Talk:Battle for Midway (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Hellknowz (talk · contribs) 22:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without spelling and grammar errors:

   Comments below

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Cites reliable sources, where necessary:

   Source question below

   C. No original research:

   D. No copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Sources below (this point isn't exactly what I mean, but GA criteria omit some... stuff)

   Comments on gameplay below

   B. Focused (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   Need additional source inclusion/exclusion to judge, but I highly doubt there are any intentional bias issues

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Firstly, the article is quite low of references -- and that would not be a big issue -- but I can locate other references of at least some should be included if it is to go up to GA status. Before I go and start adding them myself (and then cannot review another of your GAs), I'll list them here instead. Amstrad Action #1 59% (short), Amtix #2 57% (short), Sinclair User #40 3/5, Your 64 #6 7-9/10, Your Computer 4.11 2/3 (short), Your Spectrum #17 3,3,1/5, Australian Commodore Review #3.4 (long), Commodore Horizons #10 (short), Commodore User #27 3-4/5 (BfM + TE). I think all are on IA. I'm probably missing a few as my search is inaccurate (and by lord is it tedious).

Thanks for that, I've added Amstrad Action, Amtix, Your Computer and Australian Commodore review reviews to the article, however I couldn't find reviews for the Your 64 and Commodore Horizons magazines. The rest should already be covered in the prose, such as Your Spectrum and Your Sinclair. Yeah, a very tedious job! I have to do it all the time. JAGUAR  13:01, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Y64 and CH. I got CU wrong. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

What makes [1] reliable? Are we considering this something that could be verified from the products or?

I only used it to back up the claim that ERE Informatique was their French partner, but I've removed this reference as it's not included in WP:VG/S. I doubt that nobody is disputing the claim that PSS published localised games in the UK. JAGUAR  13:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Prose stuff:

• "which is stationed on Midway Atoll." -- are all three stationed there or just the last? "is" implies only the last

Ah, all of them. Fixed. JAGUAR  13:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• "defeat the three attacking Imperial Japanese forces, which are all naval." -- just "three attacking naval Imperial Japanese forces" would say it.

• Fixed JAGUAR  13:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• "two American search aircraft, in which they must be used in order to locate" -- really awkward

• Rephrased JAGUAR  13:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• "The game will end once all four Japanese aircraft carriers have been destroyed." -- should this go closer to the end of the section? The next sentence is "the player begins the game..." It reads a bit weird

• Yeah, I agree. I've rearranged this JAGUAR  13:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• "The decision was falsely interpreted..." -- would that not be better in reception? I'm all for inlining stuff like this, but just one reviewer said this and this doesn't seem to have impact?

• I see what you mean. I think this is relevant to the background of the company and I would have no way to fit this in the reception section of individual articles. Finding information on PSS is even more difficult that finding content for their games. To rationalise this slightly, Philippa Irving was one of the most prominent reviewers for ZX Spectrum games at the time. She's in almost every PSS article! I'm stuck on this, do you want me to remove it? JAGUAR  13:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• "Upon release, The Battle For Midway was packed..." Reads weird as it jumps back in time after all the company stuff concludes and disbands.
• ""too light" ... "dexterity" ... "brainpower" ... "speed of pressing keys" ... "sophisticated stuff" ... "current standards"" -- we can paraphase the quoted words; one or two are probably fine to give some character to reviewer's words, but not all

• Tried this with a few. Also removed some unnecessary quotes. JAGUAR  13:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• "accessibility of the cursor" -- a what?

• Removed "of the cursor", I think it's redundant because I'm sure a lot of games had cursors. JAGUAR  13:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• A bunch of places with passive voice that can use active and indirect descriptions, such as, "use x in order to y" - > "do y"

• Done some copyediting in the gameplay section. JAGUAR  13:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

—  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

@Hellknowz: thanks for the review! I've tried to address everything. For locating reviews I usually rely on the Your Sinclair website itself (as it links four different scans), MobyGames and WorldofSpectrum (which is mostly linkrot now). I had no idea that so many other reviews existed, you must let me in on that secret. JAGUAR  13:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Just noticed your links to Y64 and CH. I'll add them now. JAGUAR  13:36, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Not really a secret, I just have them all locally, so I can search them as indexed PDFs. I haven't found any place online that has such listings beyond usually-incomplete MobyGames. I hadn't seen [2], so that's something for WP:VG/RL. (I'm trying to fill up the library with all those mags, but it's mega-slow when some of them have nothing ready online.) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:22, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I have some questions about gameplay. I'm mostly unclear what strategy elements are there, as the article only describes finding the fleet and sending aircraft to it. Is there anything else to do, are there units, orders, etc.? Refueling implies so. What happens when aircraft arrives at Japanese carriers? Does the game immediately switch to arcade mode and does it end after, continue with strategy stuff, etc.? Are enemy carriers engaged one at a time, does the player split forces, etc.? Is it just gather airplanes, send to carrier, do arcady shooter, refuel, rinse and repeat? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Who is "Alan Steel" and is he worth mentioning? Is it simply the case of no dev info available to describe anything about the roles? Wouldn't the game's credits also list the programmer (and artist)? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The gameplay for this game is uncharacteristically simple for PSS's usual strategy games. From what I can make out from the reviews (and they don't offer much) is that the main objective is to find Japanese aircraft carriers, and destroy them. Arcade sequences usually switches automatically, which seems to be the norm for these games, so I've mentioned that. Alan Steel is the sole developer/programmer of the Strategic Wargames series, so I thought he would be a worthy mention in the infobox. He's listed as the developer in the Crash review. JAGUAR  15:29, 25 January (UTC)

Looks good. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the review and the scans! JAGUAR  18:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)