Talk:Road Rash (1994 video game)/GA1

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Reviewer: DasallmächtigeJ (talk · contribs) 10:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Will have a lot of time on my hands tomorrow (today‘s) morning and will try to do the entire review by then. Used to love this game as a kid, been looking forward to this!

From what I can tell at first glance, the article looks good!

(Note to anyone it may concern: it was past midnight in my timezone and I did not actually start reviewing anyways, so I will take the liberty of counting this for my backlog drive.) --DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 10:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

1. Is it well written?

Generally yes, however; the article is overly detailed in some section, which I will address in section 3 of this review. Some things that could/should be changed:

Lead

• "The effort to license the music of Soundgarden for the title led to the inclusion of other alt-rock bands such as Monster Magnet and Swervedriver." --> does this really have enough standalone importance to be included in the lead? Listing this in development seems sufficient.
  • Cut that down a bit. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Gameplay

• Paragraphs 2 and 3 both start with "the player".
• Paragraph 3 starts each sentence with "if" and/or each sentence includes "if the player"
• Generally "the player" is used a lot and could be avoided by phrasing more indirectly. --> " The player wins the game if they win a race on each track in all five levels." --> The game is won if/when...
• replace "schmooze" with converse or some other word
  • Replaced some instances of "player" with "racer" since that's the controlled character, and maintaining "player" where appropriate. Also, I've been told that stuff like "The game is won" is passive language, and I'd rather avoid that. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Development

• Last paragraph starts almost all sentences with "The XY version was released", change it up a bit.
  • Fixed. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Reception

• 2nd paragraph starts the first two sentences with "Road Rash".
• Generally, most sentences start with "XY of magazine YZ", hedge words like furthermore, in addition, in contrast etc. would do wonders here.
  • Condensed the 3DO and Sega CD paragraphs to reduce excessive reiteration of common critical points. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

So all in all, a well-written article with a few minor flaws.--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 11:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

Agree All sources are reliable and check out, the nominator managed to find A LOT of sources togive a detailed account. As I will point out in section 3, partly the article is even a bit overly detailed.--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 10:29, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

Does the game have story or framing narrative? E.g., an explanation as to why they are racing?

The nominator managed to go into a great amount of detail here. To my mind, some of the sections, such as gameplay, are overly detailed (do we really need to know different coloured life bars indicate aggression? Or examples of which roles which production member played as a background character?), but not in a way that it is overly problematic.

However, I would suggest trimming some content down a bit, mainly in the gameplay and evelopment section. Here are a few examples as to what I mean, but both sections could generally be shortened by opting to summarize information that is spread across several sentences into one (or two):

Gameplay

• "The player character begins the game with $1,000. When the player wins a race, a cash prize is added to the player's balance" --> "The player has a starting budget and earns cash for every victory" would be sufficient.
• "If the meter fully depletes, the bike will be wrecked, the player's participation in the current race will end, and a repair bill must be paid. Motorcycle cops also make sporadic appearances throughout the game's tracks. If the player crashes within the vicinity of a cop, the cop will end their participation in the current race by apprehending them and charging them a fine." --> if the player wrecks his bike, the race ends and he must repair it to start the next race. If he gets arrested by the police, he must pay a fine.

Those are just two examples where things could be shortenend in the gameplay section.

• • Addressed those while tending to the prose. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Development

• F.e. the name of the attorney who was involved with licensing the music does not need to be included, same goes for the production staff guy who owned the bike or appeared in the video, just saing "an attorney", "parts of the staff", or "the creative director" etc. would be sufficient. The article has a general tendency for (partly unwarranted) name dropping.
• Also, the back and forth and as to why the attorney did not want to to be invloved with the deal is not relevant enough to be presented in great detail. Something along the lines of "EA contacted an attorney to license the music, however; after he refused they approached the band directly" would be more than enough.

--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 10:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• • Fixed those for the most part, but kept Randy Breen since he's a co-creator of the series aside from this game's producer and co-designer. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

4. Is it neutral?

Agree --DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 09:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

5. Is it stable?

Agree Considering that this is a dead franchise without any edit wars going on, yes.--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 09:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

6. Is it illustrated?

Agree Everything about the pictures checks out.--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 09:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Conclusion

All in all, the article is thouroughly researched and definitely meets the GA criteria. However, the detailed research at times proves to be a bit too thourough. After some of the sections are a bit streamlined, this should definitely pass.--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 11:03, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I took a look at all the changes you've made, the article looks good now. Will pass it immediately, great work!--DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 22:00, 1 March 2021 (UTC)