Talk:Left Behind: Eternal Forces

/Archive 1

Step-by-step improvement of article

To avoid further conflict and to reach consensus, let's discuss improvements to the article on a section-by-section basis. Present each section, then propose and discuss changes. Thank you. Seregain (talk) 03:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Header

Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a real-time strategy game for Microsoft Windows by Left Behind Games, now known as Inspired Media Entertainment.

The player joins a Christian organization (known as the Tribulation Force) who are fighting the forces of the Antichrist (known as the Global Community Peacekeepers, loosely modeled on the United Nations Peacekeepers). The game is based on the evangelical Christian Left Behind series of books.

The player is able to direct the actions of the main characters (Rayford Steele, Cameron "Buck" Williams, Chloe Steele, and Bruce Barnes) in their efforts to counter Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia. The game was released in the United States on November 14, 2006, and received a somewhat mixed reception from critics.[1]. The game garnered fire from numerous critics because of the religious nature of the game, resulting in a media frenzy.

It is being proposed that the header be changed to the following:

Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a Christian real-time strategy game for Microsoft Windows by Inspired Media Entertainment. The game is based on the evangelical Christian Left Behind series of books.

The game was released in the United States on November 14, 2006, and received a negative reception from critics.[2]. Criticism was directed at the game's mediocre gameplay, graphics, and dialogue, while the game also garnered controversy for promoting sexism, bigotry, conspiracy theories, and religiously-motivated violence. The game was also criticized for marketing itself as a Christian video game, but letting the player take the side of the Antichrist in the multiplayer portion of the game.

Editorially speaking, tightening of material is always good, however, not at the expense of creating POV. The GameSpot page clearly gives the critic average as 4.5 on a 10-point scale from a range of good to bad reviews. Being only a half-point away from 5, this is within the median range and certainly not within a realm that can be considered "negative." That being fact, filling up over half the header with criticisms reeks of POV and UNDUE.

Removing/incorporating the parenthetical statements would be an improvement.

As the game was historically released under the company name of "Left Behind Games," this should remain in some form. Seregain (talk) 04:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

1. I removed the "army of God" wording if you have an issue with it, but this game is based on the book of Revelations. I also removed the criticism piece from the top and merged it with the section at the bottom.

2. Before I cleaned this article up, the entire gameplay section was trivia about in-game units, levels, etc. That's fan-cruft and it belongs on a site like Wikia. The gameplay section is supposed to be a quick summary, not the entire instruction manual typed out for us.

3. Overall the reception was generally negative (I changed negative to "generally negative). It only has a 45 out of 100 % ranking on Gamespot and a 39 out of 100% ranking on Metacritic. That's just a 42% average. I did however restore several less harsh reviews that were lost between edits.

4. If there are any other falsehoods in the article please point them out for me and I'll have a look at them.--SuaveArt (talk) 05:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's just stick to the header in this talk section. I like what you cut it down to. Seregain (talk) 17:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Gameplay section

Proposed version:

The game features a single-player campaign and an online multiplayer mode. In the campaign, the player controls a Christian paramilitary organization (the Tribulation Force) who are waging a conflict against the Global Community Peacekeepers led by the Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia (loosely modeled on the United Nations Peacekeepers). The player directs the actions of the main characters (Rayford Steele, Cameron "Buck" Williams, Chloe Steele, and Bruce Barnes) and the Tribulation Force's units in an effort to defeat the GCP by converting civilians who are on the side of the GCP to their side, or by using lethal force when necessary including machine guns and tanks.

In the multiplayer component of the game, two players compete online against each other - one playing as the Tribulation Force and the other playing as the Global Community Peacekeepers.

This is very good for the most part. Only two major points I take issue with:

There's a problem referring to the Tribulation Force as a "paramilitary organization." There's simply no way the group in the books or the game can be described as being "paramilitary" in any sense of the word (and there are many), particularly in conjunction with a phrase like "waging a conflict against." That is a term far better suited to the books' and game's Global Community Peacekeepers.

The goal of the Tribulation Force is both the books and the game is not to defeat the GCP or Carpathia. Their goal is described as wanting to bring people to Christianity before Christ's return. Resisting and stymieing the Antichrist and his Global Community is one of the ways in which they accomplish that goal.

So, fixing those two things and clarifying a few other minor points, can we agree upon the following version?

The game features a single-player campaign and an online multiplayer mode. In the campaign, the player controls the Christian Tribulation Force who oppose the Global Community Peacekeepers (loosely modeled on the United Nations Peacekeepers) led by the Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia. The player directs the actions of the main characters (Rayford Steele, Cameron "Buck" Williams, Chloe Steele, and Bruce Barnes) and other Tribulation Force characters in an effort to converting both neutral and Global Community characters to their side, or by using lethal force when necessary including machine guns and tanks.

In the multiplayer component of the game, two players compete online against each other - one playing as the Tribulation Force and the other playing as the Global Community Peacekeepers.

If this looks good to you, go ahead and change the article section. Seregain (talk) 17:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

That's fine. I'll remove the "paramilitary" reference. As for the previous gameplay section, this is much too in-depth for a Wikipedia article (Wikipedia articles are supposed to be a brief summary). If there is a Left Behind wiki at Wikia, you could post it there instead or start a Left Behind wiki at the site.--SuaveArt (talk) 02:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I concur. It was a pretty clunky section with few, if any, references beyond the game's own website. Seregain (talk) 15:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Criticisms and Reaction sections

As for the criticism section, everything mentioned there is taken directly out of the reviews that are sourced, so if your opinion is that the game doesn't contain any racial stereotypes, then that's fine. But the article just is quoting the reviewers' opinions, not stating absolute fact. The article also includes several positive reviews in the criticism section.--SuaveArt (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not about my own opinion. I know some reviewers saw those things in the game, but I also know other reviewers did not and even outright refuted the reviewers who did. As far as quoting reviewers, it needs to be clear that this is what is being done. Let's take a look at what you wrote in your desired revision regarding the issue:

In addition the game garnered significant controversy for promoting sexism, bigotry, and religiously-motivated violence...

IGN, Ars Technica and GameSpy however disagreed that it promoted "convert or kill"-style violence.

Do you see how the first sentence makes it seem like it's an unquestioned fact that the game promotes those things? Also, that paragraph didn't cite any sources. Seregain (talk) 15:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

So moving forward, I see you want to take the Criticisms section and incorporate it into the Reaction sections, which is a great idea. Let's work on that. I won't copy sections here as much because it is so large. I will only copy parts that I question. Seregain (talk) 15:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Critical Reception section

Proposed version is pretty good for the most part.

The critical response to Left Behind: Eternal Forces was generally negative.

Given this reference, I cannot see how describing the critical response as "generally negative" can be justified. First off, "generally negative" is a very subjective (i.e. POV) description. Gamespot averages the critics' scores as 4.5 out of 10, which is only a half-point away from the midpoint. If you order the scores and break them down by thirds (positive, mediocre and negative), you find that 2 fall into the top third, 11 fall into the middle third, and 5 fall into the bottom third. Even if you split it in half (positive above 50% and negative below), 7 fall into the top half and 11 fall into the bottom half. Either way you split up the reviews, it doesn't justify the "generally negative" descriptor. I would say to not try to describe the reviews at all except in reference to how a website may describe them (as Metacritic does) and just stick to the facts.

Gamespot and Game Rankings appear to use the same reviews, so mention of those two should be combined.

Though some reviews praised the game for originality, most reviews panned it citing mediocre gameplay; a ridiculous plot; poor graphics and sound; and technical problems with the user interface, pathfinding, A.I.. In addition the game garnered significant controversy for promoting sexism, bigotry, and religiously-motivated violence and the ability to play on the side of the Antichrist in a Christian video game.

This proposed paragraph doesn't cite any references and treats the accusations of sexism, bigotry and religious violence in the game as unquestioned fact. I would say that the first sentence can be retained if it not only is properly sourced, but also includes mention of the company addressing these issues in various patches, which they did as can be seen here. Completely drop the second sentence as it is addressed in the subsequent subsection anyway.

Unless sourced, the "ridiculous plot" line should be dropped. How ridiculous is LB:EF in a world of games with time-travel, aliens, gods, magic, broken laws of physics, superheroes, sound in space, etc.?

The last paragraph about IGN et al is somewhat repeated in the subsequent subsection as well. I would say it fits better there, so it should be dropped from this subsection and incorporated into the next.

So we are left with this:

Left Behind: Eternal Forces received an average critic rating of 4.5 out of 10 at GameSpot and 45.33% Game Rankings' based on 18 reviews (both websites used the same reviews), and 38 out of 100 at Metacritic based on 20 reviews which they described as "generally unfavorable".

Though some reviews praised the game for originality, others panned it citing mediocre gameplay; poor graphics and sound; and technical problems with the user interface, pathfinding, A.I. The game's creators addressed many of these issues in subsequent patches.

Seregain (talk) 17:32, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

1. Reception - Fair enough, I'll change it back to "mixed" instead of negative (which was what the article said before I edited it)

2. Racism, sexism, ridiculous plot, etc - Those are actual comments from the reviews cited (such as the Gamespot review). They aren't "facts", they're the opinions of the reviewers. There are also (like you said) several reviews who said otherwise, but since the game did generate controversy over alleged bigoted content and this is mentioned in reviews, it's fair to mention it even if you personally disagree with it. I will change the wording to make it more neutral.

3. Patches - I will add a mention of this to the article.--SuaveArt (talk) 22:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

1. I don't think the reviews need to be described as "mixed" or anything else. Just present the facts as-is and let the reader decide how they want to view the various reviews. 2. Opinions of reviewers should be clearly understandable as being opinions of reviewers. (See WP:Reliable_sources#Statements_of_opinion.) The way you had written it does not make that clear at all. 3. That's good, but you buried it at the bottom of the section after many unrelated paragraphs and far away from the relevant paragraph. Seregain (talk) 01:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The topic of "mixed and negative" was covered long ago and was even discussed in on the Wiki Video Games Project page, the simple fact is blow 5 is negative and is called just that on Metacritic. To call it mixed is contradictory to the references used and every toehr game article on wikipedia that uses this system as a standard. If for you just HAVE to not call it negative than it would be better standards to NOT call it mixed or negative but Metacritic would still be listed as such. Stabby Joe (talk) 18:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

References

PLEASE READ before making any further reverts

I don't know what your complaints are, but I'll try to address them all. But do not revert back to the original version. You are reverting multiple edits, many of which are routine and much-needed cleanup. If you aren't content, then we will have to ask for the community to intervene and establish a consensus.

1. You say calling the TF a "militia" or "paramilitary" group is biased.

- Well I say simply calling it a "Christian organization" is biased in the other direction (just as most of the article was before I edited it). Up until now, the article had censored all references to the in-game military conflict except for one review which supposedly claimed that "the game only allows the player to use military force when it is attacked", which was also false (after reading that review, I found that it actually said only that the game penalizes the player for using military force against neutral units).

Like it or not, this is a military-oriented strategy game, and most of the reviews refer to the TF as an "army" or a "militia" group. Whether or not the game "promotes religious warfare" is a different story. If you have a better term than "militia" let me know, but a militia is referred to as.

"A group of civilians who are trained and prepared to serve in combat during times of self-defense". - That is what the TB is.

I've expanded the gameplay section further, adding an emphasis that the game discourages the use of force by penalizing the player and encourages conversion over violence. If you are only going to be satisfied if all references to the violence are subtly censored from the article, then that will not work and I will have to tag this article for peer review.

2. You say that I removed several positive reviews of the article, and that I moved the section about the software patch to a place where it's irrelevent.

- First, I have checked the edit history, and I have restored every major positive (and negative) review that was in the article before I first edited it. The only review I haven't restored is a minor Christian blog (personal blogs cannot be used as references on Wikipedia, only primary sources like Gamespot).

Second, the "patch section" is in a relevant section (and I even restored a Gameshark review of the "patched" version of the game, which was more positive). Putting the patch section in the middle of the reception section is not correct under Wikipedia guidelines, and is actually biased toward apologizing for the negative reviews (as you said, let the reader judge the article for themselves - before I cleaned it up, the review section was just a huge list of apologetic for the game's gameplay which don't belong in an encyclopedia).

Actually I decided you were right, and I put the patch section right after the criticism of the game's technical issues (along with another review).

3. The claims about sexism, racism, etc are stated as facts and I disagree"

Every claim about "racism, sexism, etc" is not "stated as a fact", they are quotes taken directly out of the reviews, and are just the opinions of the reviewers. I have added as many positive reviews as possible to balance it out, and I've changed the wording to make it sound as neutral as possible. But Wikipedia articles quote from sources. Even if those sources offend you.

If you have any other complaints, please list them here instead of reverting multiple edits which were routine cleanup unrelated to this POV conflict, or if you want I can ask for the community to step in and make a decision. Thanks.--SuaveArt (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is the latest version, please read it fully. - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Left_Behind:_Eternal_Forces&oldid=331375507

Sorry, SA, but you do not own the article. Seregain (talk) 19:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Neither do you. You're the only one acting like you "own" it. Please read up on Wikipedia official policy (such as WP:NOT). When you revert to the orignial version, you're not just reverting the content you objected to (you're also reverting a lot of routine maintenance such as typo corrections and formatting). And before I edited the article, it was full of clear WP policy violations (currently you may have issues with the article, but it doesn't violate any of Wikipedia's article criteria).

So once again, tell me what you object to in the current version of the article that I haven't already corrected. Since it's just you and me here, I'll have to ask for the community to make a decision if you still aren't content.--SuaveArt (talk) 23:05, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Christian?

Instead of saying that this is a christian game could the article not say evangelical? or even fundamentalist, it is not a christian game except to a small minority of radical unorthodox christians. To most christians the beliefs and themes put forward by this game are insulting and unchristian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.13.50 (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The opening paragraph states that the game is based on a series of evangelical Christian novels.--SuaveArt (talk) 02:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Questionable "Gameplay" sourcing

The section uses two questionable sources to support the information presented. The first is the Anti-Defamation League and the second is the Talk To Action group blog. The ADL is a civil rights organization that has little to do with computer games and the Talk To Action blog is, well, a blog, but is primarily concerned with religious and social issues. Both sources have a particular bias/slant and neither seems suited to providing reliable information regarding the gameplay of this or any other game. Their inclusion in later sections about issues surrounding this game is fine, but I don't think they belong in the "Gameplay" section. Seregain (talk) 06:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

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