One of the most chaotic games ever unleashed by a AAA studio is currently slashed to a bargain price on Steam. Great, right? Not so fast! Players are facing game-breaking bugs that overshadow the experience.

When Activision dropped Prototype 2 in 2012, the big-budget gaming world was mired in predictability. You could have any game you wanted, as long as it featured a tough, bald protagonist with an insatiable hunger for havoc. Think Hitman, Spec Ops, Max Payne — even the cover of Call of Duty showcased a shadowy bald figure wielding a weapon. Beloved titles like Mass Effect 2 weren’t immune to this trend, either.

Prototype 2 stands out, though. With 20/20 hindsight, it’s tough to say whether it was a peak of this cliché or a cheeky send-up of it. I’d wager it’s a bit of both.

You step into the shoes of former U.S. Marine Sergeant James Heller, whose main mission? To eliminate the hero of the original Prototype. Armed with outrageous mutant powers, Heller can scale skyscrapers, leap across city blocks, and glide through streets — think Marvel’s Spider-Man but with a grotesque twist.

Unlike Spider-Man, Heller boasts a gruesome arsenal of supervillain abilities. He can devour foes in a single bite and then morph into them! His forearms transform into monstrous claws—ones that could even make Wolverine back off. A simple punch has enough force to send a civilian flying; each enemy you obliterate could fill a swimming pool with blood.

Unfortunately, Prototype 2 embodies its time, and the PC port proves this dreadfully. When it launched months after the console version, it was a complete mess. Most reviews glossed over these issues because just having a console game available on PC was seen as a luxury, with publishers too scared of piracy to invest properly in the platform. Fast forward to today, and the gaming landscape has flipped, with PC rapidly gaining ground.

Now, meld those 2012 issues with modern-day challenges: the industry’s dismissive attitude towards video game preservation, especially for franchises that don’t promise massive returns. This results in Prototype 2 being available on Steam yet plagued by launch failures, with many players having to rely on outdated YouTube guides and forum threads to troubleshoot.

Despite its shortcomings, I wholeheartedly recommend giving Prototype 2 a shot! Just consider dusting off that old Xbox 360 and finding a disc—ah, the nostalgia of physical copies!