Talk:Her Story (video game)/GA1

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Reviewer: Famous Hobo (talk · contribs) 03:13, 17 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Gonna scoop this one up before anyone else gets to it. Actually wanted to put serious effort into this one months ago, but as with most of my projects, I forget about them after a day or so. Will provide comments soon. Famous Hobo (talk) 03:13, 17 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Famous Hobo: Friendly ping. I appreciate you taking the review! – Rhain ☔ 17:08, 24 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Yeah sorry about the delay, I blame the American education system for giving students too much homework. But I will have a review out by tomorrow. Famous Hobo (talk) 06:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Having only experienced the Australian education system, I can only imagine. Not a problem; take your time. Thanks for giving a heads up. – Rhain ☔ 08:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Alright, here we go

Lead

• No problems here, though I wouldn't mind the last line of the first paragraph specifying that Hannah is the man's wife.

Gameplay

• Once again, very well written, but the only problem I can see is having three gameplay screenshots. Yes, all the screenshots are free images, but it seems a bit excessive, especially since there's a fourth in the development section. I'd suggest removing either the first or third screenshot, since they basically show the exact same thing (personally, I'd remove the first since it's more cluttered than the third).

Plot

• I hate having to write plots for games with a story that was supposed to be confusing, and it doesn't help that the two girls decide to call themselves Hannah when one of them is ALREADY named Hannah (it took me so long to figure that out when I first played this game). However, I think it does a good job at summarizing the main points, and even has a ref to an article explaining the story from a reliable source, so good job

Development

• He also wished to become independent after witnessing the achievements of games like Year Walk (2013) and 80 Days (2014). Achievements sounds somewhat biased, change it to success
• Barlow spent his savings to work on the game, allowing him a year of development time. Do you really need to link savings? I think most people know what wealth is
• As development neared completion, the game underwent testing, which allowed Barlow to "balance some aspects" and "polish items together". Unlink testing here, and link testing in the previous sentence
• He also compared the game's searching mechanic to Google, and wanted to "run with the idea" that players are "essentially Googling". Replace the Google link with Google Search. Once that's linked, make it clear it's the search engine and not the company
• When Barlow asked Seifert to audition, he sent her a 300-page script, which he managed to reduce to 80 pages; she accepted the role. Can you explain in a bit more detail what you mean by reducing the pages? I understand perfectly that he reduced it because of the insane length, but what did he reduce? If this isn't mentioned in the ref, then ignore this
• He ultimately used eight tracks from musician Chris Zabriskie, whose music is available under a Creative Commons license, and found that his music invoked nostalgia, and had a "modern edge". As an editor, it's always nice to see the good old Creative Commons license, but I don't think that's important
• He settled on the murder ballad "The Twa Sisters", which he felt would trigger the mythical elements of the game. This is a bit contradictory, as the previous section stated that Barlow tried to avoid supernatural themes and moments

Reception

• Her Story received generally positive reviews. I know I already mentioned bias, but I think you should change it to "Her Story was well received by critics". The reason being is that it has a 91 on Metacritic, which most games can only dream about. Besides, in the lead, it's stated that the game received critical acclaim, so something's going to have to change
• Other than that, everything is very well done. The reception section doesn't go overboard with quotes, and there aren't numerous instances of "he said that ...", which I personally dislike

General notes

• I noticed that the phrase "the game" kept appearing. Doing a quick Ctrl+F search revealed that it's used 65 times (granted, 3 are from The Game Awards, and 2 are in the refs, but still). I wouldn't mind seeing this rather big number cut down if possible.
• This article is picture friendly, which is a rarity in video game articles, since most only have the cover art and a single screenshot thanks to licensing issues. All these pictures are fine for GA (though I would like to see either screenshot 1 or 3 removed), some might not be so important, like the music samples (both are very long, and while they're nice, they really don't add a whole lot to the article). Like I said, this won't be an issue for GA, but if you ever think of taking this to FA, that's just something to keep in the back of your mind

Okay, just need to do a spotcheck on the refs, and this review will be done. However, it's really late out here, and I still have an essay to finish for school, so I'll do that tomorrow. Famous Hobo (talk) 06:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the review, Famous Hobo! I went through and fixed most of your concerns. In regards to the gameplay images: I used a similar setup to that of Fez, but I realise that Her Story is not as visually diverse, so I can remove an image if you insist. – Rhain ☔ 07:44, 28 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

So I did some spotchecking, and everything came up good on the refs, so good job. As for the screenshots, I personally would like to see one of the images removed, but as they are all free images, I can let that slide. Besides, it'd be kind of pointless to keep this review going over a screenshot. Anyway, you've got yourself a GA. Congrats   Famous Hobo (talk) 06:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)Reply