Talk:Swords and Sorcery (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Famous Hobo (talk · contribs) 15:17, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Seeing how Jaguar did a great job at cleaning some of the backlog for GA reviews (and how at one point, the only VG articles needing GA reviews were nominated by Jaguar), I figured I'd help out Jaguar. I'll also be setting a goal for me to not let this review go on for more than three days, which is something I've always had a problem with. Famous Hobo (talk) 15:17, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, I failed miserably at the three day goal. I really need to stop taking these reviews up. Anyway, let's get started.

Lead

• You should use the Template:About to link Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, another video game with a similar title.

• Very good catch; I didn't know anything about that article. I used the Template:Distinguish instead. JAGUAR  21:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Gameplay

• The game is presented in a first person top-down perspective and contains elements of dungeon crawling, a common trait of role playing video games. Switch "the game" to "Swords and Sorcery"

• Done JAGUAR  21:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• The main objective of the game is to explore the catacombs of Zob and discover a large wealth of treasure, alongside collecting seven pieces of sacred Zob armour. You should mention that Zob is the fictional world the game takes place in. As it is, the sentence assumes the reader knows what Zob is.

• Rephrased this sentence JAGUAR  21:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• Once a character has been created, a 14 in-game day training scheme will commence which gives the player an opportunity to improve their abilities such as picking locks, sword fighting and thieving. Change picking locks to lock picking, and link it.

• Thanks, done JAGUAR  21:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• The form of currency in the game is dragon's teeth; in which the player is given forty at the beginning of each game. What is the point of the second half of the sentence? Even if this part was to stay, at least give some context as to how much items cost.

• I don't know how much things in the game are worth, nor do I see the relevance to mention that. I've changed the second half to "which can be used to purchase items and equipment", which sounds much more useful. JAGUAR  21:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• During the game, enemies will appear at random and will attack the player is confronted. Remove the second will as it is redundant, and as for the "is confronted", I'm assuming it should be "if confronted".

• Oops, yeah that was a typo. Fixed both JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Background

• Before announcement, Swords and Sorcery had been in development from nearly two years before 1985. Add an it's in between Before and announcment. Also, as to not reuse the same word twice in the same sentence (even though I just did), change the second before to "prior to".

• Done both, thanks! JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• PSS explained delays as due to game's complexity that required a lot programming man-hours. Add a the in between explained and delays.

• Done JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• Upon release, Swords and Sorcery came with t-shirts, badges and posters. You capitalized t-shirts in the lead, but not here. From a quick Google search, it appears that either form is fine, so choose one.

• I think it's best to un-capitalise it JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Reception

• Gary Rook of Sinclair User opinionated that Swords and Sorcery was aimed at "Rambo-style" dungeon explorers. Link Rambo

• Done JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• A reviewer of ZX Computing called it the best Dungeons and Dragons version "ever produced on a computer, and stated that it was "worth the wait". An ending quote symbol is missing on "ever produced on a computer".

• Well spotted! Fixed. JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• In a later retrospect of role-playing games, Advanced Computer Entertainment noted that the game had only one player embarking in a complex yet linear world. Can you go into a little more detail here? I'm not sure what this sentence is supposed to convey. Most role-playing video games are single-player. Does the writer mean only one character in the player's party?

• My mistake, the reviewer was most likely referring to the single player-character. Some reviewers of these 80s magazines are so hard to understand. Some of their reviews are so informal that I had to once actually guess what they were trying to say. Anyway, I think I've expanded its review. JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

References

• Why is the Computer Gamer reference all on it's own? In fact, why is it even there? It's not used anywhere in the article. Also, the accessdate formatting for that ref is wrong anyway, so something has to change regardless.

• Hellknowz added that one, which I'm very grateful for. I haven't looked at it before this review but it seems excellent for sourcing the gameplay, so I added some bits in with it. Also fixed the dates. JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Overall nice little article, as I've come to expect from your ZX Spectrum work. I'll look at each individual ref tomorrow, but if the issues are addressed, then I think this will easily pass. Famous Hobo (talk) 05:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the review Famous Hobo! I believe I've addressed everything. Don't worry about the lateness of the review, one time I left a GAN open for a month without even leaving comments! Yeah, although I've never played a Spectrum game before, I like creating and writing these articles because they're surprisingly well sourced. JAGUAR  21:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I looked through all the refs, and they all come out fine. Now that all of the issues have been addressed, I feel comfortable in promoting this article to GA status. So here's another one to add to your already impressive collection. Famous Hobo (talk) 06:01, 10 February 2016 (UTC)