Talk:Sonic Spinball/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 15:00, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this. Comments to follow soon. Indrian (talk) 15:00, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, sorry for the delay on getting this done. I have given the article a thorough copy-edit, leaving the following concerns:

Lead

First, as a general note for the entire article, it appears to have been written in British English even though the game was created by an American studio. I have been correcting this as I see it, but its possible I missed a few instances.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for that as I go through the article again. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"desire to enslave the local population" - Local to where? If there is no further detail on this, then another word should be used instead.

I don't know much about the game's plot or Sonic lore in general (it's times like these I wish Tezero was back), but the plot says "transforming the animals of planet Mobius into robot slaves", so I rephrased it to enslave the population of Mobius. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Despite the mixed reviews, a second pinball game, Sonic Pinball Party, was released in 2003, and a spinning rollercoaster of the same name opened in Alton Towers theme park in 2010." - Sales and reviews are certainly a factor in the decision to create a sequel soon after the release of a game, but I doubt reviews from 1993-94 had any bearing on the decision to release a sequel/spiritual successor a decade later.

You're right—I've removed "Despite the mixed reviews" JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gameplay

"While Sonic is moving, he can be moved" - I understand this is meant to convey that while Sonic is airborne his trajectory can be controlled, but using "moving" and "move" to state this could be confusing and is poor word choice.

Rephrased to While Sonic can be manoeuvred while airborne with input from the directional pad JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"defeat the newly-accessible bosses located at the top of the level" - I assume each level has just one boss? If so, this should be "boss" not "bosses" since the sentence is referring to what happens in each level individually as opposed to all the levels collectively.

Removed plural as there is only one boss per level JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"The boss enemies at the top of each level " - Again, if there is one boss per level, this should be singular. If not, please disregard.

Rephrased to singular JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

if all three balls go down the drain" - Is this actually referred to as "the drain" in the game or its literature? If this is just the colloquial expression "going down the drain," that is a bit informal for an article.

"The drain" is referred to in-game via that "status strip", but I had another look through the its manual and reviews, and couldn't find it anywhere. Since I couldn't source it, I rephrased it to the more generalised sounding through the flippers, as that's the norm with pinball games. "Drain" wasn't meant to be informal in anyway! JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"which can be built up" - Awkward phraseology for describing the accumulation of points. I would choose something else.

Reworded. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Development

"which was credited with boosting sales of the Sega Genesis as well as asserting superiority over its rival, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System" - The source does not actually say this. All it says is that gave Sega "a much-needed sales push in its battle for console superiority with the SNES." Nothing about asserting any kind of dominance over the SNES.

"Superiority" did sound somewhat subjective. Removed the latter half of that sentence. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Morwiec recalled that there was no interference from the Japanese division of Sega during development, as it was solely Sega of America-commissioned title." - This falls under the category of "nothing to see here." One would not expect interference on an American designed game unless that interference was specifically discussed in the article, so no interference makes this sentence unnecessary.

I see your point. I've removed the entire sentence as it doesn't seem necessary given that any interference from Japanese staff wasn't mentioned. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy

"Despite the mixed reception of Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball" - Same issue as in the lead: there is no way reviews from the time of release were a factor in this decision a decade later.

Removed. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And that's it. Not a whole lot there really, so I will put this review On hold while these issues are addressed. Indrian (talk) 16:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, Indrian! I think I've addressed everything. And thanks for giving it a copyedit too. Not too bad of a game considering it was developed in 61 days. I was also surprised to see that its theme tune was composed in two hours, but can't be sure if that's an exaggeration on the developer's part. JAGUAR 19:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jaguar:Looks good. Let's get this sucker promoted. Indrian (talk) 22:11, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]