The question of what is a AAA, AA, and A game has been a common topic among the users here on n4g, and the answer "You just know" doesn't work for most people. So let's dive into exactly what a AAA, AA, A, and those horrible ? games are.
A Triple A game (AAA) are games that we're developed with a significantly large budget. The game generally reviews well, since the developers put a lot of emphasis in Gameplay, Presentation, Story, Graphics, and / or Online. Acceptable Audio, Pacing, Set pieces and Thrills must be available as well. That is the foundation of a Triple A game, while this next part is highly subjective among gamers. The games generally goes on to review well scoring 8+/10 and averaging a score of 88+/100 on metacritic. The game generally receive large to massive amounts of hype and gaming websites, and goes on to sale 1+ million copies.
Examples IMO:
AAA+ (95+) GTA, Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2, Mario, Zelda, Skyrim
AAA (91 - 94) Halo, Gears, Little Big Planet, Batman, GT, Forza, God of War, Assassin's Creed
AAA- (88 - 90) Dead Space, New Super Mario Bros., COD, Super Smash Bros., Killzone, Battlefield
A Double A game (AA) is a game that fail to reach the milestone previously set by AAA games. They generally have a lower budget than AAA games. They try to achieve the same level of game design as AAA games, but generally fall short in one or more areas such as Gameplay, Story, Graphics, Pacing, and underwhelming Set Pieces. The game goes on to score an average of (75 - 87) / 100 on metacritic and hovers just above those games that fall into dreaded "Yellow Ranking". The highest rated AA games are comparable to the lowest ranking AAA. These games are generally clones of AAA franchises that just don't reach the potential set by it's predecessor, some are practically multiplayer only, and some are just in an over saturated genre. However, some of them are truly great games, just missing that special something. They generally go on to sale 1+ million copies as well.
Examples IMO:
AA+ (85 - 87) Borderlands, Crysis, Alan Wake, Bayonetta, inFamous, Left 4 Dead, Resistance,
AA (80 - 85) Darksiders, Good Sports games, Clones of AAA games,
AA- (75 - 80) Prototype, 2nd tier Sports games, Old franchises that didn't transition well
The A/B games are those poor games that had a great idea, but the development team just couldn't make everything work seamlessly together. These are the games the land in the dreaded "Yellow Ranking" (74 and less), and while they can be good, they just don't get it. They need cultivating, and a group of leads to whip them into shape, so they can start producing AAA and AA games. Unfortunately these are the guys who are going to go under next generation.
Examples IMO:
A games (good idea, just not realized) Most RPG's / JRPG's this gen, Most Launch titles
B games (nothing special, sloppy coding) "Slaughterhouse"
The ? games (C, D, F) are those awful games that developers try to sucker you in with licensed names, or really cheap prices. These games need to go under, and a record should be filed on them so they don't move their trash to PSN / XBL / Wii Ware etc.
? games (59 >) The average movie game tie in, games sold 3 in a pack that aren't an HD collection, or bundle of an established video game franchise you know and love.
The friendly folks over at Razer recently sent us their full size Kishi Ultra mobile gaming controller, and this thing didn't disappoint.
VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Upon finally finishing Devil May Cry 5 recently - after it spent several years on my “I’ll play that soon” list - I considered giving it a fittingly-named Late Look article. However, considering that this was indeed the final piece I was missing in the DMC puzzle, I decided to instead take this opportunity to take a look back at the entirety of this genre-defining series and rank the entries. What also made this a particularly tempting notion was that while most high-profile series have developed fairly evenly over time, with a few bumps on the road, the history of Devil May Cry has, at least in my eyes, been an absolute roller coaster, with everything from total disasters to action game gold."
3,1,4,5 to me, never played 2. 5 gameplay is amazing but level design was really disappointing to me, just a bunch of plain arenas, the story felt like a worse written rehash of the 3rd and the charater models looked weird ( specially the ladies ). Another problem with 5 was that there was not enough content for 3 charaters so I could never really familiarize with any of them
2.
Dmc.
4.
5.
1.
3.
God DMC2 was an awful game.
And in case this isn't obvious it goes worst to best
TSA go hands on with the beta for Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, but how is the game transitioning to the post-stylus era?
I've never used the term A, AA, or B game. I've only used AAA and didn't even know those other terms existed.
AAA=good.
Anything else=crap.
That's how gamers define it anyway.
I prefer type O games.
I usually call them A-list, B-list, C-list, etcetera. And I define them in terms overall brand recognition (sales, appeal, impact/influence, acclaim).
A-list:
Super Mario
The Legend Of Zelda
Grand Theft Auto
Halo
Resident Evil
Gears Of War
Uncharted
Call Of Duty
Final Fantasy
Elder Scrolls
Assassin's Creed
Donkey Kong
Metal Gear Solid
B-list:
Saint's Row
Devil May Cry
Metroid
Sonic (used to be A-list)
Tomb Raider (see Sonic)
Killzone
Ninja Gaiden
Kirby
Left 4 Dead
Fable
Resistance
Ratchet & Clank
C-list:
inFamous
Tales Of _____
No More Heroes
Prototype
Agree with the definitions, except I don't think metascores has that much to do with it. CoD is more of an AAA game than LBP, because it has sold a lot better. Sales count more than review scores.
Personally, I love LBP and am not that big a fan of CoD, but Cod does sell, I'll give it that.