Battlecruiser 3000 A.D

Until John Romero's famously disastrous Daikatana bowed to yawns in 2000, Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. was easily the most notorious game of its time. Derek Smart's space combat and strategy sim remained in development for years (three to ten, depending on whom you ask), becoming the original poster child for gaming vaporware. By the time publisher Take Two Interactive shoved it out the door in 1996, GameSpot declared that "it will go down in legend as the most bug-ridden, unstable, unplayable pieces of software ever released" and slapped it with a 2.6 rating. Undaunted, Smart followed up with a flurry of patches and upgrades, which were consolidated into a "version 2.0" in 1998. Three years later, Smart released BC3K as freeware; version 2.09, linked below, is the "final" release. Is it the Ishtar of gaming? Judge for yourself.