For my money, Tom Chick offers us a tremendous service: he is a reliable amalgamation of enthusiast and assessor. By contrast, I navigate through games (the world, everything really) on a wholly intuitive level - I know that these tools aren't capable of a holistic analysis, but that is the "sense" I use to understand systems. It's something like a sonar, which delivers a game's overall conceptual shape. It may be superficial, but at least it takes into account the entire surface...? Maybe? Tom Chick could probably have written that better.

He often strikes me as "right," though I understand that what I'm actually discerning is agreement, with its comforts and woven parallels. I receive much the same value from MaryAnn Johanson - there is substantial overlap in taste, but I'm familiar enough with their output that I know when they're allowing themselves to enjoy something that might not be, strictly speaking, good.

If he tells me that something isn't great - like Killzone 2, just as a random example - I'm likely to listen.