Thank you for the explanation ^^ I agree that reviewing/rating a game is subjective no matter what, and as long as the rater applies same logic to every game they play, there's no problem with that imo. Personally, I base my ratings off of "expected quality for the jam" and rate higher/lower depending on if there are issues or a game performs a lot better in a category to the point it feels like part of a full game. I think our rating styles are similar for this reason, I just apply it to each criterion individually and don't take other jam games into account.
By "equal playing field" I didn't mean that "every single game can win" but rather "exactly 1 game can win, but everyone has a chance regardless of how good/bad the game performs in a specific category", hence the multiple voting criteria. A game could generally be rated 1 star in art for instance, but 5 stars in everything else, and it wouldn't disqualify it from winning. No offense taken, just wanted to understand your point of view and share mine. Thank you again!