If at least one cult classic belongs on this list, it's the Xbox-exclusive Breakdown, a one-and-done science-fiction adventure best known for that part where you eat and then vomit up a hamburger without leaving the first-person view. Steel Battalion cost $200 at the time it came out, while the Xbox itself was $300. If that wasn't enough for you, it was also such a sim that if you failed to hit the eject button on the giant controller prior to having your VT destroyed in the campaign, you'd lose your save game and be forced to start all over again. It was a first-person mech sim – the mechs were called vertical tanks, or "VTs" here – and the hook was that it was such a simulation that it came with its own proprietary 40-button controller and three-pedal foot box. The Xbox-exclusive Steel Battalion would never be made today. Is it as good as Itagaki's classic? No, but it remains one of the best games – exclusive or otherwise – to ever grace the Xbox. It was beautiful, polished, precise, smart, and action-packed, and it did so half a year before Ninja Gaiden came out. Long before From Software made it big as the developers of Dark Souls, the talented team made the Xbox-exclusive ninja action game Otogi: Myth of Demons (and later a sequel called Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors). Which is what you might be able to expect from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in 2024. The ability to rewind time was revolutionary in that moment of gaming history, and Prince of Persia expertly recaptured the spirit of the original game while beautifully reimagining it for the modern era. He wouldn't take much damage before succumbing to his wounds, and so you needed to rely on your wits instead. Still, that combat was really wonderfully handled, as the Prince was no bulletproof superhero. Platforming and puzzles are the backbone of Sands of Time, with combat serving only as a last resort. Like Ninja Gaiden, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time took an early gaming classic and reinvented it in a near-perfect way for Xbox. It's poetic that Microsoft ended up purchasing Double Fine and publishing Psychonauts 2 over a decade-and-a-half later. There were strange and beautiful brains to explore in this telekenetic platformer, and lead character Raz quickly stole every player's heart. It did end up releasing as an Xbox exclusive under Majesco, and it was worth the wait. It was originally scheduled to be an Xbox exclusive published by Microsoft in the early years of the console before the business of video games got in the way. It was the first game from Double Fine, the studio that LucasArts legend Tim Schafer started after going out on his own. Psychonauts went on quite a journey before it was released in 2005, near the end of the original Xbox era. Burnout 3 is just as much fun today as it was in 2004, despite its now-aged graphics. Road Rage mode – in which the goal was to cause as many of your opponents to crash as possible – was a sadistic sport, while Hot Laps challenged you to complete perfect runs at 200mph with almost no margin for error. Instead, it was a pillar of the entire game. The star of the show, of course, was Burnout's Crash mode, and Burnout 3: Takedown is where developer Criterion realized it was more than just an afterthought. That subversion made it unlike any other driving game that's been made before or since. It is a near-timeless racing game that's more about smashing the other cars than it is about avoiding and zooming past them. Burnout 3: Takedownīurnout 3 had no unique connection to Xbox in any way, but that's OK because it was simply sublime and belongs on this list. MVP Baseball 2005 will never be forgotten. And it did all that with gorgeous (at the time) graphics and stunning, lifelike animations. But back on Xbox, it got everything right: hitting, pitching, fielding, and baserunning. In fact, long after EA abandoned it, the mod community kept MVP 2005's rosters updated on PC, and dedicated fans continued to play it for many years. To put that in perspective, those fans had been waiting since.2005, when MVP Baseball's last MLB-licensed edition proved to be one of the greatest sports games ever. MLB The Show 21 finally gave Xbox fans what they'd been waiting years for: a great simulation baseball game. If PSO got its hooks into you, they went in deep, and the result was one of the most memorable original Xbox games ever made.24. It also proved to be a harbinger of things to come with its $10 per month always-online price tag, but in return you got an absolutely incredible connected world that allowed you to make friends and slay monsters together, with your MAGs looking over your shoulders. A Dreamcast favorite, Phantasy Star Online was a riveting action-RPG.
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