Talk:Hang-On/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Namcokid47 (talk · contribs) 04:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

What a great little game this is. I should hopefully get to this one soon. Namcokid 47  (Contribs) 04:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Awesome, I'll be looking forward to it.  if you could do me a favor and give me a ping when you do have comments for me, I'd appreciate it.  My watchlist is completely blown up at the moment from my counter-vandalism work and I tend to miss new comments otherwise.  Thank you.   Red Phoenix  talk  15:30, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Will do. Hopefully I'll be able to get to it when I complete work on Segagaga and After Burner. Namcokid  47  (Contribs) 18:11, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

This isn't a full, detailed review, just some errors I noticed while skimming through the article. If you disagree with any of them, feel free to reply and we can discuss it. These are pretty easy to fix, nothing major. I'll provide you a full review soon. Namcokid 47  (Contribs) 16:48, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Not sure why the game screenshot is part of the Development section, it should be under Gameplay.
 * KGRAMR moved it - long story short, I didn't add the Yu Suzuki pic when I submitted this; someone else did, and the caption I put on the screenshot speaks to the development (specifically, the graphics), not the gameplay
 * 1) "Arcade launch, sequels, and ports" should be reworked. I'd split the info of its sequels to a separate "Legacy" section and keep the rest under a "Release" section.
 * I moved this down into the Reception and legacy header. Unsure how I feel about this one - I don't feel it adds to that section, I don't agree with a "Legacy" section (see below), and I think in light of that it works best with release info.  But, we can discuss that.
 * 1) Specific scores from reviews should not be in the text, they need to just be kept in the Video Game Review template.
 * Removed. It's a 2008/2013 bad habit - long story, but predates MOS:VG
 * 1) The latter half of the Reception could also be added to a Legacy section.
 * I disagree with this one - there's not enough reception to break this apart, and I can't find more to add to it - magazine coverage in the 1980s wasn't like it is in today's internet. There is more strength in the section to maintain the combined section of related points.
 * 1) The word "3D" in Development leads to a disambiguation page, which needs to be fixed.
 * Done
 * Points addressed. We'll have to discuss this idea of a "Legacy" section - I don't agree with adding any more sections based on how much material there is.  I've researched it as well as I can and this is what I have, and single-paragraph sections don't fly with me, which is what Reception would be if we introduce a Legacy section.   Red Phoenix  talk  14:38, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay. I do find it a bit odd that for Hang-On you're opposed to a Legacy section to list its various sequels and overall impact, yet for Altered Beast (an article you've recently nominated for GA and I've decided to also look at) has one. Namcokid  47  (Contribs) 18:28, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed to Legacy sections per se. It's more like I'm opposed strongly to short, stubby sections.  I'll elaborate a bit below.

Okay, I managed to read through the entire article. Here are my problems with it:

Lead

 * 1) Does Suzuki really need to be specified in the first sentence? I think "Hang-On is a 1985 racing arcade game developed and published by Sega" is fine.
 * 2) "It received positive critical reception, despite some initial concerns in Japan" - what was praised about it?
 * 3) Regarding the infobox, any chance you're able to find at least the month it was released?
 * 4) Video game consoles don't need to have a link.
 * We could do without Suzuki's name, but my counterargument would be Suzuki is such a notable name in this instance. I think I'll give it a quick refactoring and still include it in the lead elsewhere.
 * I think I have the months, presuming it's not OR - a source I removed before listed July 1985, though Horowitz noted just a US release date of October 1985. I'd presume July is Japan's release, by that logic.

Gameplay

 * 1) Looks good.

Development

 * 1) I'd suggest mentioning that Championship Boxing was for the SG-1000, but that could just be a minor nitpick.
 * It was also an arcade game too. I did link the appropriate article after I finally found it tonight.

Release

 * 1) I don't feel as if the specific price for the machine is necessary.
 * All right, I'll drop it.

Reception

 * 1) This is the biggest problem I have with this article; I feel it's too small. For such a popular and well-known arcade game, I'm surprised there's really not a whole lot in terms of reviews from the time. See if you can find anything from video game database sites (MobyGames? Sega Retro?) or the Internet Archive. I understand that for a game this old it's rather tough to find any magazine reviews of it from that early on, but I think it helps prove that the game was indeed popular at its release. I haven't really dug into finding ones myself, but I did come across one from Sinclair User dating back to 1987, so I'd at least incorporate that if nothing else.
 * You're absolutely right, and that's the problem, and why I don't feel I can do a Legacy section in this instance - I did tap MobyGames and SegaRetro, and that's it. Literally.  It's been frustrating me as well, but I don't think I can take it further.  Arcade reviews are scant, and 1985 was a little early for a lot of coverage just yet.  Add to it that for the SMS Hang-On was a pack-in and paired with another game, I think that hurt the number of reviews out there.
 * An added note: I just spent some time wobbling through the French Wikipedia version of this article - I don't read French but I read Spanish, and there are lots of similarities that I can sort of make it out. The article is a good article there, though idk what exactly that's equivalent to here.  And that article is ridiculously expansive, but its reception section is not - and there are no sources it uses that I don't have here. I might look at it just because it can tell me what the Generation 4 source says if I can run the article through Google Translate - I couldn't do that with the PDF of the source itself when I saw it.   Red Phoenix  talk  04:56, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Assuming the Legacy section is a no-go, I'd put the info on Hang-On's sequels underneath the reviews.
 * I suppose we can do that. Legacy is a no-go for me because the reception is so short - it's too small to warrant its own subsection and essentially needs the Legacy with it to keep it fleshed out.

Other comments
Honestly, the article itself is pretty good and well-written, and I enjoyed reading it. While there's definitely some issues with it, I think most of these are easy to fix and shouldn't give you much trouble. Once you're done correcting them, ping me and I'll look at it again. Namcokid 47  (Contribs) 02:17, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Infobox says that the game was released for the MSX and PC-88, but there's nothing in the article itself that confirms or even mentions this. This will either need to be sourced or removed entirely.
 * Sourced.
 * 1) Everything is sourced properly, is reliable, and is archived.
 * 2) The See Also section I think can go. Sega AM2 is brought up (and linked) many times in the article already.
 * Where do you see that? AM2 isn't mentioned at all in the article - it didn't even exist until 1988.  I threw it in as a See Also since it was Suzuki's studio that in turn developed quite a few more arcade racing games.  I'd actually be tempted to put Virtua Racing or Daytona USA (video game) in there.
 * 1) Any reason that the specific composer for the Master System version needs to be listed in the infobox? I don't think it's relevant to list the composer for a specific conversion unless there's coverage on why it's important information. Isn't sourced, either.
 * Leftover from when I started.
 * I'll hit this in the next couple of days - need to get through a busy cycle at work, but I left some responses so far. I'll get it handled shortly.   Red Phoenix  talk  04:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about the delays. Other than the amount of Reception, I have everything addressed. If you want more fluff, I can try to find some comments from Generation 4 about the Master System version in the French Wikipedia, but otherwise I too am a little frustrated I can't find more critical reception on it. I know we're right about the time computer and video gaming magazines were first coming up for the arcade release... but in this case I've really tapped all the resources I know how to find and search and I'm not sure where else to look. (If we do find more, I'm willing to revisit a Legacy section). Red Phoenix talk  12:23, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can find anything myself before I look at it again. For now, I'd imcorporate the Sinclair User review I linked to above into the page. Namcokid  47  (Contribs) 15:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I gave the article another look, and it seems to be in better shape now. I've added the Sinclair User review, but couldn't really find anything else regarding reception on the arcade version. A bit of a shame, but I suppose it's better than not having any reception for it at all. I think this is ready to be passed. Excellent work as always. Namcokid  47  (Contribs) 22:00, 22 February 2020 (UTC)