Talk:Mass Effect Legendary Edition/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shooterwalker (talk · contribs) 14:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll take this one on. Will try to make time for this, and feel free to message me if I don't get around to it in the next week. I will likely show up sooner. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

This is really in excellent shape. I'm going to make a bunch of notes to help improve the quality of the article, but I believe it's already quite close to a GA.

• "Development on Legendary Edition" -> "Development on the Legendary Edition"
• "direction of Mac Walters" -> maybe clarify who this is (e.g.: writer on ME2 and 3)
• "considered other alternatives" -> what alternatives? The body does get into this more, but maybe this is a case where you'd improve the lead by saying less. You already say they decided on a remaster instead of a remake.
• The last sentence of the lead runs on a bit, and might work better as two sentences.
• "Set in the Milky Way galaxy within an alternate universe during the 22nd century, the trilogy consists of action role-playing games in which the player assumes the role of Commander Shepard, an elite human soldier who must unite the galactic community against a highly advanced race of synthetic-organic starships called Reapers." -> this sentence really runs on too. It might be easier to pull out the ARPG part and say that at the start of the section. (e.g.: "Mass Effect is a series of action role-playing games.")

I ended up not moving everything to the top of the section, but I did remove a big chunk of that sentence. If you feel that more significant edits are still needed, please let me know and I would be happy to make them.

• "Shepard is a customizable character" -> I think this might need to be explained with a bit more qualification.
• "The compilation includes a launcher that allows players to start all three titles from one place" -> There's a shorter and clearer way to say this. The word launcher isn't useful here, and nor is the link.
• "customization options from all three games" -> "customization options for all three games"
• {{strikethrough|"rebalancing of the Galactic Readiness system from Mass Effect 3 to compensate for no longer having a multiplayer mode." -> Rephrase for clarity. The sentence assumes I would understand the connection between multiplayer and the system.

I decided to simply remove mention of the multiplayer mode from the Contents section as it already specifies that only single-player content is included and the Development section goes more in-depth on multiplayer. If you feel that multiplayer needs to be mentioned somewhere in this section, please let me know and I'd be happy to find a place for it.

• "Mass Effect" -> "The first Mass Effect" for clarity.
• "akin to a partial remake" -> these distinctions between remakes and remasters are sometimes more marketing and promotion, so it might be worth qualifying this. Even just to say who believes it's more of a remake than a master.

I decided to just chop this part out as it feels rife for an edit war down the line. I think that the Development section ultimately covers what needs to be covered, but let me know if you disagree.

• "expanded layouts" is a little ambiguous, and it might be easier to just say "level".
• "to the current version of the engine" -> maybe just remove this, to future proof the article. One day we'll look back at this and it will be easier to say they tried to go from 3 to 4.
• "BioWare also sought feedback from fans and modders" -> is there an example of where this feedback made a difference?4

Not only was I unable to find an example, but I've also seen some debate as to whether or not BioWare actually did this, so I simply removed the sentence entirely.

• "As part of the remastering process, BioWare increased resolutions for all textures throughout the trilogy. This was accomplished by increasing the engine cap on texture sizes and running the original, uncompressed source art through an artificial intelligence up-resolution program and other custom batch tools" -> There's a lot of technical terms here. It might be helpful to use more plain language, and look for blue links that might help.
• "Camera angles were altered for certain scenes," -> was this the only example or were there others?

I believe they also altered the camera angles for some scenes with FemShep. However, it was very minimal and I believe the only reason this part is in the article is because the camera changes caused a minor controversy for about a week during release leadup. Let me know how you think is best to proceed (expand, remove, etc.).

• "friction" -> even with the term in quotes, this leaves an unclear picture of what they were trying to do

Based on everything I've read, that word really means "gameplay inconsistencies", so I updated the wording in the article to reflect this.

• "went gold" -> this is also a technical term that you and I probably understand, but a lot of readers might not.
• The reception section might need the most work, as far as meeting the "broadness" requirement. There's almost WP:UNDUE weight on the first game, with two paragraphs here, but only one paragraph about the rest of the series.

  I think you could shrink the ME1 stuff down to a single paragraph, even just for readability. It's a lot to read of reviewers talking about the same things.

  I also think you could look for other interesting comments about the other two games, let alone the compilation as a whole. Expand that last paragraph, and maybe even add an additional one.

  There is a broken citation to IGN.

• Don't suppose we have sales data yet?

I did another search and was unable to find anything outside of PlayStation Store rankings for May 2021. I added those in.

• The prose is otherwise very good, and the sources mostly check out. Let's check back in once we've gone through these points. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:21, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I really appreciate your feedback. I will attempt to get through some of this today and all of it by next Sunday. Please let me know if I need to get to it sooner. Cheers!--Ktmartell (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Ended up just putting my head down and barreling through. I did have some follow-up questions above though! I also have one more question I'd appreciate feedback on. Every so often, someone edits the Introduction to say that the game was co-developed by BioWare and Blind Squirrel Games (BSG). In my opinion, this is not necessary because all games have support studios, but those are not usually included in the lead, and I have not found compelling evidence that BSG was on equal footing with BioWare as a developer. Because of this, I talk about BSG in the Development section but not the lead. Do you think that this is sufficient or should I look into changing something?--Ktmartell (talk) 18:31, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. Some small comments that would smooth out some of the last few kinks:

• Add release dates to the first three games, just to put in context how much time has passed before there was a compilation.
• You should explain what a photo mode is in more plain language.
• It does feel a little confusing to say they changed camera angles for scenes and then focus on something so specific. If it was more general, then try to sum it up more generally. If it mainly was one scene, then just talk about that one scene and how they came to change that one thing, instead of trying to imply they made more general changes.
• Consider giving the "release" paragraph its own section/heading.
• Organize the statements in the ME1 reception a little better: lead with the positive ones, and then finish with the more critical ones. Try not to give too much airtime to the criticisms if they're really just one or two critics, and keep in mind WP:DUE weight. Dissenting opinions should be covered more briefly, so as to give the reader an accurate sense of where most opinions lie. (e.g.: "X thought the graphical changes drew too much attention to themselves, while Y felt the changes didn't go far enough." Quick and proportional.)
• Speaking of due weight, I suspect some of the reviews might have commented on what is the same, and not just what is different. If the games were already well-received on their initial release, I'm sure a fair amount of the reviews retreaded old ground. I think that's good for WP:WEIGHT, just because the current text might mislead readers to thinking the changes led to the strong reception, when the strong reception might be for what was already there in the first place.

Thanks again for working on this. Looking forward to wrapping this up. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:04, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Awesome, I did my best on each of these. Let me know if you have any other recommendations!--Ktmartell (talk) 23:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Excellent work and an easy ✓ Pass. You should consider trying for FA when you have the time. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)