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Your favorite budget/"b-grade" games?

so looking through the games listed here I may not have a good sense of "B grade" or "Budget" but I picked up Dark Sector for $10 at BB and was a lot better than I thought it would be. but the best "Budget" game of all...

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I'm gonna go for SOS: The Final Escape (aka Disaster Report/whateverit'scalledinJapan).

It's a low budget game with ugly graphics, ropey controls, stiff animation and hideous voice acting, but the concept was just great. In a bizarre way, the stripped-down presentation actually made the atmosphere a little more realistic/convincing. The sequel was a big improvement anyway, but I'd love a more serious, big budget natural disaster survival horror game along the same lines...
 
recently:

Infinite Undiscovery (360) - graphics are completely last gen but the story and characters were great. it really surprised me how much i liked this game. very satisfying ending too.
 
JessicaPadkin said:
I'm gonna go for SOS: The Final Escape (aka Disaster Report/whateverit'scalledinJapan).

It's a low budget game with ugly graphics, ropey controls, stiff animation and hideous voice acting, but the concept was just great. In a bizarre way, the stripped-down presentation actually made the atmosphere a little more realistic/convincing. The sequel was a big improvement anyway, but I'd love a more serious, big budget natural disaster survival horror game along the same lines...

Was waiting for someone to mention this. Excellent game.
 
LiK said:
recently:

Infinite Undiscovery (360) - graphics are completely last gen but the story and characters were great. it really surprised me how much i liked this game. very satisfying ending too.
I got it for like 10 bucks during a Best Buy deal, and I feel still as though I was ripped off...I was highly dissappointed to say the least.
 
...would WET count? Kinda going with the guy who posted HotD, since its really more going for the vibe than anything else.

As for actual games that fall under that categorization... I can't think of anything outside of a slew of PSN titles that I suppose you could call "budget."
 
Man I basically play B-listed games... I think I've played and liked about 75% of the first page :D Bullet Witch, EDF 2017, Onechanbara, Project Sylpheed... X-Blades, some of these I enjoyed more than high-budget games.
 
HiResDes said:
:lol wow sympathy instead of backlash, thats nice for a change.

yea, i know why you would be disappointed with it. i guess there's something about the characters that really grew on me. it felt like an old school RPG that i played when i was a kid so it felt nolstalgic to me for some reason. no backlash here. ;)
 
Not sure about favourites, but a couple that came to mind when I heard "B-grade":

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Prince of Qin: Kinda like an Infinity Engine RPG, IIRC. It got translated/ localized from its Eastern origin, and released in the West (I don't recall paying much for it)... It has a Chinese fantasy setting, and felt like a "B-movie" (in a good way) from the 70s, a la Monkey Magic!

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Dungeon Lords: Kinda like a combat-focused Morrowind. It was buggy as sin when released, and after several patches got a final patched version (IIRC, 1.5) re-released as a Collectors Edition. I don't recall paying much for the CE.

I don't really like single player RPGs and their combat, but this game had combos that you could 'link' and 'time' (3rd person mouselook), with multiple enemies surrounding you, that made it a bit more than just a click-fest, and more satisfying... Once you got a 'feel' for a weapon, its range and timing combos with 'WASD' and mouseclicks, dispatching multiple enemies felt satisfying...

EDIT: Prince of Qin.
 
JessicaPadkin said:
I'm gonna go for SOS: The Final Escape (aka Disaster Report/whateverit'scalledinJapan).

It's a low budget game with ugly graphics, ropey controls, stiff animation and hideous voice acting, but the concept was just great. In a bizarre way, the stripped-down presentation actually made the atmosphere a little more realistic/convincing. The sequel was a big improvement anyway, but I'd love a more serious, big budget natural disaster survival horror game along the same lines...

Forgot about this one too! More people need to play the 3rd one on PSP, I thought it was great :)
 
Ballistictiger said:
Does megaman legend 1 and 2 count? Both are B-grade games.

No they are not.

Dark Octave said:
I have no idea. I didn't discover that gem until it was already in the bargain bin. It does seem like one of those low budget quirky Japanese titles though. The production values are both high and low with Sky Gunner.

I think the production values are fairly high throughout most of it. If it's a budget title, it's one of the best I've ever played. It's such a shame how little love it gets.

JessicaPadkin said:
I'm gonna go for SOS: The Final Escape (aka Disaster Report/whateverit'scalledinJapan).

It's a low budget game with ugly graphics, ropey controls, stiff animation and hideous voice acting, but the concept was just great. In a bizarre way, the stripped-down presentation actually made the atmosphere a little more realistic/convincing. The sequel was a big improvement anyway, but I'd love a more serious, big budget natural disaster survival horror game along the same lines...

Oh yeah, that reminds me: Raw Danger (the sequel) is one of the best budget games on the PS2. What a great game. It puts a lot of big-budget games to shame with its variety. I really want to play the third one on PSP.
 
USD said:
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The Red Star.

A beat em up/shoot em up fusion of awesomeness. It took so long for this game to come out, that when it did, never got the love it deserved.

I remember at the time of release, I found out that it was running at 50Hz (in PAL-land), and late in the PS2s lifetime, I felt there was no excuse for this bullshit (especially for an action game); so kinda left it on the shelf, (well that's my excuse anyway)...
 
RomanticHeroX said:
Operation Darkness. I'm 100% convinced the people who trash it don't understand how it works.
I'll be the first to admit that I couldn't get how that game works, and the werewolf transformations just seemed so random and out of place...Almost like it was added in at the last second with little to no thought.
 
JustAnotherOtaku said:
Forgot to add this to my list:

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Ordered this as one of the launch games with my Japanese Wii and I LOVED it :D

Oh, I forgot about this game. I picked it up for $20 and only ever played it once for about 30min. I do plan to go back and beat it someday. The dithering was absolutely horrible I remember.
 
I adore Raw Danger. I have recommended that game to all of my close gaming friends because I think it is legitimately awesome
 
Chaser (PC) : Cliché, generic, so-so graphics, but the gunplay and headshot-crazy gameplay got me. It helped that the game was 10$.

Land Of The Dead (PC) : Horrible, but fun. I beat the game by using the motherfuckin' Fireaxe! :lol
 
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$20 at launch, I got it for $15. From a "nobody" dev team.

Still so awesome, best cooking game in the history of cooking games.

This guy sucks and has only adequate time management, but you'll get the idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LsvMSAJy00
Ideally you want to finish all the dishes as close together as possible. And not dump everything on the sous chefs unless they can do said thing perfectly.
 
I know they were not budget priced at launch, but they got price drops fairly quick.

The Club
Chromehounds
Culdcept Saga

All three of those are really good games that probably got overlooked by the masses.
 
Foliorum Viridum said:
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I consider these all to be "B-grade" and underappreciated games, at least.

I bought and beat these two games just this month, good stuff. Second Sight has some nice atmosphere, loved the asylum.

What other good bargain games did I buy recently... Shadow of Rome, I guess. I'd like it more if some of the arena battles weren't so annoying, but it's definitely entertaining.
 
Not sure if it was really a budget hit, but I've never seen ANYONE say anything about it... Game was awesome though, played it a lot as a kid.
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I'm a sucker for practically anything LotR related, and while the two EA LotR movie tie-in games did well critically (which is something I think a lot of people forget) The Third Age was pretty average, but I enjoyed the hell out of it :D And file me under the "Cold Winter" category.
 
N64
Clayfighter 63 1/3

PSX
Beast Wars Transmetals

PS2
Darkwatch
Gungrave
Gungrave OverDose
Stretch Panic
Enter The Matrix
Mortal Kombat series (Deadly Alliance, Shaolin Monks, etc.)
Dead or Alive series (Bit of a stretch maybe, but well below the bar of series like Virtua Fighter and Tekken.)
Dragonball Z Budokai series

Xbox
Otogi: Myth of Demons
Otogi 2
Phantom Dust
 
They're certainly not B grade, but when they were first released they were certainly budget priced:

Katamari Damacy
Gradius V

Both of them came out the same day and both were C$19.99. I remember leaving EB Games that day feeling like I had scored a secret treasure.
 
Terrible voice acting, bad frame issues, but an awesome concept. With natural disaster movies as popular as they are(Twister, Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon), I'm really surprised no one has gone after this genre in a game.

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Again, shit story, shit voice acting, but really fun gameplay. Wasted A LOT of time on this game.

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Not really sure why this one never caught on. Good production values, graphic and brutal gameplay. Stealth sections sucked, but the battles were effing amazing.
 
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