Talk:Asteroids (video game)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 01:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll do a thorough review over the next couple of days. Indrian (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm lucky that Asteroids (video game) started receiving a GA review from you shortly after I nominated it for GA. I did the process of improving this article because I like Atari a lot, and the Asteroids game has a legacy of ports, influences, elc. How do like Asteroids, and why you like it? &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 01:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Lead
Overall, the lead covers all the salient points of the article. If you want to bring this to FAC it will probably need to be expanded, but for GA its fine. Just a few small points.


 * The lead never actually identifies Asteroids as a video game.
 * You refer to "Logg's meeting with Rains" as if this is a significant event already mentioned previously in the lead, but it is not. Should probably be changed to "a meeting between Logg and Rains" or something similar.
 * The lead should briefly summarize the inspirations for the game and the development process for comprehensiveness.
 * The last sentence should be split in two, as the success of the game and the ports are two separate topics.

Lead section done. &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 23:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Gameplay
Overall this section is excellent and is nearly FAC-worthy. Just a few small points again, mostly grammar.


 * "Triangular-shaped" is redundant; "triangular" is fine.
 * "the "big saucer" shoots randomly like cannon fodder." - The term cannon fodder refers to combatants considered expendable, which really has nothing to do with shooting accuracy.  This should be changed.
 * "Smaller asteroids also score higher points" - This makes it sound like the asteroids are the ones accumulating points. Should read "Smaller asteroids are also worth more points.
 * "After reaching a certain score, only the small saucer appears" - What score is that?
 * "As the high score increases its angle range narrows" - As written, "its" refers to the small saucer, but I think you mean to refer to the shots from the saucer. This needs to be reworded.
 * You mention that the game gets harder and faster each time the player clears the screen. Is there a point where the player reaches a maximum difficulty level and it no longer increases?
 * When discussing bugs, you mention in passing that the player can gain extra lives, but the method of doing so is not discussed.
 * Similar to the above, you do not mention how many starting lives the player gets for his quarter.

Done! &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Development and design
This is the most problematic section, as it contains a few factual errors and more lapses in grammar and organization than the other sections. I do not think it will take to much effort to straighten it out though.


 * "Asteroids was conceived by Lyle Rains and programmed and designed by Ed Logg" - This is only partially true.  According to the sources already cited in the article, Rains conceived of the game, and Logg programmed it, but the design was a collaborative effort.
 * "the latter whose first work with Atari, Inc. was 1978's Super Breakout" - This is not true and is not actually what the source says. The source says that "Super Breakout was the first game that Logg worked on that went into production." The first game he actually worked on was called Dirt Bike, but it was never released.
 * Also, its okay to give a little historical background on Logg, but if you do, it should be its own sentence(s) rather than tacked on to another thought like it is now.
 * "engineer Howard Delman contributed to the hardware it used" - You don't need "it used" at the end of that sentence. Also, according to Retro Gamer, Delman also designed the sound for the game.
 * "In a meeting with Rains in April 1979, Rains spoke of a multiplayer video game in development for the Atari Cosmos, a tabletop video game console cancelled in 1981 which used holograms to produce 3D images." - This is incorrect and is an error that has crept into several sources due to confusion over similar names. As detailed in the Retro Gamer article and a few other places, Asteroids was based on an arcade game that went by the names Planet Grab and Cosmos at various stages of development.  This game was never released.  The Cosmos tabletop game was a completely different project.  This should be changed and can be cited to the Retro Gamer article already being used.
 * "A full-color version known as "Color-QuadraScan" was later developed for games such as Space Duel and Tempest." - This is certainly true, but it is not relevant to the topic of this article.
 * "It was given to Delman, who used it as part of Lunar Lander's circuit board" - This is mostly true, but not quite. Delman actually had to finish the design that came out of Cyan.  He did not just incorporate a finished technology into an arcade board.
 * "The original Asteroids prototype board is part of Delman's personal collection." - Again, this is true, but not relevant to the design of the game.
 * "Logg programmed a ship into the monitor" - This is poor grammar. The ship was not programmed into the monitor, it was programmed into the hardware and rendered on the monitor.
 * The entire fourth paragraph is problematic, as there is no real flow to the ideas. It should be rewritten in such as way that the different aspects of the design transition into each other better.  The info is fine; its just the writing that needs work.
 * "The two saucers were formulated different from each other; the "big saucer" shoots randomly like cannon fodder, while the "small saucer" emphasizes firing at the ship." - Not only is the grammar poor (should read formulated to be different from each other, for example), but it largely repeats information already present in the gameplay section.
 * "Logg was asked for the time he leaves and when employees play it" - Grammatically, this makes no sense. I think you are going for something like "Logg was often asked when he would be leaving by employees eager to play the prototype."
 * "Logg and other Atari engineers observed proceedings and comments were written down in four pages." - "were written" is passive voice. Should be active.
 * "Atari went to Sacramento, California for testing" - I know this refers to location testing, which was the common practice of arcade companies setting up a prototype in a local arcade to measure coin drop and gauge the potential success of the product. The layman will not know what this means though, so it needs to be explained.

This section may need more rewrites for organization after these changes are made, but I will wait to see how these changes are implemented before commenting further.

Done! &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Reception and legacy
This section is in much better shape than the above, but there are a few issues requiring attention.


 * "Atari earned an estimated $150 million dollars in sales and a further $500 million in revenue from the game" - This is true to the source, but it is not accurate. The source makes clear that the "further $500 million" represents money earned in the arcades from coin drop.  Atari, as the manufacturer of the game, does not collect that money, which goes to the actual operators of the game.  Therefore, this needs to be changed.
 * "Tod Frye, an [sic] programmer tasked to work on the port, discovered that he could not make a faithful version of the game within the 4 KB limit addressed by the 2600, so he used bank switching" - I am not sure when and where the idea that Tod Frye had anything to do with Asteroids and bank switching first originated, but it is not true. See this interview with the actual programmer of 2600 Asteroids, Brad Stewart, for the real story.

Done! &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Images
None of the images are free, but they all have appropriate copyright tags and fair use rationale. All images are relevant. It might be nice if the captions were a little more robust.
 * I expanded the captions. &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 01:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

And that's it. I know there is a lot of text up there, but most of it amounts to minor cleanup. With a little hard work, I believe this article will have no trouble achieving GA status. Therefore, I am putting this nomination on hold so the nominator can address my concerns. Indrian (talk) 20:19, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That was a quick turnaround: I am impressed. I will have to give a thorough reading of the article again to see how the changes look and catch anything else I missed (I have already noticed one or two things I should have brought up in the initial review, for example), but we are getting close to done here.  I may not get the next round of comments up until tomorrow. Thank you for your efforts on the article. Indrian (talk) 01:33, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, Indrian! &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 01:39, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Asteroids_%28video_game%29&diff=590010544&oldid=590009388 &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 02:25, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Round 2
I took the liberty of making a few copyedits of my own to improve grammar and flow, which satisfies most of my remaining concerns. There are still a few little things left to take care of, which I will highlight below.


 * "The first game with Logg's involvement, Dirt Bike, remains unreleased, and his first game to be produced was Super Breakout." - As I stated before, there is nothing wrong with including a little background on the designers in the article, but the way it is now is just not working. The info comes out of nowhere and breaks up the flow of the paragraph.  This should be improved or removed.  You could always try to work it back in before bringing the article to FAC.
 * Improved. &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 23:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Atari's first such game was Lunar Lander" - This info is repeated further in the section, and in my opinion it works better there. I would take this line out.
 * "connected to a monitor and containing a size of 4×4 inches, five buttons, 13 sound effects, and additional RAM" - "containing a size of 4×4 inches" makes no sense grammatically, and I am not exactly sure what you are trying to convey, which is why I did not clean it up myself.
 * "He had a ship programmed into the hardware and rendered by the monitor, but saw no design document" - Again, this makes no sense, and I was not exactly sure what was going on. I think you are trying to convey that Logg did not work off a design document but instead refined the gameplay by playing around with the ship and adjusting the physics model based on trial and error.  Whether that is correct or not, this needs to be changed to make the information clear.
 * "Atari went to Sacramento, California for testing, setting up prototypes of the game in local arcades to measure its potential success. A group of old players familiar with Spacewar! struggled to maintain grip on the thrust button and requested a joystick, whereas younger players accustomed to Space Invaders noted they get no break in the game. Logg and other Atari engineers observed proceedings and documented comments in four pages." - So this is actually referring to two different events. Atari did do location testing in Sacramento as the article states, but the observations of veteran players and young players were done during focus group sessions at Atari itself, not during the Sacramento location test.
 * So a couple of general observations on the reception section. First, all you have right now is retrospective criticism, that is reviews of the game penned years after the fact.  There is nothing wrong with this at all for GA, but if you want to take this article to FAC, it would be best if you could dig up some reviews from the early 1980s.  You don't need to find that right away, as I will pass it to GA without that info.


 * Second, the phrase "Asteroids received overwhelming praise from video game critics" is misleading because you do not have any reviews from the time and you have no source specifically backing up the claim that praise was overwhelming. It might be best to tone this down a bit.


 * Finally, you mention that Cassidy praises the game for introducing the high score table with initials. This is true to the source since Cassidy does make this claim, but in fact Star Fire from Exidy beat Asteroids to market by a few months, making it the actual first game with such a table.
 * Added "one of" before "the first". &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 22:57, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe once the above concerns are addressed this article will be good to go. Indrian (talk) 16:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Done! &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 23:32, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Did one final round of copy editing to tidy things up a bit more, and I am now satisfied that this article meets the GA criteria. I have therefore promoted it.  Well done! Indrian (talk) 20:57, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Indrian! &#124;&#62;(@&#34;&#60;) (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2014 (UTC)