We also had a surprise hit with FarCry: Instincts, which turned out to be one of the most clever and graphically impressive games to ever come out on the Xbox. It's no surprise that FarCry: Instincts Predator is scheduled to be released on the Xbox 360.
We also had the release of Star Wars: Republic Commando, which was also a surprise hit because no-one expected a Star Wars game to be this good. The Single-Player was the best thing about it and we saw easy-to-use squad tactics which were verging on revolutionary.
The release of Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (what is with that LONG title?!) was no surprise success to anyone, and it offered a superb cinematic experience that we don't see in many First-Person games.
The release of Ninja Gaiden: Black was definitely a highlight for Xbox owners in 2005. We saw one of the best games of 2004 getting a 'make over' that was packed with hidden content and extras. It was a 'must buy' for almost every Xbox owner!
Another 2004 hit was given a bit of a 'make over', when Fable: The Lost Chapters was released in late 2005. It was a bit of an improvement on what we had seen in the original version and we did get to play beyond the original story. For Fable fans, this was an instant purchase, but for people who were slightly disappointed by the original release of the game, the extra content didn't seem that tempting...
There was the finale in the Prince of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy with Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, which made quite impact upon its release at the end of the year offering the same brilliant gameplay that we had grown to love from the previous installments.
This is just a taster of the superb array of games which were released last year. 2005 was a great year for Xbox games and I'm sure 2006 will be too with games like Black, Gears of War, Oblivion and Prey on the way.