James F. Dunnigan's Victory at Sea

From the back of the box:

December 7, 1941 may live in infamy. But what happens after that is up to you.

The US fleet lies in ruin at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt has placed the future of the Pacific in your hands. Step up to command with Victory at Sea. From the all-encompassing campaign game to the smaller, regionalized scenarios, Victory at Sea gives you the chance to test your strategy skills against the forces of history.

From Panama to India, from the Aleutian Island battlegrounds to the shores of Australia, Victory at Sea captures it all. Protect Allied troop transports at Leyte Gulf, the largest battle of the Pacific war and arguably the greatest naval battle in history. Fight for every square feet of ground in the Guadalcanal scenario. As leader of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the challenges are equally great. Would a few more successes have led the Japanese to the shores of California?

As the commander, you have many options at hand. Control the logistics of the war as you decide which resources to stockpile and where. Protect your crucial merchant supply lines. If you're unhappy with your ship captains, demote them. Review the battle, intelligence and communications reports as they come in. Then plan your next attack.

Designed by world-renowned military expert James F. Dunnigan, Victory at Sea's historical accuracy is without equal. It's all of the Pacific Theater. All of the conflict. All in your hands.

This had to be the most Gawd-awful poor excuse for a screwup that ever got shipped. If my name had been on it instead of Dunnigan's*, I would have shot myself - this mess (I won't even call it a game) is that bad. Three-Sixty sent out a patch that I swear made things marginally worse instead of better. Fix it? Refund? Hollow laughter. (The company had JUST been bought out and apparently the new owners decided to cut their losses. Caveat emptor.) Suffice to say, I have not spent one dime on anything even related to Three-Sixty or the parent company since.

Buggiest AI ever. To give you an example, the one time I managed to play a few turns of the Guadalcanal scenario WITHOUT the thing crashing and burning, the Japanese AI ran a three-carrier group - bear in mind, we are talking JUST CV's, no escorts at all - into a USN task force that included the USS Washington, USS South Dakota, and several heavy & light cruisers. I won't describe what happened next; but I imagine several IJN admirals were kneeling in front of a table, katana in hand, the next day.

(*To be fair to Mr. Dunnigan, who HAD made some pretty darn decent games, I honestly remember hearing that he'd bailed from this project some time before all of this happened, but the company refused to take his name off of it.)