Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review/Midtown Madness

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.
    • All dabs fixed. —Giggy 07:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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])

  • • Removed him. Wasn't sure about him at the time. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to the Readability tool, the article contains 7,103 readable characters (just for information's sake).

Lead

• With less than 15,000 characters (less than half of that even), perhaps one paragraph for the lead would be best.
  • Perhaps. Looking at the lead again it still needs work. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "The game puts the player on the streets"

  In a car or as a pedestrian?

  Vehicle. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• "There is no plot or storyline"

  Generally, "plot" is "storyline".

  You're right; removed redundancy. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• "scoring an 81% score on review aggregator Game Rankings."

  I would discourage stating aggregator scores in the lead (WP:WEIGHT and all that...)

  Lead has been rewritten. —Giggy 10:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gameplay

• "traffic free" -> "traffic-free"
  • Fixed. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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."
  • Done. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• This may not be an action item, but does "[city] traffic is controlled by traffic lights" mean that players have to obey the lights?
  • No; NPC traffic obeys the lights. Clarified. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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"
  • Changed. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "though" -> "although"
  • Changed. —Giggy 07:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.
  • Reworded; dunno if that's any better. —Giggy 16:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Not my personal preference (or habit), but some reviewers might request an inline citation at the end of every quote.
  • Yeah, I try to do this but sometimes forget/miss some. Tell me if I've missed anymore. —Giggy 16:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• This, "its newest", certainly sounds informal to me.
  • Fixed. —Giggy 10:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• 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.
  • Done and done. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "chose Chicago as the featured city" -> "chose Chicago for the backdrop", "chose Chicago as the setting for the game"
  • Used the backdrop suggestion - thanks. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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."
  • Yours sounds (to me) slightly guinea pig-ish. I've tried to reword a bit. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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."
  • Wow, re-reading here I have no idea what happened to that sentence. Fixed. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• 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)?
  • http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/067/067180p1.html - "Of course there will also be the obvious assortment of overpowered Italian sports cars as well." —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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."
  • Short and sweet and done. :-) —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• What does "the ability to mobilize billboards" mean?
  • Overly formal way of saying "the ability to send billboards flying". —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "though this never eventuated." -> "although this was never realized."
  • Done. —Giggy 11:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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."
  • Fixed. —Giggy 04:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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)
  • Fixed. —Giggy 04:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "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

• I feel this section is somewhat tacked-on... more fitting for it to be in the series article.
  • Removed. —Giggy 10:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.
  • Removed. —Giggy 10:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images

• Image:Mm1 boxshot.jpg—Crop out the white space and state the source where the image was obtained.
  • White space cropped by bjweeks (thanks!), I added a link to its Amazon page which shows that the boxart here is what the original looked like (I've no idea where the original uploader got it from). —Giggy 10:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Image:Midtown madness screenshot.jpg—Get a non-watermarked image. The use of this image seems decorative. Could the caption be re-written to show that it is showing a distinctive part of gameplay or artstyle?
  • I've been unable to get an in game screenshot; for some reason the game seems to dislike print screen and I can't find a workaround. I'll look for a better screenshot on the internet. —Giggy 10:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Done—Giggy 10:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]