Talk:Special Force (2003 video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shooterwalker (talk · contribs) 13:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I'll take a shot at this one. Look for comments within a week, if not sooner. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to start with the body of the article, and then we can circle back for the lead.

Gameplay

• First sentence isn't bad, but might be a little easier to digest broken into two smaller parts.
• "including their geographic locations, land mines, number of Israeli soldiers, and weather conditions" -> "including their geographic locations, weather conditions, land mine arrangements, and number of combatants."
• " presented with some Hezbollah fighters" -> this is unclear. Is it referring to some type of collectable card system?
• This section is otherwise really well written. Good job.

Development and release

• "Special Force was conceived immediately" -> passive voice here kind of obscures who conceived it. The readers would benefit from knowing who created it, so it makes sense when you talk about "the group"
• "It was the group's first video game, although it had previously released fifteen software products and maintained twenty websites about the conflict." -> "While the group had years of experience developing software and websites, including pages about the conflict, this project was their first video game."
• This section is otherwise solid too.

Reception

• This isn't your typical reception section, which is fine. But it obscures reactions to the game's existence to actual critical reviews of the game experience. Try to separate those into different paragraphs, so we can distinguish between people who are reacting to what the game might mean or represent, versus people who went to the trouble of playing it.
• We might revisit this once it's organized somewhat better. But I like that the commercial reception is clearly in its own paragraph.

Sequel

• Following the 2006 Lebanon War fought between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah produced Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge, a sequel to Special Force based on the newer conflict. -> "Following the 2006 Lebanon War fought between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah re-created the conflict as a game sequel called Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge"
• "It was developed by the studio Might 3D, formed by the developers of the original game, using an unlicensed version of CryEngine." -> move this sentence so it swaps places with the previous sentence. And re-write, The developers of the original game formed a new studio, Might 3D, who made the game using an unlicensed version of CryEngine."
• "It was featured prominently in an exhibit around the conflict Hezbollah opened in the same month" -> this is a little unclear. Hezbollah set up the exhibit?
• "The author of the English version noted that not donating US$10 to Hezbollah or a local mosque after downloading the game for free would be haram." -> "The author of the English patch noted that it would be haram for someone to download the game without donating to Hezbollah or a local mosque."

This looks generally good. It shouldn't take much work to get it to GA status. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker: Thanks for your review! I made some quick alterations per your suggestions. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 17:52, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

You're doing great work. Sources all look good. We can wrap this up pretty easily.

• "Special Force was conceived immediately after the conflict ended in 2000 and developed over more than two years by the company Hadeel in cooperation with Hezbollah" -> "Hezbollah conceived the game immediately after the conflict ended in 2000, and developed the game with the company Hadeel over the span of two years."
• "Regarded as propaganda and a recruitment tool, it was condemned by Jewish organisations and Israeli officials." -> This is an accurate summary, but it feels incomplete without some mention of how the game itself was received.
• The reception section is basically fine. It feels a little odd to start the section with just people condemning it without playing it, since game articles consistently start with a game's direct commercial or critical performance. But granted, there isn't a lot to go on here. I'd consider moving the commercial impact to the beginning, and shifting the first paragraph to the second or third.
• "game sequel called Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge, a sequel to Special Force" -> a little redundancy there. Could easily drop the second part.
• "Special Force 2 was released on 16 August 2007 and was featured prominently in an exhibit around the conflict opened by Hezbollah in the same month" -> "Hezbollah published Special Force 2 on 16 August 2007, and featured the game in a local exhibit about the conflict."

Won't take much more than that to get this across the finish line. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Made some more changes, including putting the sales first in the reception section. This is somewhat unusual -- in all of my other articles, sales come last -- but the section was generally difficult to structure since the vast majority of commentary is reactionary and few to no actual reviews exist, at least not in the publications I could find. IceWelder [✉] 08:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your good work on this unusual article. This is certainly good article quality. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)