Talk:Silent Hill 2/GA2

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: MASEM (t) 21:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Nothing a showstopper and all can be fixed, primarily in the language.

Lead

3rd paragraph presumes knowledge of the 1st game. Start from the assumption of a reader that's never played it, though certainly noting its similarity to the first game is fine.
On the "Top 25/50" list mentions, I would at least include the publication date of those lists. A 2001 game appearing on a 2003 Best list is not a major accomplishment, a 2001 game appearing on a 2009 or 2010 list is. Same here in the reception

Gameplay

Start with the game's genre or objective. Starting off by saying it's a third-person game doesn't set the stage. I've not played the game but I know it's value to the community as one of the primary horror genre games, so this should be something set in that first sentence.
Similarly, some of the statements are worded presuming knowledge of other games. The sentence There is also no mini-map, and consequently, maps have to be checked through a separate function. - is a minimap "expected" to be there for these types of games? Instead, the sentence along with the previous one could be written There is no HUD in Silent Hill 2; to check their health, location, and equipment, the player enters the pause-game menu to review their status. or something like that.
It is still fair to bring in similarities from the first game, just don't assume knowledge of them.

Story

Not sure if you need a separate section for each of these elements. If anything, I would at least combine setting and characters, but even then that could be prefaced as a paragraph before the plot without a new section. The Born from a Wish section is fine as standalone

Development

Be aware that if you take this to FA, the collapsed soundtrack will not fly. Consider if there is anything to support the soundtrack as a standalone article - not necessary to pass this as GA, but in the future will be a problem.

Reception

There's some disorganized thoughts here, and just looking at the review scores and the like, there seems to be a lot being said without saying it. Consider this: look for general themes of what reviewers liked and disliked from the original PS2 version, appending on what agrees with them from the Xbox and PC version, but focus that section on the game, as released, as that's the one that sold 1 million copies and is on the best-of lists. Did they like the story? the characters? Did they find faults with the gameplay? Try to make some generalized statements supported by reviews and review quotes. Start or end the section with a few overall comments on the game ( like the first Gamespot quote) Then, in a separate paragraph, address the ports - in this case that the Xbox port seemed on part while the PC port was poor; this last part is important since I can tell just by looking at the scores that something failed on the PC port and I would want to know why.

References

I believe there are some references that are lacking dates (not accessdates) that can be at least narrowed to a year, if not month and day.

All of this is fixable within the scope of a GAN, so if you go ahead and make some of these fixes, let me know and I'll review again, but presently I'll leave this on hold. --MASEM (t) 21:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per [1] these changes, the prose has been significantly improved, and this article now passes for a GA. Good job! --MASEM (t) 15:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]