Talk:Sabre Wulf/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 19:53, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Happy to offer a review. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2015 (UTC)


 * "Ultimate, a developer known for its secrecy, had finished subsequent series entries in advance of Sabre Wulf, but withheld them for marketing purposes." I'm not sure I follow this.
 * "They also upgraded the game's packing materials, which became an Ultimate standard." I'm struggling with this, as well. Upgraded from what?
 * Is "begat" not a bit old fashioned?
 * Your full screen link isn't going anywhere interesting
 * "to defeat enemies that spawn at random from the ground,[3] such as" This doesn't quite work. Also, does your source specify that "indigenous people" are the enemy? Not just "baddies" or something?
 * "Apart from the jungle, the game's settings include mountains and lakes." This doesn't really fit with the text around it- it should probably be moved to be along with the other setting info
 * "The Stamper brothers" Who?
 * I've clarified this. Tim and Chris Stamper were the founders of Ultimate/Rare (really I think they should their own article)! JAG  UAR   16:34, 17 August 2015 (UTC)


 * What's a "nondescript ... price"?
 * "The company upgraded the game's packaging" On a rerelease? I'm not clear on this.
 * "Crash wrote that" Personification- lots of examples of this. It should be avoided.
 * Are Dingo or They Sold a Million worth redlinking?
 * You probably don't need to include the magazine's publishers in the references
 * Could you check your sales figures? On Google, I'm seeing 300,000, rather than 30,000
 * I love to see the odd academic citation in pop culture articles, and there's a few hits on Google. This is one, and I'll have a look at the others another time.
 * "The designers of the first video games made the most of color limitations, and the best of the early 8-bit games possess a jewel-like beauty. The environments of Sabre Wulf (Ashby Computers and Graphics, Ltd, 1984), a game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, glow like stained glass, and the effects of color purity are enhanced by contrast with the black background. Sprite-based games, in which individual game elements are animinated against a background, often display significant contrast between figure and ground, a feature of the process by which the image is drawn on the screen. Indeed, [it] is fair to claim that there is a lot of black in early games, and not just those set in outer space."
 * "The designers of the first video games made the most of color limitations, and the best of the early 8-bit games possess a jewel-like beauty. The environments of Sabre Wulf (Ashby Computers and Graphics, Ltd, 1984), a game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, glow like stained glass, and the effects of color purity are enhanced by contrast with the black background. Sprite-based games, in which individual game elements are animinated against a background, often display significant contrast between figure and ground, a feature of the process by which the image is drawn on the screen. Indeed, [it] is fair to claim that there is a lot of black in early games, and not just those set in outer space."

Nice little article- I've not "finished" the review, but I'll save this for now. I want to look a bit more closely at sources (though first glance, I like it! It'd be so easy to fill up your bibliography with blogs...) and the images. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the review! I think I've addressed everything, if you'll take a look. Some replies: it's funny, because I write "begot" and am corrected to "begat" (which is actually the archaic construction) and vice versa. I prefer "begot" and find it to be a rather handy word. The term the mag used was "natives"—I think it's better to let the source speak for itself in this regard. Stampers were recently redirected at AfD, otherwise the article/link would make more sense. They could very well fill their own article, but they're so intertwined with Rare that I'd rather see them covered more completely that one article for now. I didn't redlink and Dingo and They Sold ... because I couldn't find any detailed sources. Still thought they were worth mentioning, though. Personification: In almost all of these cases there was no author (or the author was untraceable initials) so the review truly was on behalf of the magazine. (Usually the case with older game mags.) Even if it wasn't, the metonym should be fine when a reviewer is clearly writing on the magazine's behalf as its sole opinion. Should be fine. I like to keep the refs as complete as possible—writing about older games almost veers into archival research. I know that by the time I get my sources on Nintendo's arcade machines (from the handful of archives that have copies of relevant secondary sources), I might as well publish an original piece than cite it as "verifiable" in a WP article (is it actually verifiable if it requires more than university access?) I digress. Sales: I had written that the sources conflict. Retro Gamer said it broke records and CVG (the source is linked, if you want to verify) said it sold 30k and not so well. I'm of mixed mind on academic sources, though I added it anyway. I'm on my way out of the academy myself. Let me know if there's anything else? – czar   19:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. Some quick initial replies before I go through the article again. First, if you're going to include publishers for the magazines, consistency would be good, but I'm not going to hold up the review with it. Second, with regards to the personification issue: I respectfully disagree, and see your approach as inappropriate for formal writing. I wouldn't object to "Was described in Magazine as" or something similar, I just don't like "Magazine said that". That said, again, I'm not going to hold up the review with the issue- it's a stylistic rather than substantive disagreement, I think. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Quick drive by comment, it might be worth dropping in a very small amount of technical info; for programmers it is impressive that the full extent of the Z80 chip, undocumented flags and all, is used in Sabre Wulf. For a while, a good test for whether or not a ZX Spectrum emulator worked properly was "does the rhino run backwards in Sabre Wulf?" (google "sabre wulf backwards rhino") I appreciate it may be difficult getting a good realiable source for this (here is a random mention on the web), but I think it's worth dropping in. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  13:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The theme music is the opening bars of Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846 - can you work that into the article? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  13:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the tips. I added that the game begins with a Bach selection, as one source said. I'm afraid the specifics may just be trivia, as I can't find any reliable source that has discussed it. I've used the reviews from (almost all?) magazines at the time as well as retrospective stuff, and after doing searches for both the Z80 rhino and the specific Bach fugue, no RS has found it important enough to cover. (Though since this is documented on the talk page, perhaps someone might try again in the future.) Hey, if you like these articles, you might want to review my Knight Lore GAN... I'm planning on doing the rest of the Sabreman series in the future. – czar   16:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Now I would argue it is not really original research to say that it's Bach's Prelude BWV 846, since the musical score for the that is available in its article, and you can listen to the tune by playing the game, and find its the same thing. It's just straightforward observation. - you're our resident Bach expert, how do you feel on this? Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)  16:34, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would offer a free score as a source, - off to concert, Beethoven, could read only last question, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:57, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll say this once and then shush .... guidelines are not rules to be followed slavishly, and I think it's likely (from personal experience) somebody playing Sabre Wulf will listen to the music, think "what's that", read the article and be none the wiser. I do not believe is is "trivia" to provide a link and nothing else. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  08:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * As a reader, I would be disappointed to verify that citation and find the specific piece unmentioned at the source. The RS did not put special importance on the Bach opening, so the compromise was to add it at all. Even if you claim IAR, I don't think the specificity improves the article. Feel free to take it to a broader venue if you strongly disagree. – czar   09:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Best thing to do I think is get a third opinion and go with that. However, you've made a good point that what you put in was a compromise anyway, so perhaps it's best to leave it be. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  09:27, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

My two pence would be that it's not OR to identify the piece of music, as at the very least the game itself is a source - is the music being played Prelude & Fugue? When something is so obviously verifiable just by listening to it, we're in danger of wondering is the sky blue? As a reader I find such comments fascinating, and enjoy reading them in other articles - when I played these games for real, I was but a mere teenager, and had little knowledge of classical (or more specifically non-copyright) music and in my more advanced (hem hem) years find it interesting to see what pieces were chosen. Many other ZX Spectrum articles contain comments to identify the music being played, and not all are sourced, as many are blatantly obvious. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it would potentially be OR to identify music, but I do question how significant it is if no reliable source has deemed it worthy of a mention. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:49, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * , I think your concerns were addressed, if you'll take a look – czar   15:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy that this is basically ready for promotion. The sources look solid, the images are justified, the writing is good, and I'm left with a good idea of the topic. Nice work. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:09, 26 August 2015 (UTC)