The 20 Best Xbox Games You Never Bought

Deus Ex: Invisible War
Developer: ION Storm • Publisher: Eidos
OXM Rating: 9.1, Holiday 2003
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 195,200

What It Was: The sci-fi sequel to one of the PC’s best games ever. It refused to be pigeonholed into any one genre, featuring brilliant roleplaying that let you mix action, stealth, and adventure as you liked.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: Its visual tricks couldn’t mask a game that was rough around its technical edges (read: awful framerate). It needed more development time, and Eidos pushing it out in December — after everyone had done their holiday shopping — didn’t help.
Why It Still Rocks: Massive replay value thanks to its flexible character development, a whopping four endings (!), and a unique gameplay blend that was never again achieved on Xbox.
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II
Developer: Sega • Publisher: Microsoft
OXM Rating: 8.9, July 2003
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 89,000

What It Was: Essentially, Diablo in space. Crawl through space dungeons, kill things, level up, and buy cooler items. Repeat with three friends online for 100 hours.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: Well, it did say “Xbox Live required to play” on the box, even though that wasn’t exactly true. Plus, as you’ll see throughout this list, Sega’s in-house products tended to have an inverse relationship between quality and sales (i.e., the better they were, the fewer copies they sold).
Why It Still Rocks: What part of “Diablo in space” didn’t just make you run out to the store?
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

Beyond Good & Evil
Developer: Ubisoft • Publisher: Ubisoft OXM
Rating: 9.0, Holiday 2003
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 60,700

What It Was: Ubisoft does Disney-style character-driven adventure gaming. It’s polished to the umpteenth degree, wonderfully executed, and boasts a level of style and vision that can be attributed only to Michel Ancel’s hand in its creation.
Why You Didn’t Buy It: Is there room in an Xbox owner’s heart for an adventure starring a spunky girl and her pig uncle in a tale told through boat races, Aikido-style stick-fighting, and even a little stealth? Apparently not.
Why It Still Rocks: Its living, breathing world is packed with fantastical bits and bobs — and nary a space marine in sight. Incredibly unique.
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: No

Breakdown
Developer: Namco • Publisher: Namco
OXM Rating: 8.5, April 2004
Copies Sold (as of Feb 2006): 68,700

What It Was: A first-person sci-fi rollercoaster. As Derrick Cole, you had a bad case of amnesia and a funky bout of OhS***MyArmIsGlowing-itis. Who are you? What’s with the arm? And who’s this chick who appears out of thin air at her leisure?
Why You Didn’t Buy It: Horrific box art and print ads told people nothing about the game, and it shipped at the same time as Ninja Gaiden and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Now we’ll never get the sequel that the game’s dual endings so wonderfully set up.
Why It Still Rocks: Skin-melting hallucinations, countless plot twists and turns, an unapologetic adhesion to the first-person perspective at all times, and the fact that it made you feel more like a superhero than any licensed game ever did all combine to form underappreciated genius.
Backward-Compatible With Xbox 360?: Yes

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