MS to do the "Halo, Gears, Forza" formula again?

[Veknoid_Outcast]

Angelus said:

Veknoid_Outcast said:

What if you find the soundtrack grating, and I find it mesmerizing? What if the realistic art style works wonders for you, and leaves me cold? What if I don't mind settling for 30 FPS and for you it's 60 FPS or bust? Which one of us is right? There's a big difference between the objective "this soundtrack was composed by Mr. X and played with A,B, and C instruments" and "this soundtrack is pure poetry and elevates the game from a rental to a must-buy." Surely you see the difference between a cold, objective presentation of facts and a deeply personal, emotional analysis?

You suggest measuring quality gameplay by stacking it up to similar gameplay in competing games? Well, to get there you'd have to assume some objective, quantifiable baseline, when, again, it's just your personal preferences, this time spread across multiple games.

I get where you're coming from, but some basic assumptions simply have to be made, otherwise we could never rate ANY piece of entertainment. Everyone writing previews, reviews, etc, for them would be wasting their time, because nothing they said would have any objective merit to help anyone get any wiser as to whether that piece of entertainment is more worthy of their time than others, beyond telling them whether it falls into a genre or style they like. I'd like to think that despite people's many differences, there's certain baselines we can acknowledge as being executed well or poorly, regardless of how strongly they resonate with us on a personal level. Maybe that's just me though.

If you're saying there are commonly-understood standards in the games industry -- a shared language, so to speak -- then, yes, I agree. 

That's not objectivity though; it's consensus.