed. GamerPro64 16:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"went 'gold' and shipped to manufacturers'": De-quote "gold." It's a pretty well-known term in the industry.
- De-quoted. GamerPro64 16:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Having a "Release and legacy" section seems awkward, since legacy doesn't come about until after critical reviews. I think you should move everything after the first sentence, until the end of the large quote, to a new subsection called "Legacy" , along with "Machinima film" and "Sequel", which you should make subsections of Legacy. Keep the rest of "Release and legacy" but title it "Release and patches".
- Created the new section and whatnot. GamerPro64 16:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Reception section is way too long. You don't really need more than two paragraphs each for "Technical design" and "Story and direction". Each of those subsections would be fairly long for a Reception section by itself. As it stands, Reception is overly detailed and difficult to navigate for the average reader.
- I may need something to work with this in terms of getting this one done. Are there any parts in the section that you consider to be redundant or unnecessary to have in it? GamerPro64 04:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's not that specific points are unnecessary; I just find Reception to go too far into detail for each one. I mean, look at the paragraph starting with "Critics enjoyed the characters and dialogue of Anachronox." That sounds fine, but then it lists the opinions of numerous critics that generally overlap. For each major point like this about the game, you can probably condense it to three sentences or so, including a couple of quotes that summarize opinions on each side. Actually, most of the first paragraph of Reception is redundant, too; for example, "involved storytelling and fascinating gameplay" each correspond to not only another point made by reviewers, but a whole other subsection. I really do think you could condense Reception down to the size of the current "Technical design" subsection and you wouldn't be leaving much out. Tezero (talk) 05:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"illustrating the game's musical style.": What's the musical style like? Elaborate on that a bit in the caption.
- I wasn't sure about this one. Hall said that the sound of the game is "industrial" so I added it in the caption. I'm not entirely sure that makes sense though. GamerPro64 01:59, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Update on this. I took out industrial from the caption per this discussion. Maybe we'll be able to figure out the style with it. GamerPro64 15:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - I wrote this in the discussion thread but I want to bounce this off of you. Since the game seems to use more than one style of music, how about the caption says, "A 30 second sample of Anox_Democratus, illustrating one of the game's many musical styles"? GamerPro64 04:36, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - Would it be over-reaching (read: OR) to mention which style? If so, yeah, what you have is fine. Tezero (talk) 05:26, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        The audio clip has now been removed from the article per a consensus to do so which makes this issue technically resolved. Not entirely sure if another sample will take its place in the future, however. GamerPro64 06:04, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update: You've done well so far. Keep it up. Tezero (talk) 17:46, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just gonna put this out there that I'm working on trimming down the Reception section but with college work it will a slow task. Made slower since I have to figure out what is unnecessary in the section to take out. GamerPro64 23:09, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I don't really care about the seven-day guideline; I just want to know you're still working on it. I'm in college myself. Tezero (talk) 15:49, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]