Talk:Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy
![]() | Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy has been listed as one of the Video games good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: September 17, 2023. (Reviewed version). |
"Flare II"?
[edit]I can't find any references to this game being developed by "Flare II". In particular, it doesn't seem like a team or company but a tech demo system by Flare_Technology - also none of the authors seem to overlap with the founders of Flare Technology. TD-Linux (talk) 05:17, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
GA Review
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Reviewing |
- This review is transcluded from Talk:Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: IceWelder (talk · contribs) 21:53, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Will review over the weekend. IceWelder [✉] 21:53, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Infobox
- "Horizontal-scrolling" should be "Horizontally scrolling" (per its article). Ditto for the rest of the article.
- Rudis, Stevens, and Evans are credited for "audio". Were they all composers?
- Yes. Rudis, Stevens, and Evans were music composers. Sources: [1], [2] Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Lead
- Unlink video game per WP:OL and MOS:SOB.
- For flow, move the release dates to the sentence about the release in the second paragraph. It should also be in November 1983 instead of on November 1983.
- "It was also distributed in Japan" - "also" can be removed.
- Link corporal.
- "Crescent Galaxy was produced internally at Atari" - "internally" or "at Atari" can be removed as they mean the same. You could even leave out both as the introduction already states the developer.
- "who also acted as co-game designer along with" -> "who designed it with".
- "which resulted in Trevor McFur's inclusion" - Did McFur already exist? Otherwise, I you could use "creation" instead of "inclusion".
- "because of a delay due to programming" - What does this mean?
- I could worded it as "because of a programming-related delay". I'm guiding myself based on what this source says: [3]. However, i can try to find another way to explain that sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "mixed to negative" reviews are not a thing. If it is mixed, it is mixed.
- I'm not sure "commentarists" is a real word. Maybe use "commenters" instead.
- "praise was given to ..." - Make this a separate sentence. A semicolon seems weird here.
- "the game was included as part of the" -> "the game was included in the"
- Gameplay
- The note that the screenshot depicts a screenshot can be left out per WP:DUH. Instead, only describe what the image portrays in relation to gameplay objectives. For example: "The player controls Trevor McFur's ship (left) and fires at approaching hazards."
- In many cases, you are citing a string of sentences with 5+ sources, which looks strange. Do you need all of them in all of these cases? Try to either spread them out to their respective individual sentences or trim refs that provide the same information.
- "making every living being odd like it" - What does "odd" mean in this case? Disfigured? Please clarify.
- Basically, the entity Odd-it wants to make every living being like it esentially... Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "must free four moons on the planet Cosmolite" - Are the moons really on Cosmolite?
- Should be more like "must free four moons of the planet Cosmolite"... Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "The first four moons can be selected in any order and each one consists of two stages: the first is a flight through space while the second takes place over the moon's surface." -> "The moons can be played in any order, each consisting of two flight stages: One through space and one over the moon's surface."
- "The player controls McFur's spaceship through each stage over a constantly scrolling background, populated with an assortment of enemies and obstacles, and the scenery never stops moving until a boss that must be fought is reached." -> "In each stage, the player controls McFur's spaceship across a perpetually moving plane and encounters enemies and obstacles until reaching a boss."
- "After clearing a moon, the player is sent into a bonus round where they fly through rings to collect power-ups but ends if the ship crashes into a ring." -> "Upon defeating this boss, the player enters a bonus round where they can collect power-ups by passing through rings, ending the round upon crashing into one."
- "The planet Cosmolite can be selected once each moon has been cleared." -> "Clearing all moons unlocks Cosmolite."
- "There are fourteen stages total." - So does Cosmolite feature six stages?
- No, i should explain myself more clearly. There are ten stages, as the four moons and Cosmolite features two segments (in space and the surface) but each moon ends with a bonus stage. Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "losing a live" -> "losing a life".
- Link to Life (video games).
- "the player has limited continues to keep playing" - How limited are they? Do they act the same as lives? What happens when they run out?
- I reworded the sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Development
- Modify the "co-game designer" sentence as above.
- "as a tester in 1984 but later became a programmer in 1990" -> "as a tester in 1984 and became a programmer in 1990".
- "working with his colleague Jerome Strach" - "his colleague" can be struck.
- "who worked on the arcade game S.T.U.N. Runner at Atari Games" - While this is correct, I would remove "Atari Games" as the article does not make room for the difference between the two Ataris, which could confuse readers unaware of their histories. The developer of S.T.U.N. Runner is not brought up again anyway.
- Also, since this happened in the past of that past, it should be "who had worked".
- "Lead animator Linnea Wigren was responsible for the artwork alongside co-animators" -> "Linnea Wigren led the team of animators that also comprised".
- "The game's audio was handled by composers" - Same question as before: Were all three composers and none a sound designer.
- Yes. Rudis, Stevens, and Evans were music composers. Sources: [4], [5] Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Also, stay consistent on Oxford commas.
- "as a temp-to-hire but later became" - This is not a contradiction, so avoid "but".
- "as issues arose when too many people became involved" - What kinds of problems? Scope creep? Micromanagement?
- I reworded that sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "on the fly." - Swap punctuation per MOS:LQ.
- I reworded that sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 22:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "that the team needed more game design" - What does "more game design" mean here? More items? More varied gameplay?
- I think it may have meant more gameplay variety. I know English but some stuff still escape me when i'm reading interviews... Roberth Martinez (talk) 23:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "to justify a longer design" - Same question.
- I reworded that sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 23:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- "has since retrospectively" - Strike either "has since" or "retrospectively".
- Release
- "considered to be the pack-in game" -> "considered for the pack-in game"/
- "because of a delay due to programming" - This was not mentioned in the development section, and it is not clear what "due to programming" means. Were some features incomplete? It also somewhat contradictory to the deadline being met with cut content. Please clarify.
- I removed part of the sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "on November 1993" -> "in November 1993"
- "It was then released in Europe on June 1994" -> "It was released in Europe in June 1994"; if you want variety maybe "The European release followed in June 1994".
- As a launch title, were the release dates the same as the console's?
- I used Game Informer as a source, which lists November (the same as the Jaguar's launch date). I tried looking for an exact release date but to no avail. Roberth Martinez (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "and later published in Japan by Mumin Corporation" - The lead said Mumin distributed it, which is it? "later" can be removed because we know 1995 came after 1994.
- I reworded the sentence... Roberth Martinez (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "In 2008, the game's source code was released by hobbyist community Jaguar Sector II under a CD compilation for PC called Jaguar Source Code Collection." -> "In 2008, the hobbyist community Jaguar Sector II released the game's source code in its Jaguar Source Code Collection."
- I doubt that it is "for PC" because it contains source code, not compiled games.
- Removed the PC link... Roberth Martinez (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Link source code.
- Any idea where they got this code? Was it reverse-engineered?
- I'll link a YouTube video by a former Jaguar Sector II member showing the collection [6]. The source code was released as it. There was no reverse engineering involved. I was very little when this release occurred in 2008 so, finding a link detailing the collection's release proved to be frutiless. Although i did find a mentioning of the collection here on AtariAge [7]. I also tried with Wayback Machine but to no avail... Roberth Martinez (talk) 00:51, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "was included as part of the" -> "was included in the".
- Steam -> Windows.
- Use definite articles for console names (in line with their articles).
- Reception
- A big concern I have with this section is that it goes over each review one by one, often repeating similarly stated opinions. When multiple authors state similar things, try to combine them and avoid WP:QUOTEFARMing. For example, three critics said that they were longing for parallax scrolling, but it appears spread across three paragraphs.
Full disclosure: the reception section is still (even with all that i've learned in my six years on Wikipedia) my weakest point, particularly condensing every thought of the game's aspects by reviewers into their own paragraphs. That is why i do it the way you saw it during the review process (in chronological order). However, i can go through the other stuff listed... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "garnered mixed to negative reception" -> "garnered a mixed reception".
- Citing five random reviews for this assessment seems strange. Is there any source that summarizes the reviews? Otherwise, just leave it out in this case.
- I removed four references except the GamesMaster review, which i feel it can serve its purpose as a summarizer... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "fewer than 24,000 copies" - The source names the exact number, so I recommend just using it.
- Consider moving the sales sentence to the end of the section.
- "A writer for GameFan magazine" - If "magazine" is part of the work's name and only acts as a false title, it may be better to leave it out. Ditto for later instances.
- "lack of slowdown or flicker, power-ups, enemies, and bosses" - Makes it sound like power-ups and enemies are also lacking, so consider re-ordering.
- Link parallax.
- "GamePro's Boss Music ..." - Does Mr./Ms. Music have a real name?
- I tried finding Boss Music's real name online but to no avail, AFAIK. It could be somewhere that flew under my radar, who knows... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "one of the weediest shoot 'em ups ever produced." - MOS:LQ.
- Insert the missing space before "Génération 4's Grégory Halliday".
- "compared the game with" -> "compared the game to".
- "but faulted its minimal presentation" - "minimal" can be connotated positively. What does it refer to in this case?
- the game's overall presentation was seen a minimalistic... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- "a Asteroids-esque game" -> "an Asteroids-esque game".
- "Jonathan Maddock gave it one of its most enthusiastic reviews." - Even if true, this is original research.
- I removed the line... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- References
- "Transcription" -> "Transcript"
- Provide translated titles (
|trans-title=
) for non-English sources.
- What makes "neXGam" a reliable source?
- OK i will explain: neXGam is a German gaming website stated in 1998, originally as a Sega-centric publication before rebranding into neXGam sometime in the 2000s (https://www.nexgam.de/Nexgam/%C3%9CBER-NEXGAM). They have their editorial team, which has changed over time (https://www.nexgam.de/team). Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Other
@KGRAMR: Above is my initial review. Feel free to strike through or reply to individual comments as you work on them. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 17:30, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- @IceWelder:All right, i think i'm done with the first pass so, i'll wait for more comments... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I removed the bit about too many people involved. I read the Retro Gamer piece, which says "... but the trouble started when too many people got their hands on it. One thing Atari wanted to do was have sort of a company mascot character ...". The "too many people" in this case are corporate execs. As for the reception section, I can definitely relate to your issues as I faced the same in the past. However, I still think that it should be reworked; this is really the only stand-out issue with the article currently. The existing format repeats stances several times because they were issued by multiple reviewers.
- This is the case I cited earlier: "A writer for GameFan ... faulted the lack of parallax scrolling.", "VideoGames ... complained about the lack of multilayered scrolling.", and "Hyper's Andrew Humphreys found the game poorly designed and barely fun, criticizing the limited parallax scrolling, ..." all convey the same opinion — parallax is missing — but are spread over three paragraphs.
- Since you already extracted individual critique points from the reviews, you just need to organize them so that related concepts are mentioned together. For example, in the first paragraph, you could start with the biggest praise (graphics) and then transition into what was criticized about that aspect (the missing parallax, etc.). In another paragraph, go about everything related to the gameplay, then another on audio, and so on. You can take the many GAs and FAs we have for reference, such as Lake, which I passed as a GA earlier today. IceWelder [✉] 11:04, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- @IceWelder:OK so, i revamped the reception section. I'll wait for additional comments... Roberth Martinez (talk) 18:04, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- A massive improvement for sure. After some minor fixes, I think the article good enough to
pass. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 21:30, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- @IceWelder:Thank you for taking the time in reviewing the article! Roberth Martinez (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- A massive improvement for sure. After some minor fixes, I think the article good enough to