As the original Xbox prepares to turn 25 years old this November, we thought we'd take a look back at the OG Xbox era and discover which of its games were considered the absolute best of all time.
To do this, we headed over to Metacritic's "Best Games on Xbox" rankings, which combine a bunch of critics' reviews for 796 original Xbox games and then rank them based on the average score they received.
We always expected Halo to be number one, and it's no surprise that GTA gets in the list as well, but it's perhaps a little shocking that the series with the most entries in the top ten is actually Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell!
Here's a look at the 10 highest-rated original Xbox games of all time:
- Halo: Combat Evolved (97)
- Grand Theft Auto: Double Pack (96)
- Halo 2 (95)
- Ninja Gaiden Black (94)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (94)
- Burnout 3: Takedown (94)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (94)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (93)
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (93)
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (93)
If you don't remember what the GTA: Double Pack was, it combined both GTA 3 and Vice City in one edition, hence the extremely high score. San Andreas was otherwise the highest-ranking GTA game, and it technically should have been in the top ten due to racking up an average score of 93 (nevertheless, it sits in eleventh place).
Beyond this, some of the other most notable games that almost squeezed into the top ten included Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (92), Forza Motorsport (92), ESPN NFL 2K5 (92), SSX 3 (92), SoulCalibur 2 (92), Project Gotham Racing 2 (90), Half-Life 2 (90), Jade Empire (89), Max Payne (89) and Psychonauts (88).
A lot of these reviews were obviously submitted back in the original Xbox era, so certain games have aged more gracefully than others over the years. The question is, do you think this top ten list still holds up for the original Xbox, or are there are certain games that have been over or underrated? Let us know in the comments below!