Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 10:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary[edit]

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:02, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After a GAN and very helpful peer review, putting this out there for people to have a whack at. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:02, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments Ah, this takes me back to my days as an admin on Halopedia. I spent far too much time playing the original.
    • "these include terminals that provide new backstory and skulls that modify gameplay." -- Terminals and skulls are something of an in-joke in the Halo games, so these should be explained for the layman who is unfamiliar with the game. Try rewording like "these include hidden 'terminals' that, when accessed, provide glimpses into the Halo expanded universe and hidden 'skulls' that unlock modification to gameplay."
    • "Design" graph 2: You should add that Master Chief was originally a port from Reach's Mark V multiplayer armor skin, but it didn't look right so they did a custom build for the character (for any other detail this might be trivia, but for Master Chief's design I think it's an exception.
    • "Design" graph 5: It should also be noted here that from a marketing standpoint, 343 had wanted to use this title to introduce younger people to Halo, since the original had come out so many years ago.
    • Any references for the soundtrack song listings?
    • No disambig links or external links problems. Saw one duplicate link which I removed. The two images appear to be properly licensed.
Will await your responses. —Ed!(talk) 22:56, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Added CD tracklisting. As for the vinyl, I haven't been able to find a retailer source yet; I'll see if there's something tomorrow. As for your other comments, not sure what "graph n" means in this context? Thanks for the review. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 22:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Great work! Supporting now. —Ed!(talk) 23:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I think an audio sample of the games music might be great to have, Halo has some of video gamings most popular music. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 20:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Multiple issues (not all of them oppose worthy):
    • If you use a review in the prose, then put the score into the boxout. You quote Giant Bomb and PALGN yet don't think their scores relevant. For Edge, it's the opposite.
    • You want the best sources throughout. So why are you using The Inquirer in the reception? Inq is where people go for dull as dishwater IT news, not game reviews.
    • What does GameRankings give you that Metacritic doesn't? You want to show the critical consensus, either one can do it, they say the same thing.
    • The reception gives too much importance to the individual writers, whereas in games criticism - it's always more about the publication. Just going by publication is enough, if you want to credit the writer - do it when you introduce the publication, thereon just refer to the publication. I shouldn't have to Ctrl-F or backtrack paragraphs to find out who "Watters", "Reynolds" and "Aziz" are.
    • The source for File:HaloCEA comparison.png is not NeoGAF, it's from the game. You should include which level the screenshots were taken in so others can recreate/confirm. I think screenshot showing some action, instead of just the opening, would add to the gameplay section too.
    • The development section seemed really tough going. Even in the lead, I'm not sure what to make of "After considering remaking the game entirely or adapting and adding features to the PC version, Saber decided to overlay their game engine over the original graphics; a development tool to toggle between the old and new visuals became a game feature." I think first part of the sentence, before the comma, is unnecessary. I'm not sure what "overlay their game engine over the original graphics" means - you generally overlay graphics (textures/geometry) onto an engine. And the "a development tool..." bit would be simpler as "players can toggle...".
    • "Saber decided to use the original engine for the gameplay and their own for the visuals" seems to contradict the lead. I think what you mean is that the gameplay code comes from the original, but the rendering engine is new. Someone who doesn't know games is going to get lost.
    • "To solve the issues of transferring information from the original game's engine to the Saber engine, the developers looked at how they used the third-party Havok physics engine to handle object positioning, velocities and collisions." - How does studying Havok help to transfer engines? The following sentence states they recreated everything in the Saber engine, which explains how they did it. So what's the opening sentence for?
    • "Saber doubted that they would be able to convert Combat Evolved's split-screen cooperative play to facilitate online play." - Don't think their passing doubt is worthy of inclusion.
    • Look at your references. You reference Gamasutra's Making Halo Anniversary work multiple times differently - just reference the single page version of the article at http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134914/making_halo_anniversary_work.php?print=1 I've not checked other references.
    • I thought you meant the Florida St Petersburg until I googled Saber. No idea they have their dev in Russia.
    • Wouldn't have considered a Pizza Hut tie in to be of encyclopedic value. Whereas the price in this case, actually is. [2][3]
    • Thanks for your comments, I'll try and address some of them soon. As to others: I didn't include the price per WP:VG/GL; there are sources that mention it, but it's not the focus of any significant coverage beyond just the price. As to the reception section; I include GR alongside MC because they're both slightly different aggregates with different ways of weighting publications. The reader gets a slightly more useful average with both of them. As to naming critics… the critics are the ones writing the reviews, not the actual institution they're writing for. "IGN said" doesn't make sense when IGN can't say anything, it's its staff that does. I will see about addressing your issues with comprehending the development section tonight or tomorrow. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 13:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Metacritic is there to give you the critical consensus, it is a reliable source, adding more sources may make it slightly better - but we're already agreed that we trust Metacritic to do the job on its own. Go to Metacritic, and Ctrl-F, and then search for mentions of price in the review snippets. Without referring to the price, readers will believe that the game was a full price retail release, it wasn't - that's important. The critics write reviews on behalf of the publication, their opinion is the IGN opinion, publications definitely have a voice. Games criticism does not have a Lester Bangs or Roger Ebert, people reading this article will get to something like "Watters singled out", and think, "who is Watters, and why do I care?", breaking the flow as they backtrack through to find out. - hahnchen 15:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict)Comment. The FAC is closing as I was making an hours-long copyedit and typing up comments. I'll put my commentary on the talk page. czar · · 09:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment - Unfortunately, this FAC has ground to halt and I will be archiving it presently. Graham Colm (talk) 09:37, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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