Image via Complex Original
It's a no-brainer that bigger budgets does not equal better quality.
This has especially been the case in the last five years, given the rise of the indie gaming market and its share of critically acclaimed titles from Braid to Bastion. There are large productions that end up feeling bloated, suffer from sloppy launches, or leave you wondering where all the money went to in the game. The following is a list of the ten best big budget titles, those that made the most of their resources in providing a comprehensive, sensory overloaded experience befitting a $50-$60 price tag and a $10 million-plus budget.
Honorable mentions go to this year's Tomb Raider, for being nearly everything you could ask for in a reboot and Shenmue, a groundbreaking Dreamcast title that showed menial work can be fun, even in the context of a big budget production.
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Grand Theft Auto V
Year: 2013
Cost to make: $265,000,000
Grand Theft Auto's return to the fictionalized vision of Southern California provides the expansive canvas to tell not one, but three playable storylines. The ability to character-swap fully realizes the robbery experience, letting you take ownership of every team member's actions. It's a feature that I hope Rockstar keeps indefinitely. Even with all its heists and gun battles, GTA V's tone is adeptly lighthearted, lampooning urban American culture without veering to full-on comedy. While some of the dialogue paints subtle reflections on the open world genre the series spawned, GTA V never takes itself too seriously, and fittingly so. It not only has some of the best campaign missions in the series, but also satisfies that large audience that comes to GTA for the series' playground appeal. The freedom of exploration and the depth of the chases allow limitless highlight film opportunities at the level of even the best Battlefield user generated videos.
Halo 4
Year: 2012
Cost to make: Unreported but Halo 3 cost around $60 million and when Microsoft's head Phil Spencer was asked in an interview with Polygon about the development bill for Halo 4 in comparison, he quirked, "not even close."
Starting a new trilogy of a bestselling and critically acclaimed franchise is one thing, but it's a whole other matter when the studio who created it hands off the property to another developer. This kind of baton pass makes for an ideal case study of how a game series can be sustained. Of course, both companies and Microsoft had the resources make this a long term process, by involving 343 in many aspects of prior Halo games.
When the time was right for 343 to make a Halo game solo, they were ready. What resulted was something fresh and visually impressive by 2012 standards, but still clearly a Halo game. 343 even moved away from the ring-shaped worlds where the series gets its name from, opting for a planet with a hollow center (what is with the franchise's aversion to regular planets?).
Had there been fewer "go here and activate the switch" objectives, this would rank higher on the list. Aside from its imaginative setting, what pulls you in are the new enemies and weapons, both of which are fundamentally similar to prior foes and firearms, but are stylistically unique enough to help give this new trilogy its proper start.
L.A. Noire
Year: 2011
Cost to make: $26,000,000
Of the many ways you can present an open world game, director Brendan McNamara is at that end of the spectrum where story comes first. First with The Getaway and more recently, L.A. Noire, his games are thankfully short of the same kind of errand boy-style missions that made the likes of Grand Theft Auto III tedious.
The industry has done a fine job in catching up to L.A. Noire's innovations in facial capture. Two years since its release, the game still holds up, starting with its lead character, portrayed by Aaron Staton and supported by the game's supporting cast, many of whom should be recognizable to fans of cable TV dramas. The interrogation/facial-reading feature was its most challenging feature, but I suppose that was the point. 1940's film noir is still an underutilized setting and genre (you can even play the game in black and white) and as far as big budget games are concerned, L.A. Noire set a high standard in Black Dahlia-inspired police procedurals.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Year: 2008
Cost to make: $60,000,000
Metal Gear Solid 4 is a one-of-a-kind beast.
Never has so much money been spent on a game that primarily existed to tie all the loose ends from its prior installments. Kojima Productions did such a great, thorough job in answering questions that there was barely any room for MGS4 to carve its own identity. It's a very special kind of sequel, the kind that can't be appreciated on its own, but presents a series a wholly satisfying resolutions for those who have followed series for over a decade.
Much like Metal Gear Solid 2 before it, Metal Gear Solid 4 also helped usher in the second wave of titles for their respective consoles, the type of fleshed-out games that weren't rushed to make a launch window deadline. The bass-heavy, guitar-string plucking intro theme--something out of a lost Massive Attack album--perfectly set the tone for somber background of Solid Snake walking in a graveyard. MGS4's style outshines its substance, but at least it does so with impressive consistency, all the way to its indie-film inspired final cut to black.
Final Fantasy XII
Year: 2006
Cost to make: $48,000,000
The release of Final Fantasy XII held extra meaning to those who followed the works of Yasumi Matsuno, Hiroshi Minagawa and Hitoshi Sakimoto, who were all involved in the critically acclaimed Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics.
The three games' similarities go well beyond style and art direction; they're also loosely associated by being in the same universe, known as Ivalice. Final Fantasy XII has a combat system made for engineers and obsessive compulsives, the types who thrive on the reliance of tried and true if/then outcomes. By properly using its Gambit System you can direct party members to use a potion if their health goes down to a certain point, direct a character to attack the nearest visible enemy, as well as a multitude of other directives.
If you are specific enough, you can win entire battles without pressing a button. It's an elegant, semi-automated design that, on the surface, feels like hand-holding. On the contrary, it's one of the most empowering Final Fantasies ever. Remember those JRPG battles where you put off curing your party member until it was too late? If you prioritize the heal gambit high enough, the Gambit System will do the rest. The game could have been titled, Final Fantasy: I Was Meaning To Do That.
Trivia: If you came across a specific dungeon monster that spawned other monsters, you can set your Gambits to an auto-farming routine which, if you left your PS2 alone, can result into Level 99 characters in a matter of days.
Bioshock Infinite
Year: 2013
I remember playing Bioshock Infinite's first 3 hours at a preview event, puzzled why a game based in the early 20th century had a barbershop quartet singing a Beach Boys song. When I asked Irrational Games writer Drew Holmes what the deal was, all he said was that "Everything is deliberate."
Instead of feeling understandably perplexed, I was actually left scared of what I would experience with the full game. It's hard to imagine many would've been prepared, let alone anticipated, Bioshock Infinite's revelations. We were treated to a twisted vision of Disneyland-inspired theme attractions, a fresh perspective on companion A.I., and an alternate American history that, however unbelievable, was still one of the most engrossing game settings in recent memory. Its take on quantum physics may not have been completely accurate, but Bioshock Infinite surely piqued the interest of consumers who would otherwise ignore that particular kind of science.
And when was the last time you played a first person shooter where you don't kill anyone during the game's first 30 minutes?
The Last of Us
Year: 2013
Not counting its gut-wrenching prologue, The Last of Us is the longest slow burn in gaming. There certainly are longer adventure games, but none manage to emotionally drain you the way Naughty Dog's latest has. It's also the worst kind of emotion drain, slow and persistent throughout its 15 hour playthrough. It's my favorite game of 2013, but the thought of revisiting this decrepit world feels daunting.
It's a credit to everyone involved who helped make its setting believable, where east coast America is sprinkled with evacuated towns, partially frozen in time. It's set 20 years after the start of a zombie-like infection, and with it being a sad civilization that lives in stalemate with the infected, The Last of Us is a truly depressing piece of work. A.I. companion Ellie brims with nuance and tween charisma, making random noises from being bored; she managed to learn how to whistle as the game progresses. Between her and playable lead Joel, the surrogate father-daughter relationship is obvious, but how it develops is uncommon in video game storytelling, right down to its ambiguous, but perfect ending.
Uncharted 2
Year: 2009
Cost to make: $20,000,000
Remember that Uncharted 2 commercial where the girlfriend thinks the game is a movie? However unrealistic, there is a sliver of truth to it. Uncharted 2 makes one convincing argument why we don't need film adaptions of games (let alone game versions of our movies). Uncharted 2 exudes its Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones influences while being unique enough to earn practically every award in the action-adventure category in 2009.
That includes the technical categories, thanks to sections like the epic train sequence and the tank chase through the village. Its refined script contributed to Uncharted 2's superb cinematic pacing while the gameplay delivered a seamless blend of combat and platforming. Today we have a game like Assassin's Creed IV where the fundamentals of large dynamic set pieces are translated into a fully navigable ship, one that can you can use to attack and board other ships in real time. While Uncharted 2 has hardly aged, playing its literal cliffhanging sequence and the gunship chase today shows how far such animated set pieces have come.
Red Dead Redemption
Year: 2010
Cost to make: Unreported
The Old West is the only setting more fitting for an open world game than the streets of Grand Theft Auto. With the United States relatively settled in the early 20th century, the American frontier era was drawing to a close, and made for an intriguing backdrop for Red Dead Redemption. Transitional periods in history are often more interesting than the eras that came before and after. It involves themes of change, propelled by new technologies and, in the case of the wild Old West, actual civility in society.
This conflict between those bringing about change and those resistant to it is a very old tale, but this theme nonetheless helped make Red Dead Redemption one of the best games of 2010. Complementary to this theme of change is the game's exploration of morality, often conveyed by the actions of protagonist John Marston, who is caught in the crossfire between outlaws and the government. His drive to start over with his family leaves him indifferent to which side is right.
10. Half-Life 2
Year: 2004
Cost to make: $40,000,000
Half-Life 2 is not only an exemplary big budget title, but it also delivers everything that one hopes for in a sequel: better production values, deeper and expanded insight on the world of its protagonist, and retains the previous installment's core gameplay. The gravity gun was also innovative and its influence has been felt in every game where objects in the can be used as lethal projectiles. And compared to the original Half-Life's main setting in an indoor research facility, the sequel's outdoor environments of City 17 were even more engrossing.
While it effectively conveyed the Eastern European look Valve's designers intended, many areas manage to feel otherworldly. The first person shooter genre didn't start out primarily as a storytelling medium but the first Half-Life proved what could be achieved narratively, even without the aid of cutscenes to take the player out of the action. Half-Life 2 greatly improved on this, starting with its trance-like opening, to the endearing introduction of Dog. This narrative approach is all the more impressive when you consider that its protagonist Gordon Freeman never speaks.