Off Topic:

A pleasure talking with you all on this Musings.

Mike, in relation to your question on Tom's recent blog: I thoroughly agree with his sentiments, and it's much the same tactic I take when reviewing.

Some games are broken, no question about it, and those I will harsh in a review. However, I entirely agree that there are many games that might be appreciated by different categories of people, and I do my best to highlight those, if I fall into the group (and think it was great) or if I don't (and was less enthusiastic).

Some philosopher once said that the job of a reviewer was to say what the creator attempted to do, then say how he succeeded at the goal, then say whether it was worth doing. No where does personal preference enter into that, and although it's a lot easier for me to review a game I really liked, even if I didn't like the game, I try and identify if that was personal preference, in which case someone else might like it, or if it was just a core problem with the game, in which case it probably wasn't worth doing.