(bright tones) - [Falcon] The Mid-budget game. For a while, it seemed like
these things were extinct. Boy, we're starting off like
a nature documentary today. The mid-budget game. For a while, it seemed like
they were going extinct. No, but for a while, it seemed like they had just the huge budget AAA games or no budget indies and that was it. The AA game was a staple
of previous gaming eras, but we're starting to see a lot of change in the industry fast. Hi, folks, it's Falcon,
and today on Gameranx, 10 AA games that aren't
like any other games. Starting off with number 10, it's "Remnant: From
the Ashes" one and two. Speaking of Souls likes, the "Remnant" games can
easily be pigeonholed into Souls with guns, but that doesn't quite accurately describe just
how unusual these games are. Yes, it's a good way to
get people in the door, and the basic combat
probably could be described as Souls-like, you got a combat role, rechargeable healing items, but there's a lot more
going on in these games, like the environments,
they're randomly generated, which is already unusual
for a third person shooter, especially 'cause these
are not rogue likes. They're not live service games either. They can be played offline, even though there is a
major online component. You can team up with
multiple people if you want, but the raw meat of
them lies in the secrets and the side quests that randomly appear. Entire stories, bosses, and
areas might not appear for you the first run through an area. The second game really pushes
hard in this direction. One player's experience in an area may be wildly different from others. I'm talking about completely
different starting points, different dungeons, objectives, bosses, and then there's secrets,
which the game is full of them, and they're usually a lot more elaborate than your standard Souls
game, like secret doors. There's hidden puzzles to solve or extremely cryptic clues
to follow that'll lead you to something that feels kind
of like an ARG at times. They're just really unusual games that really work despite
all the experimentation. (gunshots) (characters grunting) At number nine is "Call
of Juarez: Gunslinger." Sometimes AA studios try to go big and it fails spectacularly,
like when Techland tried to step it up to the big leagues with "Call of Juarez: The cartel." To call that game a bomb would
be a huge understatement, but the devs managed to bounce back with this AA game
masquerading as an indie. After how dower and dull "The Cartel" was, it would be easy to assume
that all the spark was gone from the studio, but
"Gunslinger" proves otherwise. It's a first person
shooter with a novel twist that it's all presented as a tall tale being told at it's saloon. This allows the game to have
some fun with the setting by throwing a bunch of
enemies at your character, including some over the top set pieces that the guy goes back on later. Or funny little asides where
you start off somewhere, the guy realizes he's
getting something wrong and then it transforms in
the game, it's really clever, the storytelling device, and
the storytelling flourishes as well as the visual flourishes really give the game a bunch of life. And that doesn't mean it's
just your standard FPS game. There's still innovations beyond that, like the sense of death mode
where if you're about to die and you've got this meter filled up, the game gives you a chance to dodge left or right to avoid getting shot. The duals are a highlight too. These Western standoffs are
still my favorite version of this classic Western trope. It's just complex enough
to keep things interesting and it's very tense, and
unlike "Red Dead Redemption," it happens often enough that I don't forget the
controls when it happens. AA games can be a lot of things. Sometimes they're indies trying to go big, sometimes they're big
developers slumming it and just having fun, and that's what "Call of
Juarez: Gunslinger" is. (gunshots) (gunshots) And number eight is "Chorus," which may be a perfect
example of a AA game. It's the kind of game that's
only possible in that space. It's so ambitious, too ambitious and visually impressive to be an indie, but it's scope limited enough
that it's not on the level of full blown AAA experience. It's one of those games that
immediately makes sense, but the genre's pretty hard to nail down. It's an arcade space shooter
that's also an open world RPG, and there's just nothing
quite like it out there. Instead of zones, you explore
different sectors of space, fighting bandits, doing
side quests for locals, and upgrading equipment. It's all stuff that'd be
perfectly normal in a fantasy RPG, except it's set in space and has a very weird story
about some religious cult trying to take over the universe. It's a game that's very self-serious and it can maybe be a
turnoff based on that, but the actual gameplay is very fun and surprisingly varied for what it is. You'd think the space battles
would get samey after a while, but they do try to mix things up with these varied quest
objectives and new enemies, and there's even dungeons in a space game. It's very weird, but it really works. (tense music) (ship firing lasers) And number seven is "Solar Ash," the original hyperlight drifter
was one of the bannermen from the Indie renaissance. It's practically the
prototypical indie game. It hits all the cliches,
the pixel graphics, its very stylized challenging,
gameplay, opaque story. It had it all and it
delivered on all that stuff. It took five years for them
to develop a follow-up, but it's a big step up. It definitely keeps the weird story and stylized visuals stuff,
but instead of pixel art, Solar Ash" goes for a fully 3D adventure set in massive open environments. If you take the gameplay
of "Jet Set Radio" and "Legend of Zelda" and throw in a little
"Shadow of the Colossus" here and there, then you're
starting to approach what this game is like. It's sort of an exploration
game, sort of a platformer, sort of a roller skating game. It's all over the place,
but it really is good. It's very satisfying to
control, very intuitive. It's one of those games that
takes a ton of familiar ideas, throws 'em into a blender, and they come out the other
side as a weirdly coherent thing that you don't recognize as
those pieces put together, but rather a whole. (tense music) And number six is "Aliens: Dark Descent." Another staple of the
AA is the licensed game. When licensed games started to disappear, so did the AA, and
that's not a coincidence, but in the past few years, the movie game has come back in a big way, both for better and for worse. At the worse end, you get
"Skull Island: Rise of Kong" or "Lord of the Rings Gollum," but they've been some pretty
massive bangers lately, like "Robocop: Rogue City,"
which is highly derivative, but a ton of fun. Usually these types of games are like that and they stick to what works, but "Aliens: Dark Descent" is a weird one that some people like,
others are more cold on, but everyone admits it's unique. Instead of being an FPS
or a third person game, it's a tactical squad based strategy game, and the closest analog I
can compare it to is "XCOM," but "XCOM" it's not. The basic format is there
where you have a central base, you research upgrades, expand
facilities, train soldiers who you send out on missions, but the way it plays
out is very different. The environments are
not randomly generated, they're predefined and massive, so going through each one
can take a very long time. While you're completing
objectives and looting resources, aliens constantly hunt you and as they become more
aware of your presence, they get more and more aggressive. So each mission is a race against time, trying to do what you can before
your soldiers get too weak or start having mental breakdowns where you lose control over them. It's hard to describe what makes
this one feel so different, but take it for me, I've
played a lot of tactical games and this one is very
different from most of them. - [Character] They're heading our way. - [Character] Eat that. - [Character] Bring 'em down. (gunshots) It broke. - [Character] Come on, team. - [Falcon] And number five is "Biomutant." Now, unique doesn't always
equal incredible or anything, which is unfortunately
the case for "Biomutant." This is a game I wanna
like, 'cause it's so strange and ambitious, but it's
just not that good. It did try, you play as
this furry, little critter in a strange post-apocalyptic open world. There's combat, looting, and
points of interest finding, but how it all works is very unusual compared to your standard open worlds. Starting from the
character creation screen, you know it's gonna be a weird one and it never really stops being odd. I mean, literally to the
point of head scratching a lot of the time. The story is basically
nonsense in presentation. There's this weird faction system. I still don't really
understand. I don't know. Probably the only standard
thing about the game is the combat system, and even then, it has this unusual combo
system slapped onto it. It's one of those rare games
that got a wide release and in theory looks like it could be an accessible open world game, but it's just so relentlessly
strange in every way. Most of the games on
this list managed to work despite being as weird as they are, but this one unfortunately doesn't really. And number four is a "Jusant," I think. I may be saying it wrong. I actually don't know French at all, so don't think that, you
know, I'm the arbiter of how to say that word, but
"Life is Strange" developer Dontnod could have easily
stuck with the golden goose, but instead they've moved on to create one of the most eclectic game
libraries from any developer. Their newest, "Jusant," (Falcon pretending to speak French) is also easily their most unique. Clearly inspired by games like "Aiko," this game has the stark art style and mysterious environments you'd expect from something inspired by that. But the actual gameplay is very different. It's a climbing game, like that's primarily what you're doing. The way it works is fantastic too. Instead of just clinging to a wall, you actually manually control the climb. Each handhold has to be
gripped onto individually, so you actually have to think
about where you're going and what you're doing,
and it's not automated like in most games. There's a stamina meter as
well, and to keep from falling, there are pinions you
can strike onto the rock and take a rest or create
new directions to go. It's an extremely elegant system
that's never too punishing. It keeps you on your
toes without disrupting the quiet, mysterious vibes. (tense music) And number three is
"Sifu," is a unique blend of martial arts combat
and this aging mechanic that I've never seen anywhere else. It was developed by a
company called Slow Clap, and every single time
you die in this game, you're resurrected, but you also age. And it's not just cosmetic,
it changes the gameplay. You become stronger, but it
becomes easier to kill you. I mean, it's a really unique system, and the combat, it's
really fluid and smart. You can master a bunch of
moves, combos, counters, et cetera, and it's much more than a typical beat 'em up experience, but it's really that
layer of the age mechanic on top of that. I mean, this is a real
testament to the potential of AA games, in my opinion. "Sifu" is great. And number two is "Lost in Random." Published under the EA originals program, this bizarre adventure action card hybrid, it's kind of hard to pin down. At first glance, you
probably think it's something like "Psychonauts," but
you would be way off. The closest I can think
of is "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories," or
maybe like "Phantom Dust." The meat of the game plays in the combat, where you roll a die, it tells you how many points you can
spend, which is used on cards that do things like give you
weapons or weaken the enemy. It's a bizarre combat
system that takes some time to get used to, let's say. (characters yelling and grunting) And even when you do understand it, it's still a little mind boggling. Like dice rolls play into
everything in this game, from buying things in
stores to getting through these longer board game
style combat segments. It a very odd game that
somehow is also longer and more story heavy than you'd assume. (dramatic music) And finally, at number one is
"Divinity: Dragon Commander." I've seen some people try to characterize "Baldur's Gate 3" as
AA, but I don't see it. Yeah, Larian wasn't the
biggest on the block before the game came out to rave reviews, but it was still a game that cost well over a hundred
million dollars to make, and it's filled with celebrity voiceovers and the graphics are extremely
polished and high quality. To me, the defining feature of a AA game is it having a mid-budget, and a hundred million isn't mid-budget. All of Larian's previous games,
however, I'd say fair game. Easily the weirdest of
their quasi-indie phase was "Dragon Commander,"
this mind-boggling hybrid of an RTS and war game and a choose your own adventure. The basic gameplay is you cruised around in this big airship, settle disputes between
your various advisors, and make decisions that affect
the outcome of the story, get into a romance with,
among other things, a literal skeleton, and
then fight RTS battles where you can directly intervene
in the action as a dragon. It's one of the weirdest
games I've ever seen, and that's saying something, but all these random elements
do somehow come together and make sense. You may not like the
game for other reasons, like the RTS stuff
isn't the most balanced, but it's so weird, I can't
help but respect this one. (cannons firing) - [Character] Okay, who took an arrow? (cannons firing) - [Falcon] Couple of bonus games for you, first is "Geist," the bonus
section great opportunity for some older games. "Geist" came out on GameCube,
it was published by Nintendo, but probably isn't as well remembered as other Nintendo-backed
AAs for the system, like say "Eternal Darkness." What's weird is it starts
off as a pretty standard FPS, but it's a ghost game. To progress through the story, you gotta possess hapless victims and solve little puzzles to progress, and it's a pretty legitimate, unique twist on the "Half-life" FPS formula. Finally is "Stubbs the Zombie
in Rebel Without a Pulse," another failed game by former
Halo developers on this list, "Stubbs" is a game where
you play as a zombie. You're slow, but if you can
get at those juicy brains, then you've added another
member to the zombie hoard. It's a game more about causing chaos than coming up with a strategy, and that makes the combat
feel really unique. Everything else about the
game is very weird too. It's set in the '50s sci-fi utopia filled with goofy humor and gags. It's just all around strange and became a cult classic
for a good reason. It is kind of janky and awkward to play, but if you can get past that,
it's one of the most unusual and interesting action games out there. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let
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