Talk:Edge (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Czar (talk · contribs) 05:31, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Nice to see my GIFs getting some attention :) I'll start with some of the bigger must-dos and drill down into the nice-to-haves.

• The lede needs expansion to encapsulate the breadth of the article. It should summarize elements like the basic gameplay and development as a brief account of the article's entirety.
• Have you verified the links? The develop-online.com links are dead (and you can use the publication's actual title for those).
• Whatever citation format you choose should be consistent. E.g., a bunch of citations are missing dates. When these links inevitably go dead, having more metadata in the citation will make it easier for others to attempt to recover the links.
• The trademark dispute in its own section feels like undue weight. Even though it got a fair amount of coverage, is it really as important as the gameplay or development process (sections) by weight?
• Consider whether the stuff sourced to primary sources warrants inclusion at all. If a secondary source didn't say it, did journalists find it important?
• Dateline in the dev/trademark sections: dates should be generalized (not specific) when the date/month doesn't have any significant import on the sentence. But even in general: don't provide more detail than necessary for a broad understanding or else risk losing your readers.
• The Reception reads as a barrage of quotes. What is so vital about this language that can't be paraphrased?
• What are the main take-aways from these review sources and why is it important for us to know about them? Summarize the aggregate opinion with human-friendly context, e.g.,

  The game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.

  rather than repeating the scores from the review box, which mean little in prose without context
• Some advice on structuring Reception sections at Wikipedia:Copyediting reception sections
• Template:Video game reviews/doc#Guidelines: Use two digits of precision in the review score box
• No need to link anything besides the game's site in the ext links—the article is about the game, not the company or its soundtrack
• List of release dates in the infobox is overkill but not as pressing as the rest of the above
• Can use more active verbs in the Gameplay to keep it peppy
• "and are accompanied by a map with a top-down perspective" is this something that needs to go in the second sentence? Set up the basis of the game and then can add UI explanations later. Something like how levels are played, their consistency, the win conditions, how the levels progress, then fill in detail like the ranking system and other incentives.
• Overall, it's worth reading the prose out loud to find easy areas that need clarification. If you read this to someone who was unfamiliar with the game, would they be able to follow or would they have questions of continuity?

On the whole, going in the right direction.  On hold czar 05:31, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your review. i will make the necessary fixes. The reason why i linked both Mobigame and Edge is because Mobigame website offers more information, and it also has information on Edge Extended. The Edge official site looks more like a teaser site. Just a quick question: What if the sources don't have a date available? For example App store, Steam and PlayStation Store?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 12:51, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

If the site doesn't have a clear publication date, no need to add one, but that's where an access date is helpful so readers know that they might be viewing a different version of the page. This said, secondary sources should be available for any major claim made in the article—primary sources should only be used to fill in final/necessary details. czar 13:33, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

• re: [1]

  I originally added scores and some quotes but that wasn't enough for GA status and had to be revised.

  The GA criteria don't mention scores/quotes—the general tips in the review are more towards improving the writing and making it concise. (I.e., doesn't need to meet some set bar of dos and don'ts, but could definitely use less quoting and more paraphrasing) czar 01:47, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for my poor choice in words. I didn't mean it like that. But i am still attempting to improve the reception section as best as my ability. i know there are other reception sections that look far better. Do you see any specific reviews that i can improve on? Unfortunately, some of the early reviews just give a description and then there overall thoughts at the end.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 06:08, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. You can go back to the sources you used and further paraphrase them. The final sentence contains a two-sentence quote from GameSpot. You can put it in your own words, or even better, fully digest the sentiment and mix it with what other reviewers say. Group what reviewers think about its simplicity/complexity. Group what reviewers say about the graphics. Etc. czar 04:35, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

• @Blue Pumpkin Pie, checking in since it's been two weeks. How would you like to proceed? czar 12:41, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Sorry for keeping you waiting on this review. I was working on this outside of Wikipedia on a word document and trying to follow the advice given. It's currently saved on my desktop for a while but I never posted it in Wikipedia yet. I will be making the final adjustments today. If it's not ready for GA, then i understand and no hard feelings. I can always try again next time.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
    • I don't think this advice from WT:VG was sound

      Reviews are generally not written by publications, they are written by a person at a publication. For instance, you've written TouchArcade gave the game a perfect score, praising it for being "an incredibly fun game" and a "brilliant platform game", whereas, it's better to write Troy Woodfield of TouchArcade gave the game a perfect score, praising it for being an "incredibly fun" and a "brilliant platform game".

      It made the section much clunkier to read and the names really don't matter (the publications themselves barely matter—readers are most interested in general impressions whenever available not that Minor Person X of Magazine Y made a singular quip about Z. It looks like only a few of my bullets above were addressed (and that's fine, it's not required, but it helps to discuss sometimes—feel free to ask me questions if I'm unclear) but my major hangup is WP:GACR#1a because consecutive sections in this section appear to have very little to do with each other. E.g., what does it mean for the levels to be "lifelike" (they're total abstractions, no?) Statements like "The soundtrack was also well received among reviewers." can be challenged and thus should have direct citations. Not sure what the remaining quotes offer by not being paraphrased further. Might want to just read this out loud or to another person and see whether it makes sense on a per-sentence and continuity-between-sentences level. Open to other thoughts too, but that's my feeling upon reading this. czar 22:25, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I was attempting to follow this advice as best as I can:

You can put it in your own words, or even better, fully digest the sentiment and mix it with what other reviewers say. Group what reviewers think about its simplicity/complexity. Group what reviewers say about the graphics. Etc.

I was grouping similar statements from reviews about certain parts of the game. It was extremely difficult to make one review stand out from the others because they all were ultimately saying similar things. A lot of the early reviews for Edge were just 95% describe the mechanics and 5% impressions. one common description of the game was comparing the level designs as living and breathing and full of life, so that's why I chose to add an opening sentence for the levels. I backed it up with the following reviews but if this not ok, I can just remove it. I was just writing a sentenced that followed up with the similar descriptions given by the reviewers. I'll paraphrase more quotes. I've been really busy too. This process has been difficult because I've been getting contradictory advice on what a GA-level Reception section should look like. I'll do my best once again. I have been very busy outside Wikipedia, so my edits may come in small increments.

I thought i addressed most of the bulletins. Remind me which ones i haven't addressed yet?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 04:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Yep, I was thinking of this edit, which added reviewer names in the prose. The GA criteria are not prescriptive and there aren't hard and fast rules on Reception sections (though there is advice at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Video_games#Reception and WP:CRS). The Reception can be written however you please as long as the prose is readable. czar 05:52, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

@Czar: At this point, I rather you just point out which sentences are stopping it from being GA. I don't want to misinterpret your advice and set this review back any further. if there's anything you find that's a problem, point it out specifically and I will make adjustments. But that is all I can do at this point. I can only do adjustments. I cannot do any more full revisions. Maybe cross off what you think i already addressed and keep what i haven't addressed yet.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 11:15, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Reviews aren't prescriptive checklists... so this is the best I can offer:

• "The soundtrack was also well received among reviewers." any combined claim like this needs direct citations (shouldn't have to list all of them out)
• Also it isn't necessarily true as phrased. To not imply about all reviewers, rephrase to specify, e.g., "Some reviewers praised its soundtrack." (apply throughout section)
• "positive praise" is there any other kind of praise?
• "Both Owen Good of Kotaku and Slide to Play made comparisons to Marble Madness." Is the first part necessary? Try "Two publications made..." unless naming the publication is important. Or even better, "Reviewers who praised its level design made favorable comparisons with Marble Madness", if supported by sources
• "Bonnie Eisenman of 148Apps also gave favorable mention of the level designs" isn't this redundant to the combined citation?
• 'calling them "pitch-perfect"' What is this meant to convey? The level designs match the pitch of what?

None of this needs to be perfect, but per the criteria (the prose is clear and concise), needs to be clear/concise for the reader. If you don't have time to revise, no pressure, can always relist for review in the future. czar 15:38, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe I made the necessary adjustments. I addressed bullet #1, 2, 3, 5 and 6. In my opinion bullet #4 is a non-issue and doesn't make it unclear or non-concise.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 05:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

#4: okay re: clarity, but certainly not re: concision czar 13:02, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• "the use of shaders and anti-aliasing allowing players to modify the resolution" not sure what this means
• why is "mobigame.com" used as a reference with no specific page? is there no secondary source that covers this?
• I've said this several times but the article is heavy on primary sources—are there really no reliable, secondary sources to replace the dev sources?
• why is the separate Release section necessary? It has a Ports subsection but there is already a paragraph in the previous section about Two Tribes' ports. It's not necessary to split the sections by length at least—I would combine into a single development narrative per the layout MoS (the release date is more important in context of explaining the port's details to be withheld for some paragraph dedicated to release dates)

• Dateline in the dev/trademark sections: dates should be generalized (not specific) when the date/month doesn't have any significant import on the sentence. But even in general: don't provide more detail than necessary for a broad understanding or else risk losing your readers.

  This is still an issue. I attempted to rectify the above bullet to save you time, but even I can't make heads or tails of who is working for what port and when. I recommend putting the Edge ports into a single paragraph and keep dates generalized if they even warrant mentioning at all. If you want to cite specific release dates, you can add footnotes to the dates in the infobox. Edge Extended ports should probably be in their own paragraph after you introduce Edge Extended. But they were quite jumbled as originally organized.

• Whatever citation format you choose should be consistent.

  This is still unaddressed. A number of the refs don't list authors or dates or are just missing info ("1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die"). Some links are dead and should be updated as |deadlink=yes if so.
• Per WP:VG/RS, is TIGSource, 148apps, applenapps.com reliable? Same re: primary sources mentioned above and even for the awards mentions—are there really no better secondary sources? A video game reliable sources custom Google search might be helpful. If a site isn't reliable, it should be removed. This is, after all, an encyclopedia.
• Fingergaming (reliable?) does not link to the intended article
• Are the mentioned awards notable? We don't have an article for those awards, so would seem not
• I copyedited the Reception—much better than before, but there were lots of small grammar errors. Worth proofreading in the future.
• "control scheme option to be a cop-out" what does this mean? cop-out of what? developing something better? (specify)
• "[edge extended] included in most ports of the original game" I didn't see this explained in the prose below, right?

czar 13:02, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

---

• @Blue Pumpkin Pie, nice work on this. Is this your first GA? If so, congratulations! Keep going on the above points and I think even the Edge Extended reception could use some detail on what reviewers considered an improvement on the original. Otherwise, I'm comfortable saying that the article meets the baseline of the GA criteria (though there is room to keep going!) Please {{ping}} me if I can help, and once again: nicely done. czar 12:48, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

This is my attempt at one, yes. I still have a lot to learn, as you can see there are still multiple things to work on. But i'm glad it meets baseline GA criteria :DBlue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2019 (UTC)