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Archived, comments still welcome if anyone comes across this. —Giggy 10:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Midtown Madness

[edit]

Recently passed GA; now going for FA. There's only so much that can be said on it (I have a magazine request awaiting)... it wasn't that big at the time, despite good reviews. Any comments are welcome. Cheers! —Giggy 14:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • From thumbing through the article: Pull the white walls off the Infobox image, try to turn the intro paragraphs into a single paragraph and use the compilation review sites to locate a few more reviews. --AeronPrometheus (talk) 07:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Review by Jappalang (talk · contribs) -  Done stuff

The following review is based on this version.

  • By tools
    • Dabfinder shows that this article needs to find the precise link for Blitz, Checkpoint, Circuit, Police vehicle, and The French Connection.
    • Going through Link checker, what makes GameCritics reliable? If going for the SPS route, what makes Lui Chi Kong (my personal preference in naming) an expert on video games?
    (Note: GameCritics tells nothing on their editorial process or system.[1][2] Lui Chi Kong's bio does not show recognition in the industry.[3])

Lead

Gameplay

  • "traffic free" -> "traffic-free"
  • "Winning races enables the player to unlock more powerful cars." -> "After winning races, more powerful cars become available for players to choose from."
    The article needs to explain the jargon "unlock" or to replace it with general terms instead.
    Good suggestion, thanks, done. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Players can change variables which affect the vehicle's performance and visual appearance of the game before starting a race, such as the weather and time of day."
    This is quite an awkward sentence. Suggestion: "Players can, before a race, change the weather in the game or the time of the race. Besides the change of environment, these changes can affect the vehicle's performance."
    Did something similar to your suggestion, thanks. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Additionally, police vehicle frequency can be modified, as with the amount of traffic and pedestrians." -> "Additionally, the frequency which police vehicles are encountered can be modified, as well as the amount of traffic and pedestrians."
  • This may not be an action item, but does "[city] traffic is controlled by traffic lights" mean that players have to obey the lights?
  • "The game also features a large number of novelty items for the player to hit—bins, parking meters, mailboxes, and street lights can all be knocked down."
    Do not use dashes to join two complete sentences. A period or semi-colon will serve here. The "all" is redundant as well.
    Fixed, thanks. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Midtown Madness supports multiplayer via" -> "Midtown Madness supports multiplayer games in which several players can play together (multiplayer mode) via"
  • "though" -> "although"

Development

  • It is possible to combine the short paragraphs into larger ones. The initial two sentence paragraph seems a bit brief.
  • "Midtown Madness was one of the first computer games developed by Angel Studios, having previously worked in other 3D entertainment areas, including work on the Nintendo 64 console."
    This sentence can be broken into two sentences to render a clearer idea.
    Fixed. —Giggy 16:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This could be a personal opinion, but "it saw Microsoft expand on the reputation it had earned through" seems informal to me.
  • Not my personal preference (or habit), but some reviewers might request an inline citation at the end of every quote.
  • This, "its newest", certainly sounds informal to me.
  • You might want to explain (and link to) "3D vehicle simulation engine". General readers would think of "engine" as a car motor, especially with this being a car racing game.
  • "chose Chicago as the featured city" -> "chose Chicago for the backdrop", "chose Chicago as the setting for the game"
  • "To test the accuracy of the city designed, Angel Studios had Chicago residents playtest the game." -> "To check that the city was faithfully recreated, Angel Studios tested the game on Chicago residents."
  • "The result, verdict Gary Whitta of PC Gamer, was the city was mostly accurate, though some landmarks had been altered for the sake of gameplay." -> "Gary Whitta of PC Gamer found the game's representation of Chicago to be mostly accurate, although certain landmarks were changed to improve the gaming experience."
  • Which article did "[while] most racing games focus on 'overpowered Italian sports cars'" come from (seeing that there are two citations at the end of the next sentence)?
  • "used a variety of more everyday cars"
    What exactly is a "more everyday" car?
    I've reworded all that bit. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Thus, permission had to be obtained especially for these cars."
    Permission from whom to do what with these cars? I suggest, "The developers had to obtain permission from the car manufacturers to use the likeness of the vehicles in the game."
    Your suggestion is a good one, so done. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The game begins with half the available cars unblocked; Angel Studios explained the purpose of this as being competition—the design team not including any cheats for unlocking cars also contributed to this."
    "[Unblocked]"? I presume you mean "unlocked". Even so, that would be gaming jargon, and the general reader might better understand with "At the start of the game, players can choose their car from half of the list of available vehicles."
    Yeah, I meant unlocked. Reworded as suggested, thanks. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    How does unlocking cars (and not being able to cheat their way to unlock them) encourage competition? Who is competing against who? Must the players race against each other to be able to unlock new cars?
    "Competition" in the sense that they can't use cheats to get the cars, they just have to keep plugging away at it until they win. (Trust me, playing this I know the feeling!) Yeah, it needs a better word. Reworded - any better? —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During the design process, Microsoft specifically stated that they did not want 'people run over in Midtown', and the game was developed with this in mind." -> "Microsoft specifically told Angel Studios not to allow players to run over pedestrians in the game."
  • What does "the ability to mobilize billboards" mean?
  • "though this never eventuated." -> "although this was never realized."

Reception

  • Bad form in starting off with a single-sentence paragraph. Find some way to work it into another paragraph, or failing that, delete it. Ashnard has pointed before that having aggregator scores in both the table and text is redundant, so you might want to remove it.
  • "However, the lack of detail of non-player cars was noted." -> "However, it noted that non-player cars were lacking in details."
  • "the Chicago setting in Midtown Madness is 'brought to life'."
    Check the tense, "is" -> "was".
    Fixed. —Giggy 04:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "noted some glitches amongst the" -> "noted some glitches among the" (misplaced formality per Tony1)
  • "GameSpot also enjoyed the different sounds produced by each car, noting 'warning beeps when the bus goes in reverse'—GameCritics called the game's sound 'exceptional'."
    Possible to rephrase this sentence? It reads a bit funny to me. Suggestion: "Reviewers called the game's sounds exceptional,<cite GameCritics (wait... is this reliable first?)> with its variety of car noises such as the 'warning beeps when the bus goes in reverse'.<cite GameSpot>"
    Fixed (and remvoed GameCritics). —Giggy 04:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sequel

See also

  • Midtown Madness (series) can be linked in the info box and lead. It is redundant to put it in this section.
  • Racing game—the genre is already mentioned. It is redundant here.
  • Hence, this section should be deleted unless there is something similar (or related) to Midtown Madness, but not mentioned in the text.

Images

  • In fact the second paragraph might be a bit of a run-on. Except for the last sentence, the paragraph is praising the game for its variety of car noises.

    • Other than the above comments, I suggest a thorough copyedit for prose and flow. Jappalang (talk) 08:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for your comments! Some stuff done and replied to; the rest I'll get to. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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