Server Quest

Not since Howard Sherman's licensed "Bastard Operator From Hell" game in 2002 have we been presented with a software title so thoroughly entrenched in the smug, self-superior world of the corporate IT administrator, a pained lord ruling his sad little realm of ones and zeroes and doling them out to moronic and infantile co(w)-workers. Here the company is A. Datum, and the nerdy Napoleon is Matt Berg, a tired admin going through the tedious daily paces as though asleep until meeting the cute (and geeky!) new office security head, Alicia Thornber. Suddenly he has something to live for -- the prospect of impressing a babe with brains!

And you're off, solving trivial puzzles and playing IT-themed minigames, answering quizzes from tech support, distributing hardware to cube farmers ("Office Chaos") and bombing out unauthorized port calls to the company firewall ("Packet Invaders"). Between these, Matt has to help the irritating Chase Carpenter of sales, confounded by the everyday details of projecting a Powerpoint presentation or surfing the web wirelessly down at the local internet cafe.

Can our hero do it? And, perhaps more importantly, can the manage to retain geek credibility through a continual barrage of in-game product placement mentions courtesy of the game's sponsor, Microsoft TechNet?