The 20 Best Xbox Games You Never Bought

Project: Snowblind
Developer: Crystal Dynamics • Publisher: Eidos
OXM Rating: 8.4, March 2005
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 57,400

What It Was: A thinly veiled multiplayer-centric and action-oriented spin-off of Deus Ex.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: We suspect it was mainly a case of bad timing. When Snowblind shipped in February 2005, it might as well have debuted on November 9, 2004, because that’s the kind of impact Halo 2 had. Everyone was still high on the Halo horse three months later, and Snowblind had the misfortune of being a first-person shooter left in its wake.
Why It Still Rocks: The folks at Crystal Dynamics know how to make a good game, and though Snowblind ’s single-player game was solid if unspectacular, its multiplay was carefully balanced and polished, offering a class-based, vehicle-laden experience that still plays quite well today.
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Developer: Midway • Publisher: Midway
OXM Rating: 8.3, August 2004
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 98,400

What It Was: A physics-happy third-person shooter that let you do bad things to bad people…with your mind.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? If a tree falls in the woods and nobody’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? Point is, we really don’t know. We’ll go out on a limb, though, and say that the overly long and complicated title wasn’t doing the game’s sales any favors.
Why It Still Rocks: How’s this for an innovative co-op mode: One player controls the main character while the other works his telekinetic powers. Talk about two people of the same mind!
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

Armed & Dangerous
Developer: Planet Moon • Publisher: LucasArts
OXM Rating: 9.0, Holiday 2003
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 72,000

What It Was: A goofy third-person shooter with enough personality to win over any gamer.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: Many of the titles on this list came out in the same timeframe — Holiday 2003 — and the results were the same: quality = high, sales = low. Perhaps it was just a case of too many good games crowding store shelves simultaneously, or maybe Armed was too quirky for its own good. We’ll never know.
Why It Still Rocks: It’s one of the three funniest Xbox games ever made (Psychonauts is also on this list and Conker barely missed the cut), plus it’s got a gun that fires a land shark that seeks out foes and swallows them. Pure comedy gold.
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors
Developer: From Software • Publisher: Sega
OXM Rating: 8.9, November 2004
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 30,000

What It Was: An ethereal smash-’em-up with an RPG bent. Otogi 2 piled more characters, more chapters, and more sheer absolute beauty into its lengthy, challenging gameplay experience than its predecessor.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: It seems that no one bought the first Otogi on Xbox, so why bother picking up the sequel? We can only shake our heads in amazement.
Why It Still Rocks: Adrenaline-fueled action sequences that literally shatter every preconception (along with every object in a given area) of what the original Xbox is visually capable of.
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

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