I know I’m being a little vague, but can anyone help me identify an Internet game about being the person who is employed by the government (or a corporation, more likely) to watch CCTV cameras and read mail and so on, and to report suspicious (anti-consumer, anti-‘intellectual property’, etc.) behavior to your superiors.
The game’s feel was kind of retro-cyberpunk, with 1920s-style decor mixed with slightly-more-advanced-than-1995 monitoring technology (think Brazil). It had sound, which impressed me at the time, and it had full-motion video clips.
Upon login, you’d be given a small news report with a kind of tongue-in-cheek it’s-funny-cause-it’s-true style to it (“Man arrested for whistling copyrighted song” springs to mind, and I know that story was used, albeit with more detail). You’d then go to monitor the families, and you’d get little viginettes (the daughter of a plastic surgeon doesn’t want yet another nose job, for example (that one was used, I think)), and then you’d answer questions about what you saw.
I remember that it was a fun way to kill time, and that it was interesting to sit on the other end of the camera for a change. Did anyone else on Earth play this game?