Name: Cosmoserve
Devloper: Freeware
Publisher: Freeware
Author: Judith Pintar
Genre: Interactive Fiction
Release Date: 1997
Cosmoserve is essentially a piss-take of Compuserve, which for those of you too young to remember was the internet provider of a by gone age. You play as R.J.Wright a programmer/plumber with a deadline to finish his computer program. As you can probably guess things don't go quite right.
Cosmoserve has lots of nice touches to it. Wright's computer uses DOS commands to interface with it. You have to deal with admins, viruses and all sorts of strange problems in your quest to sort out your program.
There's quite a lot of humor in the game, about Compuserve and things in general. Look at some of the files stored on Wright's computer or take a good look at the forums. You feel as if there is a genuine human touch to the place.
The commands in general are what you'd expect from an IF game. Cosmoserve was made very easy to navigate (you use GO to jump instantly from topic to topic and T to go to the home page). Interestingly this one of the few games I've found which has successfully captured the feeling of being addicted to the Internet.
The only problem with Cosmoserve is that there's not a lot of help directing you as to what to do next. The games vast and you can find yourself getting lost or easily stuck in a position where you have to restart. Otherwise it's a fun game to play and a must for anyone who finds that they constantly go check the forums or the email in the middle of the night.