Talk:Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 18:43, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Happy to offer a review. First impression: what a terrible title. More constructive comments to follow soon. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:43, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• I feel the first paragraph could perhaps provide a little more context on the game's setting and who or what the "Vorticons" are.
• After reading the lead, I'm left feeling that the claim in the opening line that the game was "developed by id Software" is inaccurate. "developed by a team that later became id Software", perhaps, or maybe something like "developed by Ideas from the Deep (a precursor to id Software)".
• "The trilogy was highly reviewed" It was reviewed a lot? Do you perhaps mean "commended" or "lauded"?
• "The three episodes of Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons are side-scrolling platform video games" Is it accurate to call each separate episode a video game? Surely the whole thing is the "video game"?
• I think some people would get a little nervous about the uncited quotes in the plot section; I think it's fairly clear that you're quoting the game itself, though, so I'm happy to leave that.
• Why have you italicised "Gamer's Edge"? Is it a magazine? Or a video game subscription service? I suppose I'm struggling to understand.

• Un-italicized, it does not appear there was a magazine component; I was basing it on the italicization in the sources. --PresN 14:58, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

• "the non-game programmers" The programmers who weren't game? I assume this isn't what you mean; I think it needs to be rephrased.
• From the lead: "working late into the night at the office at Softdisk and taking their work computers to John Carmack's home to continue developing the game." This doesn't seem to match what is said in the article body.

• Expanded a bit (later down) - they took the computers home for the Mario weekend, but they continued to do so for Keen. It appears that I was not clear that they also worked late at Softdisk on Keen as well, though, so added. --PresN 14:58, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

• We don't seem to have an article on Pyramids of Egypt; a few words of context would be great, if you could provide it.
• "Miller sent the group a US$2,000 advance, in return for a game before Christmas of 1990, a few months away." I'm not sure that this sentence/its commas quite work.
• "and Hall rushed to a computer to type up a short summary that became the introduction to the game: a dramatic introduction for eight-year-old genius Billy Blaze, defending the Earth with his spaceship. When he read out the summary in an over-dramatic voice to the group, it was met with laughter and applause, and the group began work on Commander Keen in the Invasion of the Vorticons." The tone is a bit off here, I feel.
• "As the "IFD guys", as the members of Ideas from the Deep called themselves, could not afford to quit their jobs to work on the game fulltime, they continued to work at Softdisk during the day and on Commander Keen at night." Again, tone a bit off.
• "(not related to John)" Probably not needed.
• "while Roathe was soon kicked out of the group; Romero, the self-appointed leader of the team, liked him but felt that his work ethic was not matching well with the team's non-stop working dynamic wherein they spent nearly every waking moment either working on Commander Keen, working on games at Softdisk, or playing and talking about games. Ideas from the Deep worked continuously from October through December 1990 to get the game out the door to Apogee, barely taking any time to eat or sleep; several members of the team have mentioned in interviews as an example one night during development when a heavy storm flooded the path to get to the house, and John Romero waded through a flooding river to make it to the house anyways." Again, I think the tone's a bit off, here.
• "Wilbur kept away distractions and provided supplies and food so that they could spend as much time as possible on the game; and Adrian Carmack not only joined later but found the project and its cute art style far removed from his preferred, darker style and so did not try to implement his own ideas in it." Again.
• Do you have to use the word "sneakers"? It's not really one that means much in British English.
• "Other influences on Hall for the game were Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century and other Chuck Jones cartoons and a short story about a child constructing a spaceship, while Keen's "Bean-with-Bacon" spaceship was taken from a George Carlin skit about using bay leaves as deodorant so as to smell like soup." Could this sentence be split up a bit?
• "game led Tom to add" Hall?
• "Miller began to build up hype for the game" A little informal
• "PC Magazine later in 1991 referred to the game's release as a "tremendous success"" Perhaps you could refer to the particular journalist rather than the magazine?
• "A contemporary review by Barry Simon of PC Magazine praised the game's graphical capabilities as having a "Nintendo feel"; while he termed the graphics as "well drawn" but "not spectacular" in terms of resolution, and noted that the game was very much an arcade game that players would not purchase for "its scintillating plot or ground-breaking originality", he said that all three episodes were very fun to play and said that the scrolling graphics set it apart from similar games." This sentence should be split; it's very long.
• "A short summary of the trilogy in 1992 by PC World" Again, you should credit the author. In this case, it's particularly significant, as it's the same journalist.

• Hmm? That summary has no listed author, and it's probably not the same one anyway, as it's an entirely different magazine. --PresN 21:25, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

• "praised that it was not "mindlessly hard", instead requiring some thought to play through, and especially the humor in the graphics and gameplay" Can you praise that something? I think you praise x, or claim/say/write/etc. that y.
• "Hall and Wilbur were nervous about being sued if they did not break the news gently to Softdisk, but Romero and John Carmack were unconcerned about anything Softdisk had to say" Tone
• "who had long been getting suspicious of the group's increasingly erratic, disinterested, and surly behavior at work" Again
• The legacy section could maybe be rejigged a little; the final sentence feels a bit of an odd one to finish on.
• I'm not sure you need to include external links to episodes not a part of this game, and I note that your italics are a bit off (if that's the fault of the template, you could just add the link manually).
• Is this Shareware? If so, we have a category.
• Do you need multiple screenshots? I note that both rationales are a bit lacking.

• Was added by someone else; removed. --PresN 17:40, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Seems like a solid article. I'm happy enough with the sources for GA purposes, but I do think the tone needs to be tweaked in a few places. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:38, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, please double-check my edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Starting on this; crossing things off as I go, and leaving comments only if some explanation was needed. --PresN 14:58, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

This is an excellent review, but I just wanted to add one more thing (I guess I just can't stay away from PresN's nominations ;). The article states that fast scrolling games were only possible on consoles, and Carmack was the first to implement a technique for computer games. This is not quite true, as machines like the C64, Atari ST, and the Amiga had featured such games for years. It was the IBM PC specifically that had difficulty with smooth scrolling. Indrian (talk) 15:07, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this; for what it's worth, I'm always happy for a GA review to be a group exercise. In fact, I think the whole process might be a bit better if they were more often. I would almost certainly have not spotted this unless I noticed it in a source review, so this is a good example of how multiple contributors can make a review better. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:15, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Indrian- none of my sources made the distinction (probably because they were written post-2000, in a world where "PC" means IBM-compatible by default), and I didn't know that the PC architectures that lost out could do it. Do you know if it was full smooth-scrolling, or just the jumpy scrolling that existed on the IBM PCs at the time? Made the distinction that the achievement was specific to IBM PCs in the article anyways. --PresN 17:42, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, both the C64 and Amiga were designed primarily as game machines, so the hardware supported smooth scrolling. The original ST hardware did not, but the STE line released in 1989 did. The CGA graphics standard on the PC did not because the PC was initially not built with games in mind. EGA did not technically support hardware scrolling, but it could be tricked into doing so using methods like Carmack's. Indrian (talk) 04:42, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

@J Milburn: Addressed all points in your review. --PresN 17:40, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this; the article does look much better, and it was strong to begin with. Just a few more comments:

• The rationale on the screenshot still isn't great; the "NA"s could be replaced.

• Done; the upload template doesn't even let you fill out those fields when you set up the page; I really wish they would update that.

• "IBM PC compatible general-purpose computers" IBM personal computer compatible general purpose computers?

• Re-piped

• "but neither understood nor appreciated video game design as distinct from general software programming" This doesn't feel completely neutral; could it perhaps be more clearly attributed to a particular person?

• Made more explicit that it (along with the rest of the sentence) was Romero's opinion.

• Something I've just noticed; you credit the common feat of consoles such as the SNES, but the SNES wasn't released in Japan (nevermind the US) until the very end of 1990, so it's a little odd to compare it to Carmack's software.

• Whoops, yeah, should be NES.

@J Milburn: Address the newest poinst. --PresN 20:09, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll be happy to promote once these are resolved. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:18, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Great stuff; I'm now happy to promote. A very strong article. Good work! Josh Milburn (talk) 20:46, 24 June 2016 (UTC)