Talk:Battle of Britain (1985 video game)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Battle of Britain (video game)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Freikorp (talk · contribs) 11:41, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take this one as well. Freikorp (talk) 11:41, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   "only lasts one day" - perhaps clarify one day in-game, as opposed to one day of playing the game

   Done JAGUAR  18:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   Perhaps clarify that Coventry is in England; there are many towns called Coventry around the world.

   Done JAGUAR  18:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   I don't see what "Theatre Europe and Falklands '82 receiv[ing] heavy criticism" has to do with this article, unless you can link it to this article somehow. Did a commentator discuss the controversy of their previous war games while reviewing "Battle of Britain"?

   I intended to write something more or less focused on the company itself, seeing as there is virtually nothing on development with most of their titles. I've removed anything considered irrelevant JAGUAR  22:04, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   Same story with the information about the downfall of Personal Software Services. Unless you can link it to this article i'm not convinced it belongs here.

   I think it's relevant to the background of the company, as I've used a similar approach with articles like Lunar Jetman and Atic Atac JAGUAR  22:07, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   "During development of both games" are "both" games referred to here Theatre Europe and Falklands '82? If so, again I don't see how that's relevant.

   Removed JAGUAR  22:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   "noted that it was easy to "throw all of the balls up into the air" regarding the gameplay" - firstly reconsider the use of "noted" as per WP:WORDS. Secondly, what does this sentence mean? It's unclear to me at least just from reading it.

   Rephrased this. He was referring the gameplay to "juggling", hopefully I've made it clearer JAGUAR  22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   The lead says "many were divided over the historical accuracy of the battle", however only one example is given in the reception section.

   Rephrased to "one reviewer", as there weren't enough criticisms to summarise JAGUAR  22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   I don't think i'd say the game received "mostly positive" reviews, as two of the five reviews are only 50%, and one is only 60%. I'm not sure what the consensus on what to call that is, but the term that come to my mind is "mixed to positive".

   Fixed JAGUAR  22:58, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   The reviewer from "Computer and Video Games" says the game "isn't very good" before the comments about it not being the best Battle of Britain game. This should probably be mentioned in the prose.

   Done JAGUAR  23:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   I'm concerned there won't be enough on background/production if the background section gets trimmed as per my above comments. Can you flesh out production at all?

   I've spent an hour searching for anything related to PSS, and I can barely find a thing. I added that they had a partnership with a French company, but other than that I've had no luck fleshing out details of the company. It seems that PSS was relatively unknown, seeing as they barely had any coverage in magazines JAGUAR  22:53, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: On hold until issues are addressed. Freikorp (talk) 12:22, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the review, Freikorp. I have some bad news regarding the background section - there seems to be a major draught of information. Everywhere. I've spent an hour searching for anything related to the company but I've found very little and at best I could only find advertisements the company made in some magazines. Other snippets I could find regarding the company founders seem irrelevant to include in this article and non-encyclopaedic. I've been searching past midnight now so I'm going to have to continue in the morning. This will be an issue for me as I'd like to write up some other PSS games in the future (they're very interesting) but I'm going to be stuck with no information regarding the company. JAGUAR  23:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Just added a bit more on their history. At any rate, I should note that the background section is almost the same length as some others I've made in the past. JAGUAR  23:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

If there's no information out there I can't penalise you for that. I'm happy for this to pass now. :) Freikorp (talk) 04:45, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Disputed

Despite the apparent references, there are a lot of errors.

• "At the start of the game, the player is given the option of how many RAF squadrons they wish to allocate for offensive and defensive purposes". ?? No
• "Training mode ... over an indefinite period of time" No, 1 day
• "RAF squadrons are automatically scrambled" No, you order them to take off
• "from a cockpit of either a Spitfire or Messerschmitt Bf 109, depending on the side chosen"??? you can't play Germany
• "storms will temporarily disrupt bombing runs and dogfights"?? No
• wrong release date. ZZap and Commodore User reviewed it in late 1985

Also, the "Background" section is just a filler, totally unrelated to this game; it should be moved to PSS article. A "good" article not deserved --Bultro (talk) 22:39, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, many of PSS's strategy game articles are like this, getting info about gameplay or developers wrong or misquoting what reviewers said (as well as just making up reviewer names?). Most of them also had development sections that all just copied the same paragraph from the main PSS article, which I've since removed. I don't know how to dispute good article ratings but I honestly think all of the PSS articles Jaguar wrote need to be reevaluated. --Ringtail Raider (talk) 19:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

@Ringtail Raider: en.wiki is not my home wiki and I won't help much, but you better warn some wikiproject about Jaguar. This article is so wrong that it looks like it was deliberately made up--Bultro (talk) 20:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Most things disputed above had already been fixed, but now the last of the remaining issues have also been fixed. Damien Linnane (talk) 10:22, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

GA concerns

Based on the above conversation, and the "factual accuracy" banner at the top of the page, I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria. Is anyone willing to address this concern, or should it go to WP:GAR? @Ringtail Raider and Bultro: Z1720 (talk) 14:59, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I think this and all the games by Personal Software Services should be re-evaluated, I remember them all having major issues and a lot seemingly being unfairly marked as GA. I don't wanna pin all the blame on that one user, especially since the edits were made in 2015, just thought it was worth pointing out since they seemed to copy a lot of duplicate material onto all the articles. I've seen some info on PSS and their games in old Amstrad-related magazines but I'm busy researching other things right now, though at some point I'll look into it. Ringtail Raider (talk) 17:08, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ringtail Raider: Would you be willing to bring this back to GA standards? If not, can you bring it to GAR as you can explain your concerns more effectively than me? Z1720 (talk) 20:36, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Battle of Britain (1985 video game)

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

This article has had an orange "factual accuracy is disputed" banner at the top of the page since 2017. Since that remains unresolved, I am nominating it for GAR. Z1720 (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

(quick skimmed through it) It might need more details overall, especially about its development and modern-day reception; as for the dispute (and as someone that is unfamiliar with these C64 strategy games), the Gameplay section appears to be written as well as it could be, describing key aspects of the game's modes and presentation. Are you sure it could note more clearly that it's based on the actual battle? Overall, the article does appear to address the main aspects of the topic; perhaps a little trimming at Gameplay will suffice. 2601AC47 (talk|contribs) Isn't a IP anon 23:16, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The talk page has a comment from the editor who added the disputed banner: Talk:Battle of Britain (1985 video game)#Disputed. I addressed the release date when I edited the article last year but I didn't touch the gameplay section. --Mika1h (talk) 00:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

• Delist This one seems to have been a faulty initial review, as many of the claims in gameplay, even in the original approved version, are outright made up and not mentioned in the cited source. Without a complete once-over it should not be a GA by any stretch of the imagination. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 00:55, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. I did the GA Assessment for this article over nine years ago under my old username, and as my assessment states I was concerned about the lack of production information at the time. As I also noted at the time, I eventually chose not to penalise the GA nomination on the grounds there were no available sources. While I did question the relevance of the generic background section, the nominator rebutted my concerns, and I decided not to challenge it further as they had considerably more experience editing video game articles than I did, but I do indeed agree with the bold edit made last year removing this section. You'd have to check in with WikiProject Video games about whether a lack of available information on production automatically renders the article ineligible for GA status. I honestly don't know, I'm not overly active with any Wiki projects these days, though I note standards have risen considerably in Project Video games in the last decade since I did this review. If the fact a production section simply cannot be created due to a lack of available sources makes this article ineligible for GA, by all means, delist it.

As my review notes, I went through the reception references in detail to verify things, but I did indeed assume good faith of the nominators descriptions of gameplay as they were an established editor in the relevant project. I probably presumed they obtained the uncited information from playing the game, had no reason at the time to think that such an established editor would have "outright made up" gameplay, and also thought non-controversial descriptions could be sourced to the game itself as per WP:PRIMARY, in the same way that plots are. I try not to assume bad faith.

Bultro made a dispute in 2017, though nobody acknowledged the dispute until last year. Not surprisingly, the article doesn't get many viewers or edits; I didn't add it to my watch-list after doing the GA review, so I never saw the tag or comments until today. If the gameplay is inaccurate, I would absolutely encourage Bultro to fix it. If they aren't able to do that for any reason, is there a way to play this game today, such as with emulation? If so, I'd encourage you to find someone who has the time to play it, weigh in on the accuracy allegations, and make any required changes. Unless the lack of production coverage makes this ineligible for GA, I'm not seeing why simply addressing the dispute one person has made wouldn't save this from being de-listed. Damien Linnane (talk) 01:33, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

• Delist as perfectly said by Zxcvbnm.
  Sorry about not warning you in 2017 or not fixing (sort of rewriting) the article myself, I'm just not a regular contributor of en.wiki. If you want a correct description of the gameplay you can see the article I wrote on it.wiki, based on both written sources (manual and magazine reviews) and checking the real game in action. I don't know if fixing the errors would be enough to save from delisting, but certainly there are tons of better pages around to enlist. Bultro (talk) 08:53, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

You definitely don't owe me an apology for not telling me about the dispute, or for not fixing it yourself. You don't have to fix anything you don't want to. But no one, including the original nominator, has raised a specific issue other than the alleged inaccuracy. In other words, no one has provided any specific reasoning for why fixing this lone issue wouldn't save it from delisting. Damien Linnane (talk) 13:27, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, the "lone" issue is an entire section (half the page) with many errors, which doesn't make me trust very much in the other section too. And there was another issue, the "development" section which was actually chatter, now fixed by full deletion, so there's not much left--Bultro (talk) 10:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

• Keep. This article was nominated on the grounds it has a "factual accuracy is disputed" tag on it. No person voting in favour of delisting has raised another specific issue. A version without the alleged factual inaccuracy exists on the Italian Wikipedia at it:Battle of Britain (videogioco 1985). All the information we need to fix the disputed tag is easily available. Damien Linnane (talk) 13:27, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

• @Damien Linnane: Would you be willing to fix up the article to address the concerns? Editors have brought up concerns about how the text of this article does not match the sources: this needs to be resolved before I can endorse a "keep", and the availability of a good version in another language is not enough for me to endorse a keep on English Wikipedia. Z1720 (talk) 03:57, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh my point being is that it's just a shame to delist when all the information needed to fix the issue is right there. My vote was originally neutral as I was aware of the effort playing the game in order to write an accurate section would take, but now that it's been pointed out to me that an accurate version has already been written, I've changed my vote to a keep. I'll try and see if I can find the time to give it a go in the coming days. I am time poor myself though so I absolutely will not judge anyone else for not wanting to do it. That being said, I do not speak any Italian so I will be reliant on online translation. So if Bultro doesn't have time to fix this issue themselves (which is fine), it would be appreciated if they could look over any changes I have the time to make, just to make sure something hasn't been lost in translation. Damien Linnane (talk) 23:43, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, that ended up being a lot easier than I anticipated. Turns out, of the seven things that were disputed on the talk page, only two hadn't already been fixed. From there, I went through all the sources in the gameplay section manually. I found three statements that weren't backed up by the sources (or other sources I read either), so I removed those, and then I added coverage on the fact the dogfights were optional, since the article confusingly didn't mention that. If there's any remaining issues, you'll have to explicitly point them out. Damien Linnane (talk) 11:25, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720, Zxcvbnm, and Bultro: does the above address your concerns? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Keep. My concerns have been addressed. Z1720 (talk) 13:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Z1720. Unfortunately, after looking at the issues here I think someone needs to go through the other articles that were nominated for GA by this same user around the same time period as this one (some of which I also assessed), so you've done the right thing by nominating this for reassessment/discussion. Damien Linnane (talk) 00:27, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Damien Linnane: I do not know if I have the time or patience to do that. I am happy to help anyone who wants to do this. Z1720 (talk) 01:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)