Talk:Moto Racer Advance

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Moto Racer Advance/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Prose issues

• IGN's Craig Harris called it one of the top racing games from 2002. (from the lead) → You could mention this in the main body of the article, thus getting rid of the need for an inline citation in the lead itself.

• I added a mention of it in the history section per your suggestion. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• The game offers different methods to play each mode → doesn't sound right. Can you rewrite this slightly such as two different methods of gameplay or something that makes sense with the sources?

• I changed it per your suggestion, though I said "three different methods of gameplay" as there are three different modes. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• It received accolades from IGN's E3 2002 awards for "Best Graphics" and "Best Racing Game". → The game received accolades from the awards? Please clarify; I think you meant from IGN, but I'm not quite sure.

• Indeed I did– sorry, I was trying to portray the Awards as a thing in themselves and.... well, it didn't work very well. I tried to clarify it a bit, though it still sounds a bit awkward– I'll try and go through it when it's not an ungodly hour in the morning. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• The topic of the last paragraph of the article says that it's about the criticism of the game but it seems that it's actually about the game's sound. You should rewrite that first introductory sentence, changing the topic to that of the game's sound rather than its criticism.

• I re-wrote the sentence per your suggestion. Originally that section was mostly about criticism, but then I found some positive notes about the sound and added them in. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• The last three paragraphs in the "history" section (which I renamed to, combining the "development" and "reception" sections for consistency in section lengths) could be combined into two fuller paragraphs. Try and do that if you can.

• I've merged them and it looks pretty good. The history section also works especially well thanks to the total lack of development sources for the game. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, I meant just those last three paragraphs in that section be combined to two and not the entire section combined to two. But they don't look too bad. Anyways, IGN gave the game two awards for portable games after its E3 2002 coverage: "Best Graphics" and "Best Racing Game". → doesn't fit well, assuming the section is being explained in some sort of chronological order and would need to be moved. MuZemike 15:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• My mistake. I moved the sentence to the beginning of the first paragraph so it fit an order-- should work better. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 19:27, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• Looks good. MuZemike 20:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

MoS issues

• Lead section length – Given the short length of the article, the lead should only be two paragraphs per the WP:LEAD guideline. The overall length is fine but only two paragraphs suffice for its length.

• I merged two of the paragraphs– I think it's a bit awkwardly worded though, so I may tweak it later today. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Referencing issues

• The URL of this GameZone reference [1] is a deadlink. This needs to be addressed by finding another URL for this. You can also try web.archive.org to see if there is an archived URL of this.

• I found the URL and replaced it. I also have to apologize for the GameZone reference; I can confirm that Code Cowboy the author is in fact a staff member from GameZone ([2]), but I only know that his first name's "Tom". If I find out his full name, I'll go ahead and list it in the citation. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Is that review by GamePro an official GamePro review? I cannot tell. It can't be used if it's a reader review because self-published sources are not reliable.

• Despite its horrible length and prose... indeed it is. If you do a Google search for "Vicious Sid" restricting to GamePro.com, you can see that he's written numerous features and reviews for the site in an official capacity ([3]). I can't seem to find any link with a list of staff though, but both Game Rankings and MetaCritic used this review as the official GamePro one. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Image issues

• Captions – are not written properly per WP:CAPTION. If they're sentence fragments, then no end-punctuation is to be used; if complete sentences, then do use end-punctuation.

• I went ahead and edited one of the captions to better fit the picture, should be better. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Too many images – I question the need for a second gameplay image in there; I don't think it's necessary to have two of them. In particular, two gameplay images seem to bork up the layout of the article. Remove one of the images; I recommend removing File:Motoracerscreen.jpg as I think the second images displays the same thing and better illustrates the gameplay to readers.

• I went ahead and removed the first image per your suggestion. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Other things to remember

• Overlinking – watch out for overlinking. A good rule of thumb is: once in the infobox, once in the lead, and once in the main body of the article.
• Redundant citations – unless quotes are involved, you only have to place one citation at the end of the portion of content which is being referenced.
• Jargon – spell out the first instance of an abbreviation, such as "Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)" and then just saying "E3" afterwards. Casual readers won't understand what E3 means when they first see it.
• Verb tense – stay consistent on the verb tense and try to avoid accidentally shifting from past to present to future ad nauseam.
• Logical punctuation – Unless the quote is a sentence of itself, the end quotation mark precedes the end-punctuation.
• Citation numbers go in order – when multiple citations are used for a section of content, they go in increasing numerical order.

Conclusion

GAN placed on hold pending the improvements to the issues as noted above (with the exception of "other things to remember" as that is only there for future reference). MuZemike 22:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the review; I'll try to work over most of your comments tonight, although that might spill into tomorrow as well– I'm still trying to adjust to college so I can't guarantee anything about timeliness. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so about an hour later and I think I've addressed most of your concerns, save the ones that you actually addressed yourself. Let me know what improvements still need to be made and I'll see what I can do about it. -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Passed. Good job. MuZemike 20:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! -- Nomader ^(Talk) 05:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)