Wikipedia:Peer review/Doom 3/archive1

Doom 3

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for December 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'm listing this for peer review as I want to get it to FA, and there's little else I can see that's wrong with the article, but I do not doubt that there are issues with it somewhere. I have a sneaking feeling there's something wrong about the plot section, but I'm utterly useless at trying to make those things properly concise. Any feedback to help get this to FA would be appreciated. -- Sabre (talk) 00:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Review by Jappalang

• Lede

• "The game is a reboot of the Doom franchise, disregarding the storylines of the previous Doom video games."

Not happy with this sentence. It expects the reader to have an inkling of what a reboot of a franchise is (disregarding the Wiki-link). I am certain this can be written in more common terms.

• Gameplay

• "story-driven"

Video game jargon: while one might understand "action-driven" from media reviews, "story-driven" might prove confusing. In any case, "story-driven" is a misnomer for this game, since it is mainly remembered to be "run-and-shoot" with B-grade horror elements.

• "more story-centered approach"

Who stated this as fact?

• "The corpses of demons are reduced to ashes after death, leaving no trace of their body behind."

Does this really matter? Regardless, having only this without reference to "zombies" would mean that zombies leave their bodies behind when dead..., which is pretty trivial to the game, is it not? Why not just take out this sentence?

• "the most prominent of which is darkness."

"—most prominently, darkness."

• "This design choice is not only intended to ..."

This is attributed to a review; unless the reviewer stated the designer's intent, it is more likely the reviewer's reaction.

• "This aspect is further enhanced by the fact that the player must choose between holding a weapon and holding the flashlight, forcing the player to choose between being able to see and having a readied weapon upon entering a room, which consequently leads to a more deliberate pace for the player."

Long snaky sentence, which bears the bad sentence structure "the fact that" and the repetition of "choose between".

• "the player often hears ... through their radio transmitter"

Pronoun conflict.

• "is provided with a personal digital assistant (PDA). PDAs contain security"

Immediate repetition of personal digital assistant / PDA.

• Multiplayer

• "The four game modes are all deathmatch orientated."

"The four game modes are oriented toward deathmatches."

Note: "orientated" is not the same as "oriented".

• "involves each player moving around a level"

"Noun-plus-ing"

• "with the player with the highest kills when the time runs out winning."

Bad sentence construct.

• Synopsis

• "According to the game's backstory, the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) has grown to become the largest corporate entity in existence, and has set up a research facility on Mars."

This sentence sets up the UAC as a real-world entity by introducing it as a definitive noun and phrasing it as if the player (not character) would be friendly enough to know it is a company (as if from real life) that has grown in the game.

"According to the game's backstory, a research facility has been set up on Mars." would do fine, especially judging that the UAC serves just as well as a nameless corporation (use "find" to see how UAC is used in the article).

• "Rumors regarding the nature of experiments in the UAC's Delta Labs division are especially prevalent among the base's employees."

Is this crucial to the article...?

• Characters

• "... xxx, voiced by yyy, does ..."

Is there any substance for having the voice actors? Some critical reception or evaluation of their performance should be there to justify their inclusion, otherwise their listing is just for the sake of trivia. In fact, only Neil Ross seems to be notable.

• "principle characters" should be "principal characters".

• Plot

• Yes, indeed, this is overly long and deserves heavy chopping. 350 words would suffice for this game's story. At 961 words for an action game, this really takes the cake in over-indulgent in-universe navel gazing. I am not going to go beyond the second sentence here.

• "The game opens with Elliott Swann and Jack Campbell arriving at Mars City, the main access to the UAC's Mars base, disembarking from an Earth transport, with the player's anonymous marine just behind them."

This is one long snaky sentence, that also has a bad "noun-plus-ing" construct.

• Development

• "In June 2000, id Software's game engine designer John Carmack posted an internal company plan announcing a remake of Doom using next generation technology."

More "noun-plus-ing".

• "although artist Paul Steed, one of the instigators, was fired in retaliation"

This very contentious statement is sourced to John Carmack, who is the primary source. Is there a secondary source, who has checked and verified this statement? This is only Carmack's side of the story; what about Cloud's, Adrian Carmack's, or Steed's?

• "was set to compose the music and sound"

This phrase means "was prepared to compose the music and sound". The next sentence "However, due to "time, money and bad management", none of Trent Reznor's sound effects or music made the final product." contradicts this by presenting the story that Reznor did compose, but was excluded due to "time, money and bad management". So was Reznor prepared to do the job but was phased out, or did he finished the job but got left out?

• "Doom 3 achieved gold status on July 14, 2004"

Game industry jargon; please rephrase in simpler terms.

• The paragraph about the id-Creative deal is sourced to Shacknews' parroting of Carmack's opinion. Strictly saying, Shacknews is performing as a primary source here. Carmack's opinion also never stated anything about licensing Creative's technology.

• Technology

• The information about the game world computers is too much for attribution to just one source, which is primary to boot!

• Reception

• "GameSpot's Greg Kasavin described getting "the impression that Doom 3 takes place in a fully realized world""

This is a very awkward sentence.

"GameSpot's Greg Kasavin had "the impression that Doom 3 takes place in a fully realized world"" would do.

• "the game was alternatively praised and criticized for this element."

Another inappropriately phrased sentence; the impression it gives is reviewer A says "yay!", reviewer B says "nay!", reviewer C says "yummy", reviewer D says, "yuck", and so on. Just drop "alternatively".

• "with GameSpot noting that"

"Noun-plus-ing" again.

• "The game was praised and faulted ... although the game was ..."

Repetitive "The game", the second time could simply be "it".

• "However, some criticism was directed towards slow-downs in play due to the game engine, despite being scaled down for the Xbox, still being demanding on the Xbox hardware."

Bad sentence structure. Break it into separate sentences if you have to.

• Legacy

• "with ticket sales for the opening weekend totalling more than"

"Noun-plus-ing" again.

• Images

• As they are, File:Reverent (Doom).jpg and File:Master Sergeant Kelly (Doom).jpg are simply decorative images, they serve no critical purpose in helping to inform players of the game that words cannot serve.

• Sources

• What makes PlanetDoom reliable? It is simply a hosted fansite on GameSpy, and does not share the host's editorial policies. A heavy amount of subjective atmosphere of the game is attributed to this source, e.g. this Gameplay paragraph "Frequent radio transmissions through ... from the game's antagonists."
• Prepare to defend kikizo for its interview

Personal opinion: there might be too much details and some things could be summarized further. I am not certain Development requires a blow-by-blow account of when the game would be released. Furthermore, with the above language issues, I would advise getting a copyeditor who is not as savvy with gaming jargon as we are. There are the peer review volunteers and the Guild of Copy Editors to look for a willing volunteer. Jappalang (talk) 08:10, 23 December 2008 (UTC)