Have you ever played a game that wasn't received especially well with the critics or didn't receive much commercial space, but you enjoyed it nevertheless? Of course you have. Every gamer has such a jewel or two. Or thirty, in some cases. The thing is, a game doesn't have to have perfect gameplay, graphics or story to be enjoyed, but conventional criticism defines the peramaters of success or quality in a different way to gamers. For players, a game can be bad-looking, or not be perfectly executed, without a compromise in how entertaining it is: it only has to have that certain flair to it that makes you want to get back in-game. Every single entry on this list has that oomph to it, in one way or another. Unfortunately, these games haven't received all the publicity they deserve. In some cases, this is due to the fact that they were distractingly buggy when they came out; in others, it's just about bad release timing when the game is dwarfed by latest installments of monolithic franchises. Regardless of that, the game is as good as its latest patch makes it, so absolutely every game on this list deserves some of your time. Now that the dust from big games of that time has settled, we can check out those that have flown under the radar. Of course, everybody likes playing the newest and the most explosive games currently available, but sometimes you just need to take a break from all that spectacle and enjoy some older software this industry has to offer. In the end, quality usually prevails over publicity and we have the honor of playing these things at their best.
