Talk:Lunar Lander (video game genre)/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 03:50, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

I'll give this one a go. Indrian (talk) 03:50, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Lead

•  Done"must use their limited fuel to control the rocket so as to land safely" - Technically, the fuel does not control the rocket, the thrusters expend fuel in the process of controlling the rocket. Just needs slightly better word choice.
  • The whole wording is a bit weird. I'll take a look at how to rewrite it so as to make sense from an astrophysical standpoint. I hope PresN doesn't mind! → Call me Razr Nation 19:55, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
  • To add, PresN: Can I assume that the game is called Lunar Lander because the player is tasked with landing on the Moon, or there are other celestial bodies to land on? After all, the Moon's latin name is Luna. → Call me Razr Nation 19:59, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
    • @Razr Nation: It's awkward, actually- the original "Lunar Landing Game" was just on the moon, and therefore the genre/game type name is "Lunar Lander", and the moon is certainly the standard target, but games that have you land on different bodies (real or fictional) are still "lunar landers" as long as the gameplay is similar. So, I didn't want to define it in the lead as "you must land on the moon" because, for example, Marslander (1983) is a Lunar Lander game but, uh, not on the moon. --PresN 00:03, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
      • @PresN:: Huh, it's quite awkward indeed. I went ahead and did some changes. I think that we can keep the lead as "landing on the moon" and specify which games have a different celestial body as the target, given how they are the minority (and also to keep the text semantically correct). → Call me Razr Nation 00:19, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Text games

•  Done"Storer soon forgot about the game" - I am not sure this statement is really needed. It comes out of nowhere in the paragraph in which it is included and really does not tie into any other ideas in the article.
•  Done"Lunar inspired others to write other versions of the game" - This may be true, as it seems odd that three different people would come up with such a similar concept even with the actual moon landings providing an obvious inspiration, but I do not believe the source supports this contention.
•  Done"Many of these ports were originally mainframe computer games" - Remember, in 1973 there were no personal computers, so the 1973 version of the book consisted entirely of games written for mainframes and minicomputers and was intended for use with mainframes and minicomputers. It was not until the re-release in 1978 that it explicitly targeted the microcomputer crowd and became a million seller.
•  Done"more sales than computers in existence at the time" - IBM had an install base of 35,000 System 360 computers by 1970 and also sold 12,000 1401 computers between 1959 and 1971. DEC sold 50,000 PDP-8 computers after its 1965 release, and while some of those sales may have come after 1973, DEC had released the PDP-11 by then, so it had probably experienced the bulk of its sales. Many other companies had computers on the market as well. Not sure if Ahl is being hyperbolic, misremembering, or has some kind of qualifier in his mind that did not make it into the article, but this is not factual.

Graphical games

•  Done"Galaxy Rescue and Lunar Rescue by Taito" - I think this is the same game under two different names.
•  Done"and Destination Earth, a clone of Lunar Rescue." - This appears to be a bootleg rather than a clone and should therefore not be mentioned here.
•  DoneAccording to Grand Thieves and Tomb Raiders, a version of the game called Moon Lander was one of the first three commercial computer games released in Britain. It was written for the MK14 computer kit. The system used an LED calculator display, so I don't think it was really a graphical game, but I put this here because this seems to be where all the other microcomputer ports are mentioned. Whether here or elsewhere, seems like a neat tidbit to mention in the article.
  • I don't really like the Mk14 version being relegated to the legacy section, as all the other versions of the game are listed elsewhere. Perhaps the graphical games section could be renamed "Graphical games and microcomputer ports" or something like that, which would allow the Mk14 version to live among all the other ports? Indrian (talk) 21:04, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
    • @Indrian: I'd rather keep the text-based games together, so I found a way to discuss it in that section (and left the "first 3 British home computer games" bit in the reception). --PresN 16:48, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

That about does it. Nothing too major in there, so I will put this nomination  On hold while changes are made. Indrian (talk) 16:30, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

@Indrian: Alright, took me a bit to get to this, but all issues addressed. --PresN 16:21, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

@PresN: Looking good. Just one more point to clear up, which I outlined above. Indrian (talk) 21:04, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

The Thanksgiving holiday interrupted things here for me, but I am now happy to promote after the recent tweaks to the lead. Well done! Indrian (talk) 15:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)