Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Crush (video game)

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 02:22, 13 October 2008 [1].

Crush (video game)[edit]

Nominator(s): MASEM


Bringing this video game article to FA. On the shorter side, but it is one of those games that got some but not a lot of attention despite the critical reception for it. I've double checked prose/references/images, and had a few others copyedit on the prose.

I will note (knowing their reliability will likely be questioned) on two of the references used: MoDojo is under Federated Media Publishing (website), while blog-style posts, the article is an interview with the game's producer. SegaNerds is also a blog-style source under B5Media (website), but also, the article used here is a interview with the same person. --MASEM 22:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Initial comments - David Fuchs
    • Image check: I'd like to see the fair use rationales beefed up, especially the 'purpose' section.
    • The lead doesn't mention much beyond the Escher bit about development.
    • Is there anything more to the plot? You can go to two paragraphs, you know :P

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 22:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've talked more about the purposes of the images in both FURs and captions (to id gameplay elements). I've added a note about the coincident element with SPM to the lead to expand it out. As to the story -- well, it's told over maybe about a half-dozen 1-minute cutscenes in the game; I'll go back and play through the cutscenes (there's no good story references out there beyond what I have, even at sites like Gamefaqs) to see if it can be fleshed out more (like, what exactly was troubling Danny to drive him to insomnia). --MASEM 23:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I'm talking about. Also, if the images are at the actual resolution, they aren't really low resolution; you can descrease the size slightly (say, to 350 or 400px without decreasing the visibility of items mentioned in the text significantly. Also, explain why no free replacement is available. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 01:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rationales for game screenshots have been expanded, and images at 400x2xx something (same aspect ratio) have been uploaded over the old ones. --MASEM 06:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, image concerns met. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The final line of reception should be merged in somewhere, not left by itself. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 02:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merged at end of previous paragraph (there's not much where else it can go) --MASEM 04:30, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone through and copyedited, clarified, and added inline comments when I was confused. Take a look. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 14:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good, I fixed the "primal" thing. --MASEM 16:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The present "Story" section is a bit unclear on at least one point. It states that Danny's insomnia is caused in part by repressed memories, but then later states that (further?) repression of childhood memories offers a cure for that insomnia. Not quite sure what to make of this apparent contradiction. Perhaps there's some nuanced explanation that needs to be unpacked here? D. Brodale (talk) 05:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Corrected; Danny ends up facing those memories as the game progresses. --MASEM 06:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's still no expansion of the lead and any longer of a plot summary. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've expanded these both from before as much as reasonably possible with the information provided. Again, the story in the game is all of about 6-10 minutes long told between levels, so the length of plot is appropriate for the game. The lead appropriately touches on the major points in the article and really cannot be made longer without starting to duplicate too much in there or unbalancing information in it. --MASEM 13:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redundancies a problem. And 1a more generally.

  • My pet hate is "in order to", and there are two instances in the very opening para. Please remove the first two words in the second instance, and check through the rest of the article for this (usually) redundant little urchin.
  • Second para: "mechanic" is someone who fixes your car. I think it has to be plural here, or maybe just removed (what's wrong with the "gameplay" alone?). And here it is again, twice. Is it a mechanism? Process? Facility? Function?
  • "Game's"—redundant.

Is Deckiller around? He might know the right person to come afresh to this and massage the prose. Try reading this and undertaking the associated exercises; I usually shy from promoting my own stuff, but here I think you'd benefit from developing a "radar". Tony (talk) 10:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I will give Dec a buzz to see if he can work any more out, but I did take the advice to heart to work some things out in the current prose. I will note that gameplay mechanic (singular) is a term used by both board/table games and video games arenas to describe one particular facet of a game's rules or logic ("gameplay" refers to the game as a whole, while "gameplay mechanics" refer to mulitple features), but yes, it can (and has here) been replaced with "feature", "element", or other appropriate words to avoid the issue. --MASEM 13:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Followup to say Deckiller has given this a passthrough and I've corrected a statement based on a comment he left. --MASEM 14:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I didn't really give it a pass; I just corrected maybe five or six things. Sadly, I don't really have time to sit down and copy-edit article right now. — Deckiller 03:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • I note the sources noted above and those sorts of things should be decided by each reviewer.
Otherwise sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the story section needs a bit of expansion. At the moment it basically tells of the problem with Danny and how it's fixed, but doesn't touch on what the player actually does in game to achieve the end result ("during which he is able to organize his thoughts and face his childhood fears" is not enough). Giggy (talk) 04:56, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Some of Danny's thoughts, represented by glowing neon icons, are only activated when the world is crushed in a manner that properly completes them and remain in view" - might just be me but I had no idea what this was saying
    • The latter point, I've basically stated what the manual states (which is simpler than the above); thoughts activate when crushes, are no obscured, and are on-screen.
    • On the story, there's a very very loose connection between it and gameplay. I've expanded to point the weak connection of marbles (as in "losing ones marbles") and monsters so that they come up in gameplay. Also had to play the last, annoying level again to get the story ending (which is as vague as it seems) right. --MASEM 14:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Giggy (talk) 07:22, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: Support:

  • "The protagonist is Danny, a teenager suffering from insomnia, who uses an experimental device to explore his mind and return his life to normal". What is "back to normal"—life before insomnia or life before the device?
  • "This gameplay element was coincidentally similar to one in Super Paper Mario" It may be best to remain neutral and remove "coincidentally", as, unless a point is trying to be made, is pretty much redundant as both were made in 2007. Seems to be pre-emptively countering some assertion, if that makes sense.
  • Lead could be beefed up with a litle bit of development info; the Eshcer reference seems insufficient.
  • A minor query: is Danny's actual age revealed in the game? Where is his home set?
  • "he is able to regain control on his sanity by". Should it not be "of" as opposed to "on"?
  • "semi-intelligent female persona" This intermediate could mean anything to me, so I don't know what this device is actually like. Maybe you could elaborate or be more specific.
  • I'm uncomfortable with this trend for novel-length captions. It serves a purpose here, but you could cut it down if able.
  • "Crush spans forty levels spread across four worlds". "spans" and "spreads"? I don't know, maybe you could say that it contains four worlds, with ten levels in each.
  • "The goal of each level is to collect marbles" Remeber to specify this as the player's goal, and not just "the goal".
  • "Danny possesses limited jumping ability". I've yet to see a VG character that can jump infinite heights; I know it helps the phrasing to flow, but it doesn't mean anything in its present state.
  • "Scattered throughout the levels are spheres and cylinders, which the player can roll when crushed appropriately, and can be used as platforms or to depress switches." Just generally an awkward one. Could you reword please?
  • "Mottram noted that at the time during the development of Crush, the gameplay of Super Paper Mario had not yet been revealed, and thus were surprised to learn that the two games shared a similar feature" Not sure about this sentence. Seems to be missing a statement of who were surprised, although it is obvious.
  • "received,[4] however". Should there not be a semi-colon here?
  • ...There seems to be a growing consensus not to use review tables now; I must have missed that one. Could you explain the reasons for me, Masem?
  • I don't know why the main text of this section is sandwiched between two one-sentence paragraphs. They cover different subjects, but still.
  • "this was made up for by". Watch out for informal phrasing.
  • Again, I'm not sure, but I didn't think that external links are supposed to be in the main body of text. Correct me if I'm wrong.
  • I know it's an interview, but I'm not sure how reliable "Segar Nerds" is. An author is given for this; a surname is not stated, so I'm not sure if the name should be given.

Okay, generally a decent article. I'll give it another look once the amendments are made. Ashnard Talk Contribs 08:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All points (other than the following) have been corrected. On review score tables, it is not that the project is moving away from them, but they aren't always necessary: a more "complete" table can be found going to the linked aggregrate review sources (MetaCritic and GameRankings); this is also closer to how movies tend to organize their reception section. It is not that I couldn't add it here, but I feel it wouldn't really add much (thus, consider this more an experimental approach to see if the lack of a review table still gives a good read). On Sega Nerds, if it was anything but an interview, I would have replaced it, but it is an interview, they've seen to have done such in the past, and based on the Mottram interview, details are consistent with the few other details from other reliable sources (eg Gamasutra), so this is where I feel the source is reliable for the information it is providing: the developement section. --MASEM 11:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've decided to support. One things still bugging me: "Large spheres and cylinders are scattered throughout the levels which the player can roll when crushed appropriately, and can be used as platforms or to depress switches". How about: "Large spheres and cylinders are scattered throughout the levels which the player can roll when crushed appropriately. These can also be used as platforms or to depress switches, required to...". But if you're alright with it how it is, then just leave it. Ashnard Talk Contribs 12:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, I caught your edits and when through to verify the punctuation w.r.t. to the quoting, and also took some of the longer quotes to shorter snippets (such that all are partial sentences, thus putting the punctuation outside the quotes); the one ellipse was actually from the original quote but I nixed that. I also double checked the spelling again. --MASEM 04:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about the ellipses; I think Tony says it's OK to change dashes and ellipses to our house style even when original source is different, but it's no big deal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Like I said above, I don't really have the time to sit down and copy-edit an entire article; I might make a tweak here or there, but that's really all I have time to do. — Deckiller 03:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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