Talk:Gex (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: TarkusAB (talk · contribs) 18:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I will definitely take up this article. TarkusAB^talk 18:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Will you need help in finding reviews about every version of the game? I'm in the middle of finishing the re-arrangement of the List of N-Gage games so once i'm done with it, i can lend you a hand in that front as this is one of my favorite PS1 games. Do The Math (talk) 19:24, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't need help, but maybe Tristan would. I am just reviewing the article. After a quick look at the article, I feel some more 3DO reviews would be nice if they can be found. TarkusAB^talk 22:43, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@KGRAMR: Yes, some help with finding game reviews would be highly appreciated. I have managed to find a few of them via Archive.org but I believe that most of them are already in the article.

If there's any way that you could find any release date sources as well that would be quite splendid. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 15:32, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Wow, that was far quicker than I'd have expected. Nonetheless, thanks a lot for offering to take this one up. I'll be looking forward to your feedback. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 19:52, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I am starting my review. I will make minor corrections as I go that I feel would be uncontroversial, but revert if you disagree with any. TarkusAB^talk 22:43, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Passing comment: there are some barelinks that should be formatted in {{citation}}. JOEBRO64 22:49, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Yep TarkusAB^talk 23:37, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Lead

• Regarding the two footnotes here...it's best to have all the information sourced in the article body and just have the lead remain free of footnotes. Lead should just be a summary of what you've written in the rest of the article. Looks to me like these could just be removed.

Cleared of all sources (besides infobox?? I'll have to check that)- removed one unreliable one and moved the other to the dev section. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 16:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• The lead needs a bit more summary of the critical reception. All it says is it got largely positive reviews, but can we summarize their thoughts? Maybe a sentence.

Semi-colon'd and added some more specific details.

• The infobox says Beam Software developed the PS1/Saturn version. If the game is just a port of the 3DO game, this should be mentioned in prose and omitted from the infobox.

Fixed. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:00, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Gameplay

• The Planet X passage needs a source.

Added review from a website called "Push Square", which is under the same online publishing network as Eurogamer. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 19:48, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• "and specialized projectiles"...what does "specialized" mean here? if nothing, can that word just be removed?

When I wrote this I meant to get across that there are several different special kinds of projectiles, such as fire, ice, etc. I guess "specialized" is a strange word choice, so I've changed to "one of many different types of projectiles". ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 19:50, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Plot

• I have admittedly never played this game, but my instincts tell me this isn't a very plot-centric game. The weight of the plot should mirror how much it's covered in secondary sources. After reading through this plot, I think it can be shrunk down to about a paragraph's length. A lot of the prologue details are too in-universe and not needed for the average reader. Per MOS:PLOTSOURCE, plot does not need citations.

Done- I've removed most of the manual details aside from one or two passing facts at the beginning, removed citations, and merged it with the gameplay section. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 19:43, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Development

• "and a "mode 2" set for a vertically scrolling level."...what exactly does this mean? Does it mean that there was an alternate version of each set built for vertically scrolling sections? I think this can be written better.

I'm just paraphrasing the info in the article, which states that the Horror world had 2 platforming art sets, and a 3rd art set for a vertically scrolling stage- referred to simply as "mode 2". Do you have any specific advice for how to word this better? I can only use what's given in the source so I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to expand this detail.

• "While working on the game, they found that developing game art for 32-bit hardware was far harder than it was with 16-bit hardware, as the expanded memory and storage capabilities of a compact disc meant that far more art could be made; with two artists working on the game's assets, a single in-game level took around 2 months to complete."...Two problems with this sentence. One, it's far too long, maybe break it up. Two it claims that making art for 32-bits was harder because of the increased storage of a CD. This doesn't make sense. There were 16-bit games on CD (Mega CD) and 32-bit games on cartridge (32X).

"Expanded memory" pertains to the 32-bit aspect, whereas the compact disc storage was a separate reason. I've reworded to make this more clear. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• "Panasonic was hesitant in hiring additional artists to the game's development team, as their two other 3DO games being developed at the time, Crash N Burn and Total Eclipse, contained simpler art styles and thus required a small number of artists, convincing them that Gex only needed a small team as well."...The first and last part of these sentence say almost the same thing. I think this sentence can be written better.

Shortened and reorganized sentence ("Because Crystal Dynamics' two other 3DO games being developed at the time, Crash N Burn and Total Eclipse, only required a small number of artists, Panasonic was hesitant in hiring additional artists to the game's development team, presuming it to be unnecessary."). ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• "Eventually, the company began bringing other designers in to work on characters,"...would "artists" be a more accurate word than "designers" here? It should be either character designers or artists because just "designers" usually means game designers.

Went with "artists". ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• "However, by that point, " ...replace with "By September," if I'm understanding correctly

Done, albeit I kept "However" in unlike in your example. Are you game with this or is it better without?

• ", and by Winter it was clear that the game would still need extra time to be finished." ...MOS:SEASONS, replace with a month or "by the end of the year" or something

Went with "by the end of 1994..." ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• This section should progress in chronological order. Looks like there will need to be a little shuffling around to put the stuff from the third and fourth paragraphs (I broke up the last paragraph) and place it before the game's release. I don't know the approximate order of things so I'll leave up to you.

Tried to reorder things a bit to make it more in line with the chronology of events. Some bits like the secret dev additions and the spiel with Justin Knorr didn't have any points in time connected to them at all, so I split para. 2 in half and lumped it in there, as well as remerging para.'s 3 and 4 and putting those in the middle. Let me know if I should tweak anything else.

• Are there any sources that give the release dates of the other versions of the game? Some dates in the infobox are unsourced.

Gradually working on this part. Release dates for relatively obscure games like this are always a damn odyssey to find, because the most reliable sources are usually magazines, press releases, etc. which involve some real digging. I think I nabbed everything besides the EU release dates of the 3DO & Windows ports, but if I don't find anything for them then I'm just nixing them entirely for now. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand. Did you try looking at all through retroCDN? They have scans of lots of European magazines. Try Joypad (FR), Video Games (DE), Hobby Consolas (ES),...Most games back then didn't have a street date, they just kind of showed up, so a month or Q2/Q3 thing is perfectly acceptable. The 3DO release was also reviewed in Level magazine, a Czech publication. TarkusAB^talk 21:41, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to check the zine catalogue you gave me when I can. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 21:47, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Reception

• Seeing as the game was originally a 3DO game, it would be nice if there was 1-2 more 3DO reviews here. Could you find any more?
• The GameFan preview can just be thrown in with the other reviews or omitted. It feels very out of place at the beginning there.

Mixed in with the other reviews. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:10, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• Per the template instructions, the GameRankings scores should be rounded to nearest whole percent. No decimals.

Fixed. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:10, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• Since the scores are aggregated in the box, you don't need to restate any of them in prose, even the GameRankings ones.

Fixed. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:10, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• If the EGM scores are averages, it should be made clear with a footnote giving the individual scores.
• This sections relies too heavily on quotes. For example the sentence "He concluded, "In a world of polygons, we're not sure one last side-scroller is what the 32-bit universe needs, but you could do worse."" Can be reworded: "He concluded that the game's 2D side-scrolling nature felt outdated compared to the 3D games on the market." or something like that.
• The sales figures says "By July 1995" but the two cited mags are dated October and November. Are they really speaking about the sales up to 7/95?

Legacy

• No comments

Other comments

• The reference formatting needs some work. Many of the links are bare links when they should be using a cite template. Use the cite template most relevant to how the information was originally published (magazine vs. website vs. newspaper, etc.)
• The source rec.games.video looks questionable to me. Hmm, it's used in the lead. Can this just be removed.

Done. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 16:06, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• All references should be using same date format.

Fixed (I think? Doesn't seem like I missed any dates but I very well may have). ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:18, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• For the instruction booklet...instead of having a different footnote for each page number, just source the booklet using one footnote and (optional) use the rp template for the page numbers like I did on Wild Guns.

• OK, those are my thoughts. Overall very comprehensive, but your sentences are sometimes very long and too wordy. I cut lots of unnecessary extra words and puffery during my read through. I also replaced numbers with letters (like 6 for six) which should always be done with numbers under 11 or numbers like 1000 or 100 or whenever it makes sense. I think my biggest concern is the reception needs some tender love and care and the references need formatting. Once everything is addressed I will take another look. TarkusAB^talk 00:13, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Looks and sounds great. I will make sure to get on these issues ASAP. Highly agree with you on the reception section, it still needs quite a bit of work. ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 15:32, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• A little question about whar TarkusAB brought to the conversation, since i had issues with a wiki editor in the past saying that game manual references are not allowed, yet Dino Crisis has them and it's a good article for having them so i need a closure on this subject: Are game manual references allowed on Wikipedia? Do The Math (talk) 17:05, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Game manuals are certainly permissible (they are primary sources), but using secondary sources like game reviews is preferred. This is because the reviews will discuss the most notable parts of the gameplay as relevant to its readers, and not tread into unnecessary detail like a manual will. Also, reviews will discuss a game's pace and feeling and compare aspects to other games and genres. Manuals do not do this. I only use manuals now as a last resort. Dino Crisis was one of my first GAs. If I had the motivation, I would go back and rewrite that gameplay section using reviews as sources. TarkusAB^talk 18:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Hey, quick status update for @TarkusAB: and @KGRAMR:- my apologies for the lack of major edits on my part in the past week or so. I've been thinking about the page, but I've also had a lot of big classes in school like AP Physics and Art of Film that have been pretty big preoccupations. I'd like to get back into a flow of working on this page (at least until I'm done with it) on a fairly frequent basis, as the only real adjustments left besides some citation dealings pertain to the reworking and expansion of the reception section. An unhelpful factor is that this year, our school-appointed Chromebooks deny access to both archive.org and archive.is since they're proxy servers, meaning that it's pretty difficult to get a lot of good work in even at school. Nonetheless, any and all help with getting review sources is still appreciated. Any updates on this front? ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 15:11, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

@TheDisneyGamer: Hi! Sorry, i've been very busy with Atari Jaguar-related stuff here on the site but let me try to find various reviews in regards to the game on a few hours. Do The Math (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

@TheDisneyGamer: Here's some reviews for the 3DO version that i could find at the moment, as i'm busy reworking the article for Battlemorph: 1, 2. Do The Math (talk) 07:48, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

These are both great, I will integrate them into the articles asap. Thanks!! ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 12:45, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• @TheDisneyGamer: Tristan, are you still working on the article? I see you're still making edits. Let me know when you'd like me to look at the article again. TarkusAB^talk 18:06, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
  • @TarkusAB: Oh, hey, sorry for the lack of contact about this article. It's been on my mind lately, but I've also had a fair amount of other things happening in relation to schoolwork and it's been tough to focus on this. Either way, I've made a lot of progress here- I think that I've cleaned up just about everything in most of the sections and addressed the majority of the issues that you mentioned, including tidying up all of the citations to be consistent. I'm not sure if the reception section is complete enough or not (there are still still some details that could certainly be added), but I'd say that overall I've made it a bit more organized than it was before. you can feel free to take another look and see what you think of the article, if there are any other thoughts. I will make an effort to put some time forth towards continuing work on this article, even if it winds up being somewhat sparse. Thanks! ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 00:52, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
    • I fixed up some loose ends and passed the article. Meets all the criteria. TarkusAB^talk 13:28, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Sweet. Thanks for the help! ~~Tristan ("TheDisneyGamer") 20:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)