Talk:Battle of Britain (1985 video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Freikorp (talk · contribs) 11:41, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take this one as well. Freikorp (talk) 11:41, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   "only lasts one day" - perhaps clarify one day in-game, as opposed to one day of playing the game

   Done JAGUAR  18:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   Perhaps clarify that Coventry is in England; there are many towns called Coventry around the world.

   Done JAGUAR  18:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   I don't see what "Theatre Europe and Falklands '82 receiv[ing] heavy criticism" has to do with this article, unless you can link it to this article somehow. Did a commentator discuss the controversy of their previous war games while reviewing "Battle of Britain"?

   I intended to write something more or less focused on the company itself, seeing as there is virtually nothing on development with most of their titles. I've removed anything considered irrelevant JAGUAR  22:04, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   Same story with the information about the downfall of Personal Software Services. Unless you can link it to this article i'm not convinced it belongs here.

   I think it's relevant to the background of the company, as I've used a similar approach with articles like Lunar Jetman and Atic Atac JAGUAR  22:07, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   "During development of both games" are "both" games referred to here Theatre Europe and Falklands '82? If so, again I don't see how that's relevant.

   Removed JAGUAR  22:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   "noted that it was easy to "throw all of the balls up into the air" regarding the gameplay" - firstly reconsider the use of "noted" as per WP:WORDS. Secondly, what does this sentence mean? It's unclear to me at least just from reading it.

   Rephrased this. He was referring the gameplay to "juggling", hopefully I've made it clearer JAGUAR  22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   The lead says "many were divided over the historical accuracy of the battle", however only one example is given in the reception section.

   Rephrased to "one reviewer", as there weren't enough criticisms to summarise JAGUAR  22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   I don't think i'd say the game received "mostly positive" reviews, as two of the five reviews are only 50%, and one is only 60%. I'm not sure what the consensus on what to call that is, but the term that come to my mind is "mixed to positive".

   Fixed JAGUAR  22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   The reviewer from "Computer and Video Games" says the game "isn't very good" before the comments about it not being the best Battle of Britain game. This should probably be mentioned in the prose.

   Done JAGUAR  23:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   I'm concerned there won't be enough on background/production if the background section gets trimmed as per my above comments. Can you flesh out production at all?

   I've spent an hour searching for anything related to PSS, and I can barely find a thing. I added that they had a partnership with a French company, but other than that I've had no luck fleshing out details of the company. It seems that PSS was relatively unknown, seeing as they barely had any coverage in magazines JAGUAR  22:53, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: On hold until issues are addressed. Freikorp (talk) 12:22, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the review, Freikorp. I have some bad news regarding the background section - there seems to be a major draught of information. Everywhere. I've spent an hour searching for anything related to the company but I've found very little and at best I could only find advertisements the company made in some magazines. Other snippets I could find regarding the company founders seem irrelevant to include in this article and non-encyclopaedic. I've been searching past midnight now so I'm going to have to continue in the morning. This will be an issue for me as I'd like to write up some other PSS games in the future (they're very interesting) but I'm going to be stuck with no information regarding the company. JAGUAR  23:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Just added a bit more on their history. At any rate, I should note that the background section is almost the same length as some others I've made in the past. JAGUAR  23:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

If there's no information out there I can't penalise you for that. I'm happy for this to pass now. :) Freikorp (talk) 04:45, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Disputed

Despite the apparent references, there are a lot of errors.

• "At the start of the game, the player is given the option of how many RAF squadrons they wish to allocate for offensive and defensive purposes". ?? No
• "Training mode ... over an indefinite period of time" No, 1 day
• "RAF squadrons are automatically scrambled" No, you order them to take off
• "from a cockpit of either a Spitfire or Messerschmitt Bf 109, depending on the side chosen"??? you can't play Germany
• "storms will temporarily disrupt bombing runs and dogfights"?? No
• wrong release date. ZZap and Commodore User reviewed it in late 1985

Also, the "Background" section is just a filler, totally unrelated to this game; it should be moved to PSS article. A "good" article not deserved --Bultro (talk) 22:39, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, many of PSS's strategy game articles are like this, getting info about gameplay or developers wrong or misquoting what reviewers said (as well as just making up reviewer names?). Most of them also had development sections that all just copied the same paragraph from the main PSS article, which I've since removed. I don't know how to dispute good article ratings but I honestly think all of the PSS articles Jaguar wrote need to be reevaluated. --Ringtail Raider (talk) 19:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

@Ringtail Raider: en.wiki is not my home wiki and I won't help much, but you better warn some wikiproject about Jaguar. This article is so wrong that it looks like it was deliberately made up--Bultro (talk) 20:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)