Uplink
In the States, everything is bigger. Take the movie industry, which pretty much means "Hollywood." Big budgets. Big production teams. Big names. Big pyrotechnics. Huge. Then every once in a while, along comes a shoestring British movie that takes everything by storm and achieves cult status.
Uplink was one of those movies, only it's a game instead. It was produced by a small team, possibly in a bedsit in New Staffinghamptonshire-on-the-Wold, for next to nothing. There were no texture maps harvested from Egypt. No fluid dynamics modelling the physics of dripping water. There's not even a hint of lens flare. It was all in 2D. If you can't remember what that is, it's a bit like the page you're reading right now. Uplink basically presented you with various shades of blue, some text, and assorted background beeping noises.
But all that's OK, because you played someone who spends their time sitting in front of a computer screen. You were a hacker in the not-too-distant future. You had purchased a system from the Uplink corporation, and been given access to an underground bulletin board and shop dealing in software the feds would rather you didn't have. From here, you were free to do your own thing.
Why not surf the internet a little and find some company's central mainframe, then sneak in through the back door and crash the entire system? Or delete the financial records of a major corporation? If you need a little extra cash to purchase something to get through that pesky firewall, don't worry. Someone on the BBS is willing to pay handsomely if you can obtain a copy of a competitor's research. You could always simply visit a bank and take a withdrawal. From someone else's account, of course. If that administrator catches you skulking around his LAN and reports you to the police, all is not necessarily lost. Just hack into the criminal database and wipe your slate clean. Then find the admin's personal details and have him declared legally dead on the social security database. It's only fair.
All this could get very samey very quickly, as you rain down anarchy from your 8Gb/s ivory tower. Fortunately, just when you're beginning to feel on top of the world, Uplink throws a curve. Your fellow hackers are beginning to disappear. There are rumours of a revolutionary new virus set to destroy the internet. Cue the main story, as you are drawn right into the battle between the virus writers and those wishing to protect the web. Whose side you take is entirely up to you...
I'm going to ask one thing of you now. If you own a PC and regularly use the internet (and let's face it, you probably do), do yourself a favour and buy Uplink, or at least play the demo. It's a breath of original air among the ranks of Kill Everything IV and Supermarket Tycoon. You'll like it.
Trust me.
