Most of the time, disagreements over which PC game is best stem from personal choices over the genre or content of the game in question. It's rare for games to be delivered in an unplayable state, or be absolutely terrible, as the developer wants to recoup their costs (and keep their reputation). But sometimes, the development cycle goes awry, and not every game can be an instant classic. But in spite of their flaws, some games are worth your time, even when they're terrible. Now, some of the PC games that could be on this list aren't playable anymore, so I stuck to ones you can still pick up because everyone should have a chance to experience their terrible splendor.

12 Homefront

Fight back against the occupying forces, as the United States gets invaded

When it was released in 2011, Homefront had a decent hook: the United States, in decline as a world power, is at war with a reunified Korea that has invaded North America. Before the events of the game, gas prices skyrocket, a bird flu pandemic kills six million Americans, and the financial system collapses. Seems a little on the nose for the last decade or so of real life, but at the time it was fanciful writing. The divisive storyline is good, but the short single-player campaign makes it a terrible value proposition. At least, back then, it was, but you can pick it up for nothing nowadays and enjoy the short-lived alternative timeline.

11 Baten Kaitos

Come away with me to (floating) islands in the sky

A good JRPG lets nothing stand in the way of the story it wants to tell, and Baten Kaitos doesn't even want to acknowledge gravity. The population lives on huge floating islands in the sky, your protagonist has a mechanical wing for some reason, and has to deal with the impending revival of an evil god. Pretty par for the course, but it had one mechanic that didn't make sense at the time, but you'll love it now. Combat is card-based, which anyone who's enjoyed Slay the Spire or Balatro will be right at home with. That's right, years before Gwent was a thing, this plucky JRPG was using decks of cards in battle, and it's worth playing for that singular reason.

10 Sonic Adventure DX

This game should have stayed on the Dreamcast where it still worked

The transition to the 3D era was not kind to everyone's favorite blue hedgehog, and Sonic Adventure DX did him no favors when the Dreamcast classic was ported to other consoles and PC. The free-look camera is inconvenient at best for such a speedy-moving game, the fixed camera angles are almost as bad, and the graphics can be worse than the original in places. But if you can get past the quirks, this bad port turns into a pretty decent game, and it'll occupy your time for a good while.

9 Castle Story

Minecraft meets the RTS, with unpredictable results

Crowdfunding is challenging for any creator, and not every game brings in Star Citizen-level cash. Castle Story is a much more modest endeavor with a simple premise: Build your castle, protect your castle, and break the other castle. The team thought they would have to fight for every development dollar, so they were woefully unprepared for the runaway success, which led to $750,000 in funding. Still, it was released in a fairly buggy state, and got fixed somewhat, but other snafus, like the game's name not being trademarked, added to the mess. It's enjoyable enough in the current state, and it outlived the company that created it.

8 Impossible Creatures

What if, instead of set RTS units, you could bioengineer your own?

The RTS formula is fairly straightforward, with building your base to get better units, using those units to take territory and resources, and building better buildings to repeat until you win. Impossible Creatures tried to change that formula by letting the player bioengineer their own units from over 50 different animal DNA strands to combine. Honestly, it's a neat premise, but the game didn't land the execution, and fell along the wayside. If you like RTS games though, it's worth the asking price to see what could have been with a different mix of ingredients.

7 Deadly Premonition

Some people think this is the best bad game of all time but I'm not so sure

Survival horror can be hit-or-miss, because for every Resident Evil or Silent Hill, you get a surreal experience like Deadly Premonition. It's like a Z-list horror movie, but you get to control the protagonist; well, partly control the protagonist because the aiming is clunky, driving is even worse, and the camera angles make things even harder. But underneath those rough edges, are more rough edges, and then a diamond in the rough. Not many survival horror games will give you an experience like this, and it was good enough to get several remasters, re-releases, and a sequel.

6 The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

Die, a lot, in the furtherance of solving puzzles and finding your missing girlfriend

The Missing is a very weird game, as after an unfortunate adventure with a lightning bolt, J.J. can't physically die. That's just as well, because her girlfriend is missing, and the island they're both on would make the creators of Saw very happy indeed. Solve puzzles with your new undying nature, bounce off sawblades and other dangerous things, and learn that J.J. isn't quite who she says she is through text messages from her time before coming to the island. I won't spoil the twists, other than to say the weirdness on the island all makes sense in the end, for some level of sense at least.

5 Old School RuneScape

It's essentially Cookie Clicker, but you'll love it

While RuneScape has a new lease of life with refreshed graphics as you can see above, there's also a version you can choose from the launcher that hearkens back to the old days of MMORPGs. Old School RuneScape is essentially Cookie Clicker but with a level of storyline attached to it and more text than you'll want to read because it's from the time before fully voice-acted RPG content. That said, it's impressively popular, with hundreds of thousands of players, and mobile apps for iOS and Android if you prefer to do your adventuring on the small screen.

4 EVE Online

This spreadsheet simulator is dressed up as a MMORPG in space

EVE Online is a beautiful space sim on the outside, but to truly dive into the void, you'll want to be handy in the sheets—the spreadsheets, that is. It's got an incredibly vast scale with a full-on corporation vs corporation war in space, with thousands of dedicated players that are milsim'ing their way through the future. It's got tons of lore to learn, some of which has been created in-game by the continual ebb and flow of the playerbase, and thousands of systems and planets to explore and plunder. If the existing players will let you because it's got in-game societies and a sense of galactic economies, that would make Wall Street blush.

3 MGS2

The original PC port was never fully fixed

The PC port of MGS2 never should have been released in its current state and was never fixed by the developers responsible. The port stripped out the skateboarding minigame from the original, controllers never quite worked properly, and it had some egregious graphical glitches that made it unplayable on most graphics cards. This is a shame because anything that Hideo Kojima worked on deserves to be played at least once. GOG did fix most of these issues and re-released it, but thanks to licensing issues, the only version you can get is the broken Steam one. With some mods and tweaks, you can get it running on modern PCs, though, and the effort will pay off.