Wikipedia:Peer review/Plants vs. Zombies (video game)/archive1

Plants vs. Zombies (video game)


I've listed this article for peer review because I am planning on nominating Plants vs. Zombies for FA status. I have recently expanded this article to GA status and do believe this game deserves to have a WP:Featured article. If there is any more work that needs to be done, please say so.

Thanks, Lazman321 (talk) 00:21, 19 February 2021 (UTC)


 * STANDARD NOTE: for quicker and more responses to pre-FAC peer review requests, please remember to add your PR page to Template:FAC peer review sidebar (I have done it for you). And when you close this peer review, please be sure to remove it from there. Also consider adding the sidebar to your userpage so you can help others by participating in other pre-FAC peer reviews.  Regards, Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * STANDARD NOTE: for quicker and more responses to pre-FAC peer review requests, please remember to add your PR page to Template:FAC peer review sidebar (I have done it for you). And when you close this peer review, please be sure to remove it from there. Also consider adding the sidebar to your userpage so you can help others by participating in other pre-FAC peer reviews.  Regards, Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Update: I will be busy this week, so I might not be able to make changes to the article until this weekend. I am still committed to this article, but won't be able to this week. Lazman321 (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Update: I am back and ready to respond to requests. Lazman321 (talk) 01:51, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you going to be commenting on the peer review soon? If you don't by March 23, 2021, I will close the peer review. Lazman321 (talk) 15:34, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have much; I think it goes into too much detail about the "characters" and the minor differences and release flow of the ports, as well as Fan being laid off and what games he worked on next, but I don't have capacity to get into more specifics, sorry. -- Pres N  22:47, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's alright. I will deal with shortening the sections and waiting for another week for any more requests before closing the peer review. I will nominate for FA status after the GOCE request is done. Lazman321 (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Just a brief comment that the "Sequels" and "other media" section should probably be split to a separate article about the series instead. OceanHok (talk) 03:53, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Comments from Panini!
Ping me if I don't get to this in the near future. P anini 🥪 19:22, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, off I go. I'll publish one section at a time so you can work while I review.


 * Lead
 * It's common practice not to list out the entire date of release, and rather do "May 2009".
 * ✅: Changed to "May 2009" Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "player places plants" is a mouthful. Is there another way to word this?
 * ✅: Changed to "player puts down plants". Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "To defend their home from zombies, the player places plants that fire projectiles at, or have other detrimental effects on, a horde of advancing zombies." and "Zombies approach along several parallel lanes on the home's lawn, and the player must plant defenses in these lanes." These sentences are pretty similar and could be combined.
 * ✅: Removed the second sentence and added at the first sentence "which approach along several parallel lanes." Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * With an article size like this, I believe the lead should be four paragraphs. With more space in the lead, you could go over development and legacy in more detail.
 * ✅: Made the legacy part of the lead its own paragraph. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "a range of further games" is pretty redundant, the sentence could be changed to "It was followed by two direct sequels (Plants vs. Zombies 2 and Plants vs. Zombies 3), three third-person shooters (Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, and Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville) and two spin-offs (Plants vs. Zombies Adventures and Plants vs. Zombies Heroes).
 * ✅: Removed "a range of further games, including". Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I also don't see much benefit of listing off every game in the series, maybe listing one of each variant as an example ("such as Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare,")


 * ✅: Removed the listing off of every game. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, the section I copyedited a while back. Let's see if I still like it.
 * Gameplay
 * With three very large paragraphs, I think you can add two subheaders (Adventure mode, other modes) for accessibility purposes.
 * ✅: I have added two subheaders. I also divided the second paragraph into three paragraphs. They might be merged back if I remove some of the cruft you mentioned. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Early on, it should be mentioned the board is like a checkerboard for easy understanding (like how Paper Mario: The Origami King explains combat like a dartboard).
 * : The sources don't compare the grid to a checkerboard. Plus, there is already an image for easy understanding. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd link gimmick
 * ✅: Linked. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * seed packets need more clarification
 * What do you mean it needs clarified? What are you confused by? Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Honestly, not sure anymore. Past me and now me are often in conflict.
 * A lot of the "such as" moments is followed by a list of all things viable and is mainly redundant. For example, "or by using certain plants, like Sunflowers, Twin Sunflowers, and Sunshrooms, that generate it" can be changed to "or by using certain plants, like Sunflowers, that generate it."
 * ✅: There are only two "such as" and "like" lists. The first one, I removed "and exploding". The second one, I did your recommendation. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "and are introduced by Crazy Dave" is a detail not really worth mentioning.
 * ✅: Removed the statement. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Same with "and fungi plants sleeping during daytime stages", if it is not relevant to understanding gameplay, it doesn't need to be mentioned. I doubt this is your fault, there was a lot of WP:CRUFT here before you came around.
 * ✅: Removed the statement. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Stages three and four take place in the backyard of the house, which has six lanes and features a pool that takes up the middle two lanes. The pool requires the player to place the plants on Lily Pads; these can be placed directly on pool lanes, while most other plants cannot. The Lawnmowers are useless on the pool lanes. To make up for this, the player can buy Pool Cleaners from Crazy Dave's TwiddyDinkies as a replacement. Stage five takes place on the roof of the house. The roof has the player use catapult plants rather than the normal shooting plants due to the roof slanting upward in the middle. The roof has no Lawnmowers, but the player can buy Roof Cleaners from Crazy Dave's TwiddyDinkies as a replacement."

This is just a long list of gimmicks that are in the game. The gameplay section should cover the core gameplay and not every aspect of the game that is different. I remember summarizing this section and keeping one instance as an example, but it seems you added it back with this revision.
 * ✅: Removed the lawnmower statements. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure why "animator" is in quotations, it could be linked with "Reanimation (science fiction)"
 * ✅: Removed the quotations and linked the term. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Crazy Dave randomly selecting" is cruft, could be "with three randomly selected plants at the beginning of each level"
 * ✅: Replaced the statement. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * minigame can be linked, and can change "selects from twenty levels known as mini-games" to "selects from a collection of twenty mini-games"
 * ✅: Linked minigame. Replaced statement. Lazman321 (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Development
 * "a hand-held games console with two screens" isn't really necessary after the console is linked right before.
 * ✅: Removed the statement. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the "Name" subheader best fits under "Concept".
 * ✅: Moved the subheader. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Fan designed the tutorial to be simplistic and spread throughout the game to get casual gamers into the game." "the game" is repeated twice here.
 * ✅: Replaced the first instance of "the game" with "Plants vs. Zombies"
 * "may have", should be past-tense.
 * ✅: Added "had". Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Programmers" -> "The programmer, Tod Semple", because according to the infobox there was only one programmer.
 * ✅ alternatively: Replaced with "Adventure mode was focused on". Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This will make "the main programmer, Tod Semple", which follows in the next sentence, redundant.


 * ✅: Removed "main".
 * Should it be "Mini-Games mode" or "the Mini-Games mode"? You go from "Mini-Games mode" to "the Mini-Games mode" and back to "Mini-Games mode" in the first paragraph of Design.
 * ✅: Removed the "the" in the second instance. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "are" -> "were" in the second paragraph of Design.
 * ✅: Replaced. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Fan sent him a video of Fan", "Fan" is repeated twice here.
 * ✅: Replaced "him" with Romero so the name isn't as redundant. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Crazy Dave was a parody of a person Fan knew in real life, but more insane." From here, it immediately jumps to plants so I'd move this sentence to the end of the paragraph.
 * ✅: Moved and added "The human character," at the beginning. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "a protective plant called a Pumpkin". Does a pumpkin really need an introduction to what it is?
 * ✅: Removed the statement. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Many other zombies originally designed for Plants vs. Zombies, but a lot of them were cut during development." There needs to be a "were" after "other".
 * ✅ alternatively: Added "There were" at the beginning.
 * "finds" to "found" in Soundtrack.
 * ✅: Replaced. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Two instances of "notes" to "noted" as well. Per MOS:TENSE, these are all past reviews and need to be written in pat-tense.
 * ✅: Replaced. Lazman321 (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd retitle this section to "Promotion and release".
 * Release
 * ✅: Changed. Lazman321 (talk) 04:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "During the promotion of Plants vs. Zombies" is redundant as the section is clearly specified to be about promotion.
 * ✅: Removed. Lazman321 (talk) 04:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This section, overall, lists out specific dates of everything and isn't necessary. These should be changed to stuff like "February 2010", "later in mid-February", "In early March", "May the following year", etc.
 * ✅: Removed the dates of each of the dates related to announcements. Lazman321 (talk) 04:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The "better source needed" tag is not necessary; just removed the bad source and keep the second one.
 * ✅: Removed the first source and its tag. Lazman321 (talk) 04:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The reception section is my least favorite part of an article, as it takes a lot of tedious work to copyedit and review. If you would really like my input, I'll take the time someday to look over it, but for now, I'll leave you with WP:RECEPTION and and my own pre-made guide.
 * Reception


 * Legacy
 * "but did not make a correlation between the two things." Is "things" the best word you can use here?
 * ✅: Replaced with "events".
 * The first instance of DLC appears here, but it is never specified what it means. I know what it means, but not every general reader will.
 * ✅: Replaced with "downloadable content (DLC)". Lazman321 (talk) 04:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Miscellaneous
 * Looking around, I'm seeing a lot of small sentences that can be combined with another. Examples:
 * "Originally, enemies were going to be the aliens from Insaniquarium. But while sketching concept art, Fan drew a sketch of what he considered "the perfect zombie", and the theming was reworked." -> Originally, enemies were going to be the aliens from Insaniquarium, but while sketching concept art, Fan drew a sketch of what he considered "the perfect zombie", and the theming was reworked.
 * "Some of the characteristics that defined Insaniquarium influenced the development of Plants vs. Zombies. Players advance at a similar pace by receiving new plants." -> "Some of the characteristics that defined Insaniquarium influenced the development of Plants vs. Zombies, such as how the player advances at a similar pace by receiving new plants."
 * "The video was a plea to let Fan use the name. Romero still did not allow usage of the name." -> "The video was a plea to let Fan use the name, to which Romero still refused."
 * I did see a lot of prose issues which I did not want to list out in its entirety, to which I highly recommend a WP:GOCE review before nominating for FA.

That's all from me for now. P anini 🥪 14:19, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * just stopping by, and I'm so thankful all I needed to do was say "read this and this" and then you got the hang of it (for reception). One thing to note, whenever you mention a specific reviewer the sentence often starts with "A from B", so I'd shake that up a little. Some ways you can reformat this:


 * "B's A" (''USGamer's Nadia Oxford)
 * "B, writing for" (Nadia Oxford, writing for USGamer)
 * "Similarily, A from B" (Similarily, Nadia Oxford from USGamer mentioned)
 * "A of B" (Nadia Oxford of USGamer)

And on some occasions, you don't really need to mention the reviewer's name at all.


 * "Such as how B" (Such as how Eurogamer praised the ...)

Hope these help! P anini 🥪 13:32, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Comments from SandyGeorgia
I am slowly catching up after three weeks of my computer being out for repair; I will get to this soon! Sandy Georgia (Talk)  16:58, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You can install User:GregU/dashes.js to keep your dashes in order.
 * You can install User:Evad37/duplinks-alt to check for WP:OVERLINKing; some of the duplicates may be justifiable, and that requires a judgment call, so I have not removed them.
 * See overuse of however and User:Tony1/How to improve your writing (also is almost always redundant) and User:John/however.
 * Similar for "Dark Horse Comics would release subsequent issues for the next two years" re subsequent ... they cold not have been anything but "subsequent" = redundant.
 * Pool level in progress ... what does "in progress" add ?
 * See MOS:DTAB on the table in the Awards section (needs a caption)
 * I am not finding any information to support reliability about fact checking or journalistic credentials at https://venturebeat.com/about/ ... be prepared to answer at FAC what makes sources reliable by specifically addressing WP:RS (meaning, not because a WikiProject says so or because other articles use those sources).

I don't the prose here is quite FAC ready yet, and you will have much smoother sailing by either finding a fresh set of eyes via an independent copyeditor, or approaching WP:GOCE for a copyedit. Good luck at FAC! There is no need to get back to me on any of this, but please ping me if anything is unclear. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  16:40, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Prose (samples only)
 * The opening sentence uses 2009 twice ... Plants vs. Zombies is a 2009 tower defense and strategy video game developed and originally published by PopCap Games for Windows and OS X in May 2009.
 * It has since been ported to consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices.  Since is redundant .. it could not have been ported before.
 * In Plants vs. Zombies, the player takes the role of a homeowner in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. To defend their home from zombies, the player puts down plants that fire projectiles at, or have other detrimental effects on, a horde of advancing zombies, which approach along several parallel lanes. The player collects a currency called "sun" with which plants can be bought. ... the player ... the player ... the player ... need to vary wording and sentence structure.  And this could be considerably tighter ...
 * The Plants vs. Zombies player is a homeowner defending their home in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. As zombies approach along parallel lanes, the homeowner puts down plants that fire projectiles or otherwise combat the horde of advancing zombies. The player collects a currency called "sun" which can be used to buy plants.
 * If a zombie makes it to the house on any lane, the level is over.
 * Play at a level ends if a zombie from any lane make it to the house.
 * See WP:RECEPTION for how to write a more compelling critical review section.
 * My suggestions before approaching FAC are at User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content. Although the top of the essay focuses on convincing editors from my area of editing (medical) to engage FAC, the bottom portions of the essay will hopefully provide you tips for preparing for FAC.

Wouldn't it make sense to have the image on the right? It looks somewhat ugly for it to unnecessarily cut through headings and text when there aren't any issues with sandwiching of images or staggering. Wretchskull (talk) 13:34, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Gameplay

Comments from HumanxAnthro
Things I noticed: 👨x🐱 (talk) 00:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "The game was designed by George Fan, initially as a more defense-oriented sequel to the fish simulator game Insaniquarium, before developing into a tower defense game featuring plants fighting against zombies." OVerly long sentence that needs splitting
 * ✅ Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing about the sales in the lead?
 * ✅ Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The development section has multiple instances of multicites not put together in increasing citation number. For example, "[22][17]" when it should be "[17][22]"e
 * ✅ Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "After searching for an artist, Fan discovered Rich Werner, who he thought clicked with his design intentions." There are two possible "he"s and "his"'s here. Clarify them.
 * ✅ Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Soundtrack
 * It should be established since the first time in the beginning that the composer was Fan's girlfriend.
 * "It borrows elements from pop music as well as a console chiptunes." What is a console chiptunes?
 * ✅: Clarification. Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The critical reception section has multiple issues:
 * It can't keep consistent with whether the past-published reviews are presented in the past or present tense. It constantly switches, and I honestly think all of these reviews should be presented with past-tense prose since these reviews were written and published in a past time.
 * Instances of multiple citations are not ordered properly by citation number. For example "[37][111][52]" when it should be "[37][52][111]"
 * This section needs to be less dependent on quotes and more on paraphrasing.
 * What makes AbsoluteGames reliable?
 * ✅: Removed. Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Worth noting that on both the English video game source list and the Russian video game source list, Absolute Games is listed as reliable, with the Russian version even giving a description of Absolute Games. It is kind of pointless to have on this article, but just worth pointing out. Lazman321 (talk) 21:22, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * What makes Padgadget reliable, because its layout and extremely rare updating gives off the vibe of an unprofessional self-written blog.
 * WP:USEBYOTHERS Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I seen a lot of skepticism recently in the Wikipedia community about Mashable being unreliable. However, it hasn't come to a consensus so don't take my word for it.
 * Refs 1, 32, 62, 64, and 70 are from sources that are not works, and thus should not have their source names italicized as such. As would state Nikkimaria, "check for others."
 * "The AV Club" --> "The A.V. Club" which is how you correctly present the name
 * ✅ Lazman321 (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)