As a kid, I wasn't ever much into console games. All our family had was an NES, and being born in 1990, most of the games we had felt much too hard for me. (the games being Super Mario 3, Startropics, and Final fantasy. I was the worst gamer ever.) so when our family finally inherited an old computer from our uncle, I was anxious to see if this wondrous machine could intrigue me in a way that the NES couldn't. I was not disappointed. In this series, I will be showing all the games that I loved during the PC industry's "shareware phase"!



I am one of the lucky few who can remember the first ever game they played on a specific platform, and for me, it was Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure! I distinctly remember my mom teaching me how to play this on our old black and white monitor, WAY back when I was 3. We were living in an old PMQ near Ottawa, she was in the kitchen cleaning while I was in the living room, trying to play. Whenever I got stuck or didn't understand how to make cosmo do anything, I would call her into the kitchen and she would help. Whenever she complains about me playing too much computer, I always like to bring up the fact that she did this to herself.

The story for this game goes that, on the way to Disneyworld with his parents, Cosmo's ship was hit by a mysterious object and crashlanded on a mysterious planet. While his parents were busy repairing the ship, Cosmo decided he wanted to wander the nearby forest and play. But, when he returned, he found that his parents were missing, with only a note telling him that he must go save them! Not an epic story by any means, but I was 3, so I didn't care enough for that to matter.

As you can see, the graphics are stunning, the controls are tight, and even without playing it you can tell its a good time! The controls were a little wierd, with the arrow keys moving you around as usual, but the Ctrl key made you jump, and the Alt key dropped bombs (which looked a little like bleach bottles with explosive plungers), so it takes a little while to get used to it now, but in 1993, it was good enough for me! In the game you defeat enemies by either jumping on their heads, or using bombs to defeat them. You beat the level by...running to the other side of the level, (Ok, nothing new there, but other than that it was a good platformer, so cut it some slack, eh?)and you could only get hurt twice before having to start the whole level again (I have no clue how I beat this as a kid, seeing as I can't even get through the second episode now). One of the more interesting mechanics was that you could climb walls with your sucker hands, meaning the whole level could be explored!

Cosmo had some items he needed to collect too! He collected fruit for points, wierd multicolored things that could only be described as honeycombs for health, and stars to get into the bonus level. You found these by exploring the level, or destroying enemies and boxes. The bonus level had cosmo bouncing up and down in space collecting fruit.

Part of the reason I loved this game was for the humour. When cosmo gets hit, he yells "OUCH" or "GNARLY!", and sometimes when you beat the level he yells "RADICAL!". The high-score table has the characters from the Simpsons in places 1-10, plus the whole aliens going to disneyworld thing had me cracking up as a child.

well, the nostalgia is flowing freely now, and I think I need to play some Cosmo. You can get all 3 episodes for free on the internet, as they are classified as abandonware. Give it a try, I guarentee it holds up, even after 17 years. Also, creative comments are appreciated, as this is my first ever article, and I want to improve. Thanks for reading!

Coming up next in the series, software that was more art studio than game, which STILL had me "playing" it for hours. Stay tuned!