Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review/Crash of the Titans

Crash of the Titans edit

I've contributed a lot to this article and kept it in Good Article status for a long time, and I think it's high time we get this page to A-Class or quite possibly Featured Article status, as I'm working towards making the Crash Bandicoot series a Featured Topic. What suggestions or improvements do you think should be made for this article at the moment? Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 23:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jappalang (talk · contribs)

I went through this version of the article and I believe it is not yet ready to become an FA. The sources and prose would become contentious issues at an FAC. The following are the more obvious items to me on my reading.

MOS issues

References take place after punctuations, and not in mid-sentence.
Avoid use of slashed phrases such as "he/she"s.

The lead

The lead is a summary of the article. Anything in the lead should be talked about in the article and indicate its source in the article's text for any information that can be challenged. "The title is a pun of the 1981 film Clash of the Titans" is not found within the article's text nor any source for it.
Neither is "It is the first Crash Bandicoot game to appear on a seventh generation home console, the second to support 16:9 widescreen (the first being Crash Twinsanity), and the first to support Wi-Fi LAN" in the article.

About gameplay

A problem from the start is the abrupt thrusting of the reader into the Bandicoot universe. There is not a style of easing him or her into the article.
"The player controls Crash Bandicoot, who must rescue his sister, stop Cortex's Doominator and save Wumpa Island. The first goal given to the player is to rescue Aku Aku, who acts as the player's tutor, shield and skateboard." Who is Cortex? What is his Doominator? What does Wumpa Island required to be saved from? What is Aku Aku, such that he acts as a tutor, shield (what is a shield in this game), and skateboard? Elaborate so that Aku Aku's various roles are gradually explained to the reader.
"Whenever Crash takes damage from enemy attacks or falls down a bottomless pit, the health meter decreases." Crash does not die from falling down bottomless pits? If it is bottomless, how does he continue the game?
"for every 25,000 Mojo" What is Mojo? (I know it is explained later in the article and in the lead, but one should not expect the reader to continue reading to find the explanation for a totally foreign term, and what is in the lead should be in the main article text).
"This is the first Crash platformer title to not have a health system based around the Aku Aku mask." Unnecessary to have since it is already explained how the health works for this game (which had no mention of Aku Aku).
"Each episode is broken up by a simple mini-game arena, where Crash has to accomplish a certain task in a set amount of time." Episode or level? I presume the mini-game is compulsory, but why is it designed as such? Which part of the episode (level?) does it break up?
"The task usually consists of collecting a sufficient quantity of mojo, hijacking an enemy animal to snipe bombs, ..." These two clauses are very confusing to those not familiar with the game, since mojo is not explained yet, and "hijacking"?
"voodoo doll rank": Is the "voodoo doll" title that important to the rank? Can we drop the "voodoo doll" embellishment?
"This rank can be improved by defeating a set number of minions in an episode, destroying Cortex's three spy-toilets, or scoring a minimum combat hit combo." Again is it episode or level (consistency is advised here)? Are these three achievements for each episode (level?) or for the whole game? What is a spy-toilet...?
"The DS version of Titans ..." If an abbreviation or shortform is used, it is to be noted in the first mention of the full name in the article. In this case, the full name should be mentioned here as "The Nintendo DS (DS) version of Crash of the Titans (Titans) ..."
"plays in a format similar to that of" -> "plays similarly to"
It is needless to specify "Spike", "Goar", or "Yuktopus" since they lend no further understanding of the system.
For the multiplayer sub-section, it would be clearer to establish that it is co-operative play as the title. I think it would be better to use "first player" and "second player" rather than "Player 1" and "Player 2".
What is meant by "if the current situation is too dangerous"?

Regarding plot

"Like the first Crash Bandicoot game, Crash of the Titans plays in a linear style" A question oft asked, what is playing in a linear style?
"distinct from other cartoon characters." Which other cartoon characters? Why are cartoon characters brought up here?
What is a bandicoot?
"Crash's allies are Coco Bandicoot, his genius sister, and Crunch Bandicoot, his muscle-bound friend." Beware of serial commas... Are there 2 or 3 allies here?
"Mike Tyson-esque minion of Cortex": "Mike Tyson-esque" in what? Is this part of design or an opinion? Is this sourced?
"Dingodile exclusively appears in the DS and Game Boy Advance versions of Titans as a boss character." Who is Dingodile?
"Crunch and Uka Uka are absent from the DS version, but do appear in the Game Boy Advance version." Who?
The story is excessively long, please cut it down to a summary of key events.

On development

"The developers at Radical were aware that Crash Bandicoot's presence had diminished in the minds of modern gamers, and made refreshing the franchise through Titans their top priority." -> "Radical observed that Crash Bandicoot's presence had diminished in the minds of modern gamers, and decided to refresh the franchise by producing Titans."
"According to IGN's preview of the game, the Wii version's graphics was one of Radical Entertainment's main focuses in the game's development, having stated that the Wii has a lot of horsepower under the hood and wanted to make full use of it." Who stated the last clause? IGN or the developer? Best to break the sentence up.
"The Xbox 360 version was originally to get a few extra months of development time to make sure its visuals were up to scratch before the final release date was set." -> "Originally, the Xbox 360 version would get a few extra months to improve its graphics before setting a final relase date."
"During the game's time in production," -> "While the game was in development," or "As the game was being developed,"
"A Hummer (with a Wii inside) was also painted and displayed at the Annual Balloon Fiesta in Bristol, United Kingdom to promote the game." How did a painted Hummer with a Wii help to promote the game?
"A Europe-exclusive "Monster Edition" of Crash of the Titans was released on October 12 for the PlayStation 2." -> "A "Monster Edition" of the game was released exclusively in Europe on October 12, (year?), for the PlayStation 2."
"This edition was previously a rumor, but was ..." This clause seems needless and unsubtantiated.

On the audio

"The score of Titans was composed by Radical's in-house composer Marc Baril rather than the previous a cappella band Spiralmouth. While Spiralmouth did not reprise their role as the composer of Titans, their work was used as a reference in the music's composition." -> "Radical did not hire the composer of the music in the previous Crash games, the a cappella band Spiralmouth, to write the music for Titans. Instead, they assigned their in-house composer Marc Baril to do the job who took Spiralmouth's work on the previous games as references for Titans."
"Crash of the Titans features more than 7,000 lines of dialogue, the intention being that audio doesn't become repetitive ..." Do not use contractions. Furthermore, the second clause does not provide a smooth reading. -> "To ensure that the audio does not become repetitive, Titans features more than 7,000 lines of dialogue ..."
"The voice actors did all their lines three times so that a natural feel could be achieved." It is a tad incredulous to believe doing a line three times would make it feel natural. Rephrase it to state why and how doing their lines over and over can achieve the desired effect.
"Many of the voice actors from Crash Tag Team Racing reprised their roles, with Jess Harnell as Crash Bandicoot, Lex Lang as Doctor Neo Cortex, Debi Derryberry as Coco Bandicoot, Nolan North as Doctor N. Gin, Amy Gross as Nina Cortex, and Chris Williams as Crunch Bandicoot." Unless these actors are notable and were talked about in the reviews or press releases, listing them out here is very indiscriminate and needless. Stick with the notables.
"Characters who did not appear in Crash Tag Team Racing were given new voice actors for the English version. These replacements include Greg Eagles as Aku Aku, Chris Williams as Tiny Tiger, and John DiMaggio as Uka Uka." This sentence is strange. How can characters who never appear in a previous game be given new actors? They did not have actors in the previous game in the first place. How then did they have "replacements"? How notable are these actors even?
"Radical Entertainment wanted to add personality to even the smallest enemies of the game, resulting in conversations that can be listened to when approaching groups of small enemies." -> "Radical Entertainment wanted the enemies to be memorable on their own; they scripted conversations between the enemy characters that can be overheard as the player comes near."

For the reception

Cut or reorganize the reviews in the table. You need not totally follow the template if you wish to show a listing by console (take a look at Ninja Gaiden). The current table is very messy.
Organize the reception into either "good" and "bad" paragraphs, by topics, or by reviewer. Right now, the first paragraph is bloated and results in an uneven structure for the section.
Personally, I do not think coming in second or being nominated makes it notable for the award...

On sources

Standardize the use of templates in the references, several are missing author or publisher fields.
What makes JumpButton a reliable source for interviews?
Do not use GoNintendo as the source for magazine scans. State the sources as from the magazines themselves.
Then again, how is GoNintendo reliable?
IMDb is not a reliable source.
Who is Andrew Hayward? How is he a reliable author? Do not use Gameranking as a source for opinions as they only collate reviews. Andrew Hayward in this case comes from WorthPlaying. How is this site reliable?
How is Codename Revolution reliable?
How are Flynn De Marco and Luke Pluckett of Kotaku reliable?
How is Blast Magazine a reliable online publication?

Images

Personally I think Image:Spikeparafox.jpg is a better picture to illustrate "jacking". Not only does it show "Carbon Crash", it clearly shows it and Crash having "jacked" two Titans. The current picture used for "jacking" only shows him on top of the Titan with green light effects. For all we know, they could be charging up for a special attack.

I recommend a thorough copyedit and search for reliable sources. Jappalang (talk) 05:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I have tooken care of much of the problems you have cited. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 16:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken the liberty to perform a cursory copyedit of the article. Please revert any mistakes regarding content. I would still advise getting a dedicated and capable copyeditor to go over the article (try asking one of the WP:LOCE members). I still have the following concerns:

GameFAQs is not reliable. Point to GameSpot for the release dates.
Flesh out the Development section. After going to the source, I realize why the text was written for the "recorded the dialogue three times" as it is. However, as I pointed out, this is very scanty detail and the text as is sounds more like a commentary than information on the audio development.
You need citations for the Jerry Lewis, Vincent Price, etc comparisons. If there are no reliable sources for this, please take them out.
Again, opinion pieces from reviews are not to be sourced to Metacritics or Game Rankings. Use the original source (Nintendo Power, the website in question, etc).
If you are bringing this to FAC, be prepared to defend the sources I have pointed out earlier.

Good luck. Jappalang (talk) 01:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]