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Blast Corps

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We're fixing up a few articles as part of the Rare Replay project. I think my research into this 1997 N64 game went fairly deep, so I'm looking at taking it to FAC but first wanted to see whether anyone had any preliminary comments. Thanks, czar 07:37, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I remember the game being in the shops, but I didn't play it- I never had an N64. A few comments:

  • "The player-character transfers between vehicles mid-level to operate other passenger vehicles and machinery." I'm struggling with this sentence.
  • "a three-quarters overhead view" I know what that means, but I suspect a lot of readers won't.
  • "Wakeley called this Blast Corp's fundamental game design" Design element, perhaps?
  • The third paragraph of the development section could be smoother- it currently reads like a list of facts. Certainly not terrible, but could be smoothed before FAC. (The "platinum medal" thing, as well as the medal feature more broadly, could perhaps be explained a bit more clearly. Imagine you're writing for someone who's never played a video game before, if that's helpful!)
  • The first paragraph of "Reception", too, is a little listy
  • From page 31 of this book:

BLAST CORPS
1997 Nintendo 64, Rare/Nintendo
[three stars out of five]
Blast Corps is generally regarded as one of developer Rare's lesser games (at least by their high standards), and though it may lack the "wow factor," its gameplay is still very compelling and its large-scale destruction never less than entertaining. // In Blast Corps players are charged with preventing a trundling missile carrier from crashing into any of the buildings or obstacles that block its path. This you can do with a team of bulldozers, dumper trucks and giant robots - all capable of demolishing the environement with a varied armory of rams, missiles, bombs and metallic fists. Many praised this as a wholly orginal concept, but the idea of clearing and creating a safe passage while a clock ticks against you provided the basis of the earlier classic Highway Encounter, and even featured to an extent in the Stamper's [sic] own Lunar Jetman (back in 1983 when Rare were known as Ultimate). // Blast Corps was exclusive to the N64 and sadly received no sequel."

I've not looked at absolutely everything, but the article seems to be very good in its current state- this may have a good chance at FAC in the future. I hope these thoughts are helpful. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:18, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Czar: You may have missed this. Josh Milburn (talk) 10:19, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@J Milburn, thanks for the ping—I went through your comments. Does it look good? I thought about the three-quarters for a while and decided that it was the best way to express the idea (rather than discussing off-axis or something of the like). I think the fair use image and the wikilink should clarify any questions readers would have but let me know if you have any ideas. czar 08:19, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@J Milburn, in case you missed this czar 17:41, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A glance through reveals little else. You're inconsistent between "AllGame" and "AllGame" (similar with IGN), and I wouldn't bother including all the "publishers" you do in the ref list. (On the other hand, I would recommend including a location for your book.) Columns for your reflist may be worth considering... I'd recommend trying to find other reviewers before FAC, and be sure that your sources do support the claims made in the article (this is not something I've checked). Do you have access to Nexis? I got a lot of hits and got bored of sifting through them, so there may be a few gems hidden away. I don't think many newspapers were reviewing video games back in 1997, but you never know. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:33, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@J Milburn, thanks—fixed those (but you knew AllGame wasn't me. AllGame was, I believe, the only resource I didn't add myself, so the claims should be good. I have access to academic databases, but I remember a cursory search not adding much value over the period game mags. czar 00:34, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Moisejp
  • (Minor point) Lead and Devleopment: "Many were recent graduates."; "Martin Wakeley, a recent graduate, became the game's lead designer. The development team consisted of four recent graduates..." This means recent graduates of university? Recent graduates of a (not necessarily university) professional game development course? As is, the statements are a little vague, and if the information is available in the sources, it could be worthwhile to specify.

Development:

  • "In light of the game's serious theme, Retro Gamer reported that Wakeley's "exhilarating enthusiasm" was a key factor in Blast Corps's "eccentric ideas and quirky humor"." I wasn't totally sure what this sentence was trying to say. Is the logic as follows: (1) The subject of a runaway nuclear carrier (impending nuclear destruction) could be considered serious; (2) You might expect a "serious"-toned game; (3) However, this game has "eccentric ideas and quirky humor"; (4) The reason is one developer's "exhilarating enthusiasm"? But I don't think that "exhilarating enthusiasm" by itself necessarily explains the underlying issue, presumably whether "quirky humor" jibes with the "serious theme". Perhaps just remove "In light of the game's serious theme"?
  • "The game's title went through several different revisions during development, including "Heavy Duty Heroes", "Blast Radius", and "Power Dozer"." Was this in both North America and Japan, or only North America? I'll start with these comments for now, and probably have some more soon. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 18:25, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reception:

  • "Peer Schneider (IGN), in particular, lauded Rare's new intellectual property amidst widespread circumspection in the industry." I can more or less guess what this means (looking at the source was also helpful) but I think spelling this out more clearly would be good. From the source: "Just when everyone thought that Nintendo would continue to put out updates/sequels of each and every SNES game ever made (Mario Kart, Pilotwings, Star Fox, Zelda), in comes Rare's Blast Corps with totally unique gameplay, great sound and graphics." So basically it is a brand-new, original game, while many other companies were releasing mostly updates/sequels. Could you rephrase the sentence to be simpler and more straightforward? Moisejp (talk) 19:41, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review, @Moisejp. Re: "graduates", I think graduates of college is implied but the source doesn't specify so I left it as is. Rephrased the second part—I think moving it to the end makes it clearer. Fixed the rest. Let me know what you think? Also I have a FAC open at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Knight Lore/archive1, if you're interested. czar 20:26, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Crispin of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) was struck by the intense premise of Blast Corps." I'm not sure what "intense premise" means. The next sentence talks about "sense of suspense". Maybe the two sentences are saying the same thing, and if so could the first sentence be combined or removed?
  • This is a little confusing: In the first paragraph: "Peer Schneider (IGN), in particular, lauded Blast Corps's originality in an industry hesitant to take risks.[2] Reviewers also praised the game's graphics and sound, but struggled to master its controls." Then in the second paragraph "Schneider (IGN) initially struggled with the controls, but..." So it goes from (1) Schneider to (2) multiple reviewers struggling with controls to (3) something else (Crispin's view about the "sense of suspense") to (4) Schneider struggling with controls. Moisejp (talk) 02:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References:

Updated. I like to write the first paragraph of the Reception such that it summarizes the section, but I can see how the progression is confusing in this case. I distributed those sentences so they signpost the following paragraphs. czar 06:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Second read-through:

Gameplay:

  • "and the game saves to both internal and external memory.": Does that mean it is saved to the Nintendo's hard drive and to a server? For us non-video game types, could you clarify the significance of that?

Development:

  • "While Wakeley set the "gold medal" high score times, the game's "platinum medal" times descended from a competition between the Japanese and American quality assurance teams, who wanted to push the levels to their limits. Wakeley described the platinum challenges as "just insane" and said he could only get four himself." Is "descended" the right word here? Also, could you clarify how challenges are related to medal times? The player needs to achieve a certain number of challenges within a set time to get "platinum" status? Moisejp (talk) 05:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Moisejp, updated. Thanks! What do you think, overall? czar 01:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Czar, sorry, I'm actually still looking at this. I hope to get back to the review in the next few days or so. It's generally very good, but I haven't had a chance to finish checking it carefully. Thank you for your patience! Moisejp (talk) 02:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I should be able to finish off this review this weekend. Thanks! Moisejp (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "IGN wrote that the game had qualities nostalgic of enjoyable Nintendo Entertainment System and arcade games": I'm not familiar with this usage of nostalgic; I would always use it in terms of a person feeling nostalgic. I had a look here [[1]], and it also had no examples quite like the way you use it. I looked at a number of online definitions, and at least one of them ("of or characterized by nostalgia") is general enough that it could possibly include your usage. But most online definitions I saw don't seem to include that usage (I'm not saying it's necessarily an impossible usage, it just seems to be uncommon, and I'm not familiar with it, that's all).
  • "At another time, the magazine considered Blast Corps a 3D successor to "nail-biting reaction games" such as Loco-Motion": "At another time" sounds unclear to me. Maybe "In a different edition/issue of the magazine, it characterized..."? Or maybe you don't need to mention at all that it is from a different issue; in this sea of so many reviews mentioned, maybe that's a detail the reader won't care about? Moisejp (talk) 02:42, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy:

  • "Microsoft soon acquired Rare for a record price of $377 million": It's not clear to me what "soon" is in relation to.

I think that's all of my comments for this review. I didn't check the references. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 03:05, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Czar: I finished my comments a while back but didn't ping you at the time. I wasn't sure if you were waiting for my ping and didn't see these. In any case, they are done whenever you have time to look at them. :-) Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 22:30, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Moisejp, thanks for the ping! I think I've fixed the above, but let me know if you have any feedback? czar 17:13, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, all—now at FAC: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Blast Corps/archive1 czar 18:17, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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