Talk:Road Rash (1991 video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 23:57, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll review this, but before I start on a full review, there is already a serious deficiency in the article's development section. GamesTM did a "Behind the Scenes" article on Road Rash in issue 99, while Retro Gamer did a "History of Road Rash" article in issue 88 and a "Making of Road Rash" article in issue 166. These three articles contain a wealth of development info from Randy Breen, Carl Mey, Dan Geisler, and Rob Hubbard. Until this material is incorporated, this article will not be ready for GA status. Indrian (talk) 23:57, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Managed to scrounge up and incorporate the first RG article and just made an external request for the GamesTM one, but the other RG I haven't had any luck on yet. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 04:15, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Its already looking much more comprehensive. Any update on that GamesTM request? I do think we are getting pretty close to doing the actual review. Indrian (talk) 15:52, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the user's magazines are in storage and it'll take a few weeks to access, but I've been assured that the scans would be emailed to me once available. On the plus side, I finally got my hands on the other Retro Gamer article, and will get to incorporating it this evening. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 09:59, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

GamesTM article received and incorporated! Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 21:22, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Great! I will start the full review in the next few days. Thanks for all your hard work! Indrian (talk) 00:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Just letting you know I have not forgotten about this. The holidays do tend to interfere. I will move on this very soon. Indrian (talk) 20:46, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

No worries. Figured that was the case. Take all the time you need. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Is this review still ongoing? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 13:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes. The long timeframe was largely the period where the nominator was gathering new sources. Then the holidays hit. It should be wrapped up soon. Indrian (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Okay. Let's do this. I am so sorry this got back-burnered on my end, but I appreciate all the work you did tracking down those additional sources and fleshing out the development history. That leaves us with just a few small tweaks as articulated below:

Lead

• "Road Rash was conceived by EA as its first title following the company's decision to begin developing games internally." - It was early, but it was not the first. That would be Skate or Die, released in 1987.
• "After initial development of Mario Andretti Racing for the NES proved impractical" - We certainly do not want the lead to become over long, but there is a sentence missing here. By alluding to an earlier game in the introductory clause, the article implies the game has already come up in the article, which at this point it has not.
• "and became EA's most profitable title at that time" - At what time? As one of the early console games, I could certainly see it briefly being their biggest hit, but it was surely eclipsed by the sports stuff in pretty short order even if that's true. We need some qualification for this, or we need to take it out.

Gameplay

• "The player character begins the game carrying $1,000 on hand." - This reads strangely to me, perhaps because "carrying" and "on hand" essentially mean the same thing. I would tweak the language slightly.
• "a cash prize is received" - Passive voice.
• "the bike shop is available from the main menu in the 32-bit versions" - This is the first mention of a "bike shop" but is discussed as if we already know what that is. Perhaps it needs to be changed to something like: "in the 32-bit version, there is also a bike shop available from the main menu."
• "the game is won" - Passive voice.
• "which decreases with every crash the player gets involved in" - "gets involved in" is a convoluted verb here. Perhaps "suffers" or something similar?

Development and Release

• "The conception of Road Rash began in 1989 when EA made the decision to begin developing video games in-house" - Again, in-house development started before 1989, though only just. Perhaps you are trying to articulate that it was one of the first games planned when they started developing their own console games? If so, this distinction needs to be clarified. Also we have some passive voice again.
• "Mey requested to Richard Hilleman" - We need a job title/role for Hilleman here so reader's know why he would be involved in this decision.

Legacy

• There should be a little discussion of the direct Genesis sequels here in order to flesh this section out.

That should just about do it. I'll stick this  On hold while these small issues are addressed. If you have any questions, let me know. Indrian (talk) 23:11, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Alright, all points have been addressed. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 02:46, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks good. I took the liberty of tweaking the legacy section a bit more, and I am now ready to promote. Thank you for both your hard work and your patience. Indrian (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)