Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/MLB 08: The Show/archive1

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 not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 20:31, 31 August 2008 [1].

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MLB 08: The Show

Nominator(s): RedThunder

I'm nominating this article for featured article because I have checked it over, compared it to other video game articles, and believe that it is ready. RedThunder 13:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• Images
  • Cover image is non-free with appropriate rationale; I bumped up the size on the main page to 252px (standard for VG infobox). Make sure to avoid informal language in the rationale.
  • Image:MLB 08 the show.jpg has a couple problems; while its rationale is generally ok (could use some tiny cleanup to avoid informality), the image really doesn't help the article much - it looks like any baseball game (video or live) ever played, and thus does not provide sufficient reason to show this image. I would consider replacing it if you can find an image that shows the game's menus or selection mode to show what makes it a unique baseball video game, particularly, if going off the article, "Road to the Show" mode is new. --MASEM 15:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Added new image of Road to the Show. RedThunder 15:58, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:MLB 08 the show.jpg still does not work; I don't know if a HUD screen of the player at bat or pitching may be a replacement, but without such, this image should be removed.

Image:Road to the show.jpg needs to fill out the rationale better. "Source" needs to point to the URL where you got it (I'm assuming its not self-made). Add more information to the description of the image (I know what I'm seeing, I'm a gamer, but assume the person examining the image is not; explain it is a list of achievements with various goals to reach in order to gain some benefit). The purpose should be filled out a bit more as well. --MASEM 16:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Image replaced with new feature, rationales updated. RedThunder 16:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I would just explain more in both of the gameplay screenshots what the user is seeing (the second one is likely ok), but other than that, the images appear to be good. --MASEM 16:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Done RedThunder 16:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oppose:

• "It the longest-running officially licensed Major League Baseball game on the PlayStation systems." I don't understand what is meant by this, as this implies that there's some sort of termination date for its predecessors. Are you sure "series" shouldn't be after "game".
• "only officially Major League Baseball licensed video game series that is currently available". Inconsistent/suspect phrasing as MLB is put after "licensed" in other instances. The other version is probably better.
• "The game is a baseball simulation sports game" The game is a game. The baseball simulation is a sports game. These are redundant meanings shown in the text.
• "the player controls one or all of the players on a Major League Baseball or some select Minor League Baseball teams" Grammatcially weak. You're going to have to avoid confusion between different meanings of player. "team" has to be put after "Baseball" for it to make sense, but even then it's not nice to read.
• "It is a "realistic simulation" aimed at recreating the sport of baseball as realistically as possible, focusing more on the gameplay authenticity then "arcade style" sports games." Entirely redundant since you've already said it's a simulation. Can you have an unrealistic simulation?
• "create a player and go through their career." What do you mean? Control it? Witness it? Read it? Needs clarification.
• Should be a comprehensive summary per WP: Lead, yet there's no mention of "Reception" or "Music".
• Why is that people think it's funny to write stories in captions now? They should be concise—we can see their names, so there's no need to state it. "in game" should be hyphenated.
• "The player may take control". Best to be consistent with most articles and substitute "may" with "can". Same with all other uses.
• "player takes control of a team for a single game, one season, or a franchise (multiple seasons)." I'm wondering why francises are explained in the main body of text but not in the lead.
• "The player may control the team's batting, pitching, and fielding while playing the game." When else are they going to do it? Also, never playing the game, I feel that this is insufficient without stating how this works.
• "Many new general features have been introduced". What makes these general features as opposed to average features?
• "This feature allows players to check the "match up" between the current batter and pitcher." The what?
• "Information such as strike/ball ratio, pitch types, pitch frequency, pitch location and the last 25 pitches thrown by the current pitcher.[5]" Maybe I'm missing something, but this isn't acrually a full sentence.
• "For pitchers, stats such as batters "hot zones", balls taken, strikeout pitch location, and stats when facing that particular pitcher.[5]" As above. Don't abbreviate statistics. "Batters "hot zones"" is possessive.
• "for your created player in Road to the Show mode." use "the player" rather than addressing them like this.
• "If the player is doing better, the player will perform stats will increase, while if the player's stats are getting worse, they will fall into a "hitting slump", a prolonged period of time in which the player has trouble batting." Second part of info isn't worded properly. Should clarify the last part with "batting well" or "batting accurately".
• "Fielding was also improved from previous versions, with better AI making less mistakes in the field, AI calculations on whether the runner will reach base before a throw gets there, and improved fielding mechanics.[5]" Need to clarify that the fielding mechanics have been improved as this suggests that the players' performance has improved. "AI" must be linked and written out in full the first time it's used. Fewer mistakes, not less. It's the ball that gets there, not the throw.
• "This feature indicated if a ball traveling over the wall was close enough to jump and catch to save a home run. A marker of where to jump, as well as timing, was also added". Again, a grammatical rollercoaster. Just read it slowly and see if it makes sense.
• Captions that aren't full sentences shouldn't have a full stop at the end.
• "A variation of this mode is "quick game" mode, in which you choose teams, and default lineups, pitchers, and game settings are used. Don't know what's going on with the two "and"s. "that" should be after settings.
• "One of the games main gameplay". Possessive—needs an apostrophe.
• "In Road to the Show, the player creates a player to be part of an organization." What type of organisation? Are they going to be bustin' caps underground?
• "The player controls only that player through their career, and attempts to make them better by earning skill points from achieving goals such as getting hits, stealing bases, or turning double plays." Watch out for unexplained baseball jargon. "make them better" sounds unprofessional and is ambiguous. Same for the following sentence.
• "The player must accomplish goals that are given to them by their team manager, which in turn give then skill points if they are completed, and deduct skill points if they are failed or not attempted". Typo in "then". "Skill points" shouldn't be repeated". Use "them".
• WP:MoS. Numbers smaller than ten should be written out in full.
• ""Manager mode" and "Rivalry mode" are the two final gameplay modes featured in MLB 08". I don't understand how there are final gameplay modes in the game as they can be accessed at any time.
• "Season mode is the same as franchise mode, but there are no goals" Need to differentiate between general objectives and set goals in the other particular mode.
• It would really help the article if you could find more info on the game's music.
• "The predecessor to this game was MLB 07: The Show." Try to cut out these small insignificant sentences or incorporate them into bigger ones.
• "SCEA San Diego Studios wanted to improve on the realism of MLB 07: The Show, and added new animations, realistic animations for specific players, and better gameplay physics to improve on MLB 07: The Show." Meaning is repeated. To improve 07...to improve 07. Should have been proofread before FAC.
• The quote needs to be spaced properly and need a full stop before the closing quotation marks.
• "The game was run on the same game engine". Don't see why it's in the past tense here. "run" is questionable wording.
• "so no updating was made to the game's actual physics and graphics system, and no overhaul was made on the game's graphics system.[7]" An example of the needlessly excessive wording in most of the article.
• "While creating the game, the developers added many minor features to the graphics, however." Another weird short sentence. What's this "however" doing there at the end?
• "The game was received very well with critics, earning 85% ratings on aggregate score site Game Rankings.[13] The game's main competitor, MLB 2K8 scored lower: 72%.[14]" Such comparisons are original research/synthesis. Talk about this game. Same for "So far, it has been the only review site listed on Metacritic that has awarded the game a lower score than MLB 2K8 (which they gave a 4/5).[15]"
• "PGNx Media, amongst others, reported that the game "easily wins the "most improved" award." Could this site be linked? It will need to be italicised if it's a print publication. Anywho, it's missing a quotation mark.
• "Conversely, X-Play rated the game a mediocre 3 stars out of 5, while saying that "the game delivers a ultra realistic sim experience", only saw slight improvements in batting and major issues with fielding controls.[12]" A missing "they"?
• You cannot have a single massive quote to constitute a paragraph. the whole section is very poorly organised. It should be organised by fields such as gameplay and graphics, with integrated positves and negatives from many reviewers.
• Many sources don't have the date and author information.

I hope I haven't come across as too harsh, but this is a prime example of why articles should undergo Peer Review before FAC. The foundations are there for this article, but it needs major refinement. Thanks. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 20:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, another fundamental issue is that there's nothing to distinguish between the games on different platforms in the article. For all we know, there's no difference. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 20:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - I normally don't base my opinion on another review, but Ashnard has perfectly summarized the status of this article. Just let me point out that I spotted an inaccuracy thanks to the second comment above. This is not the only officially licensed MLB game avaliable now - see Major League Baseball 2K8. The prose is not up to our standards, as Ashnard illustrated so well above. Giants2008 (17-14) 23:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.