Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Blast Corps/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:27, 18 June 2016.

Blast Corps

 * Nominator(s): czar  18:17, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Flush from its recent expansion as Nintendo bought major stake in the company, Rare handed an ambitious Nintendo 64 console project to four young, recent grads in 1996. They, in turn, released Blast Corps, a game of creative destruction, to universal acclaim, with one million copies sold. Even minding the indie movement, projects of such stature are scoped much differently today. Blast Corps led a series of Nintendo console games with consistently high critical acclaim (think GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini). In comparison, Blast Corps was not so much a cult classic or sleeper hit as simply cherished. The game's creative concept was emblematic of the company's spirit and left fans hungry for more even two decades later. It was among the most anticipated re-releases in the 2015 Rare Replay retrospective compilation and proved to be the standout favorite among reviewers.

This nomination is part of the Rare WikiProject effort to improve the articles that correspond with the 31 titles included in Rare Replay. I rewrote Blast Corps from scratch using the best sources available on the subject, with extra care to mind the game's original reception (magazines from the 90s). The article went through a diligent good article nomination and an even more meticulous peer review  and I believe it meets all of the featured article criteria. (Permission to start the nom early.) Time to get moving, czar  18:17, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments from JDC808
I will be reviewing soon (probably tomorrow). I also have God of War (series) up at FAC if you could leave some comments there. Thanks. -- JDC808  ♫  23:45, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I had meant to get to this yesterday, but got very busy and didn't have time.

Lead
 * Spell out "57", as well as other mentions of it throughout the article.


 * Make it clear that it's Metacritic who said "universal acclaim".

Development
 * Was the game only released in Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia?

Reception
 * Why are you italicizing "IGN" and "AllGame"? -- JDC808  ♫  20:24, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for the comments. "57" should be fine per MOS:NUMERAL—most style guides have numbers in numerals above nine. It's fine to leave "universal acclaim" unsourced in the lede because it's made generalizable by the citation in the Reception section. (It's not being cited as a specific phrase in the lede.) Was it released only in the locations listed? As far as the sources I found go, yes. I italicize those two per Manual of Style/Titles as online review sites with original content (creative works). czar  23:20, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * No problem on "57". That comment was based on the style of writing I'm most familiar with. Okay on "universal". For the releases, since it's only those regions as found by the sources, in the lead, instead of "A worldwide release followed at the end of that year.", I would rewrite it with European and Australian. When I first read that sentence, "worldwide" seemed a little awkward. It's also a little awkward in the infobox. I only questioned the italics of IGN and AllGame because when you click on their respective articles, they're not italicized. -- JDC808  ♫  01:54, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * ✓ done, and I'll bring the discussion to those two pages in due time. I think there can be an argument against italicizing them, with some points valid, but in the capacity within this article, they're being used as creative works. czar  01:59, 27 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Aside from the comments I've made, this article is very well done. I just looked at the article again and don't see anything oppose worthy. If I had to nitpick one other thing, it would be that I don't see the pic of the N64 necessary, but that's a personal preference that you don't have to change. With that, I Support this article's promotion. -- JDC808  ♫  02:37, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Image review

 * File:Blastcorps.png needs a more specific FUR - the purpose of this image isn't to identify the game, that's what the lead image is for. Perhaps to illustrate gameplay? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:53, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * , missed that somehow... ✓ fixed czar  22:22, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, that looks fine, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Moisejp
Hi Czar. I'm basically ready to support. The prose is very good, and I have spot-checked a number of refs. Two small issues: Besides that, great article! Moisejp (talk) 03:39, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately the AllGame ref seems to be dead, including the archived version.
 * I feel the last sentence of Legacy is a weak ending, doesn't flow well with the rest of the section, and sounds subjective as it's written. If you do decide to keep it, I would suggest maybe attributing the opinion to Rob Crossley within the text itself. And is there another place within the article it could be moved to where it flows better? Or maybe if it's not crucial to the article it could be cut altogether?
 * , thanks! I think I've addressed both, if you'll take a look. czar  04:28, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Looks great, I Support! (BTW, I also wanted to mention, congratulations on your Knight Lore FA.) Moisejp (talk) 04:34, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Dank
Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)
 * This is an outstanding video game article. It has lots of specifics, without leaving the reader behind.
 * I'm not comfortable with all the quote marks. Quote marks mean roughly four different things, and readers don't always pick up on the right meaning. If the quote marks are quoting text, then in-text attribution is needed per WP:INTEXT. But I'll leave this problem for other reviewers.
 * "EGM considered Blast Corps incomparable to other games": If "incomparable" is the right word here, then I'd probably delete "to other games". If they said it was hard to make comparisons, I'd use another word.
 * Blast Corps is overused; "it" and "the game" could be substituted more often, and rewriting might reduce some repetition.
 * Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 18:54, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Dank! The counter to using the game's name is using too much of "the game"—this said, I changed a few. Appreciate your support. czar  22:43, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Comments from JM
Source review:
 * The tweet seems to be incomplete; I'd want a wikilink to Twitter somewhere, as well as an accessdate.
 * Your Retro Gamer "A Rare Glimpse" source is formatted differently to other magazines; you've cited it like an academic journal rather than a popular magazine. Same for your Retro Gamer McFerran citation.
 * Do we need retrieval dates and archive dates? I don't know.
 * I'm struggling with your Crossley citation; where are you getting that page number from? If it's an article from Retro Gamer, surely we need the issue number for the page number to be meaningful?

A few spotchecks revealed no problems, and all of the sources are appropriate for an article of this sort. My own searches from the peer review indicate (but certainly don't prove) that no major sources have been missed, but a deeper search has thrown up some nice sources which may be worth citing (see the FAC talk page in a few minutes...)
 * I've put up a few reviews I found in respectable broadsheets. I think they'd be very much worth incorporating. Josh Milburn (talk) 14:36, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Some other driveby comments:


 * postmortem? Unless this has a particular meaning in video game journalism, this is not the right word.
 * Perhaps the composer belongs in the article body somewhere?
 * Perhaps Matt Fox's view belongs in the review box?

Hope this is helpful. Josh Milburn (talk) 14:17, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review, ! I think I've addressed everything, if you'll take a look. I archived the tweet and started a discussion at cite tweet about linking directly to Twitter. I think it's silly to have retrieval and archive dates too but that was the practice last time I looked into it. The idea is that the archived version may differ from the live version, so the access date can show that the two differ. That said, I don't see why an access date would be needed if the archived version contains the same contents and would be willing to start that trend myself. (Discussion: Help talk:Citation Style 1.) The Crossley section was reprinted online, but I included the original magazine citation, which I used as well. I didn't see anything worth adding content-wise in the LexisNexis sources—newspaper sources tend to repeat the same stuff as the specialized sources with no new criticism—but I added a few redundant citations. There wasn't any good coverage on Graeme Norgate's composition process, so I felt it was best to exclude mention in the prose. And I don't give much credence to Fox's brief reviews, hence the short mention and why it isn't in the reviews box. Thanks again, and let me know if you see anything else? czar  17:55, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
 * ping czar  16:09, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Apologies. I'm happy with source formatting and reliability. Comprehensiveness seems good. I may come back for a fuller review, but no promises. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:18, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Next steps
thoughts? czar 07:04, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 23:27, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.