It depends on how you frame it. I don’t see it as “hate” as I don’t hate Bioware, but objectively speaking, the work speaks for itself. Hyperbole such as disaster, catastrophe, etc are embellishments, but to say the game isn’t bad or just so-so isn’t a scathing criticism.
Anthem was treated the way it was due to ME3 and the narrative choices, for better or worse. People wanted to tell off Casey Hudson, and the game suffered unfairly. Granted it wasn’t a good game, it wasn’t as terrible as it was made out to be either.
Now on Andromeda, however, it was fairly criticized. The gameplay was fun and engaging, but the narrative and storytelling were given their fair treatment. That stuff was just bad, and the developer responses didn’t help either. The pathetic rants amounted to “I put mah heart and souuuulll into it”, and just because people worked really hard on something, doesn’t mean it was a good thing. People worked really hard in the sewers of London to get rid of fatbergs, but in the end all they achieved was moving shit around, and that’s more dignified than the trash we got in Andromeda’s writing and character animations.
Looking at the current marketing situation and the “Bioware hate” as you refer to it, I really think there’s more EA hate at this point. EA is blatantly manipulating the review scores by means of review embargos and selectively cherry picking only favorable review outlets, and in some cases we are even spotting reused catchphrases that indicate signs of coaching by EA to say positive things about the game. They do this in light of the consumer sentiment about preorders “Not touching this or preordering, I want reviews first” is a common sentiment amongst their video comments telling their marketing engagement experts to use dirty tricks like review manipulation.
I’d honestly love for Veilguard to be fantastic, but the layoffs and staff turnover tell me they didn’t value their developers, didn’t value the product, and don’t value the art or anything really beyond making some flashy flim-flam with marketable gimmicks. The reviews I’ve read mention that the characters in the game must definitely know what Tiktok is, due to the cringy dialogue, and that’s a review that gave it a favorable score.
Just wait until the objective reviews hit and this game is widely panned. That will draw the line between “hate” and “oh, this is actually shitty”, and make things especially clear.
BenFranklinsDick@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Dragon Age 2 is a bad game
TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I agree. Gameplay from 2 to origins is shameful.
It’s story is another matter. Have come around on that in recent years.
shani66@ani.social 3 weeks ago
I feel like the story has good ideas but ultimately fails, personally. I like the idea of struggling against inevitable tragedy, but when the cause of such tragedy was against always immediately in arms reach of you and caused by a single person it falls flat.
ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
DA2 has several bad qualities. I personally would not generalize it as a bad game. I am willing to concede that this is an unpopular opinion, however.
Defaced@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You have your opinion but it’s definitely in the vocal minority.
BenFranklinsDick@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
What? You’re in the minority here. DA2 is known as one of the most notoriously bad sequels ever made.
It was obviously made under extreme time constraints, as well as by a different team due to EA meddling.
It is a blatantly unfinished game that had good ideas that didn’t get enough time in the oven.
Defaced@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Age_II lots of good information in the wiki page, of which none of your claims are accurate except for maybe the polarizing views on reused assets but that’s literally by design, not crunch. It sold more than origins and sold over a million copies in two weeks, that’s pretty damn good. Nice rage baiting though.