Dilbert's Desktop Games

The Good
Everything was fun to play for at least a few minutes, I had played this game at a friend's house back in 1999ish and recently bought it online for 99 cents plus shipping.

Anyway a bit about the actual mini-games: (the likeable parts)

Techno-Raiders: Who doesn't like collecting donuts, zapping co-workers and using nifty gadgets? The 132 levels of this one pretty much make the game. Great for two player mode. Hide in cubicles when things get dicey.

Enduring Fools: A wack'em game that will drastically change the way your desktop looks.

The Jargonator: If you have ever wondered how to say something more confusingly then you will love this baby. Type in whatever you want and either add some sizzle (unnecessary adjectives to your text), punch it up (for adverbial obscurity) or Managerialize (to add manager-speak, complete with vague corporate goals).

The Final Word: Meh... I don't like stamping stuff for apparently no reason besides taking screenshots.

Can-o-matic 2: Firing co-workers into the air trying to collide them with objects can be vaguely satisfying.

Boss Evaders: Basically pong with an office twists, avoid the pink slip firing bosses while countering by firing status reports to eliminate them and hiding under in-boxes.

Project-Passoff: Dilbert vs Zimbu, this one is hilarious, takes a bit to get used to which items you want to score and which you don't but fun, computer takes a bit to beat. Has 2 player mode.

Elbonian Airlines: The thought of shooting incomponent managers into the air is kind of enjoyable.

Dogbert's CEO Simulator: Take your small business from one engineering department up to a lot of departments, a huge building and 75 million in company value. This one runs pretty slowly, I played it while reading three chapters from a book. It mostly pokes fun at managing being easy I think.

The Bad
And the not so likeable parts of the mini-games:

Techno-Raiders: Great game but...132 levels is a long time, though its worth it to go through them at least once for the component and to get a laugh out of some of the level names. Other than that waiting for the elevator can be a pain and not being able to shoot those short trolls.

Enduring Fools: You can only wack'em for so long before it gets boring.

The Jargonator: As much as you might want to your not really going to type an important message in there to make it more confusing to your boss.

The Final Word: Kinda pointless/boring.

Can-o-matic 2: You can only cannon people across your desktop for so long before you get bored.

Boss Evaders: Kinda unforgiving... if you miss a boss and let them get to the bottom couple levels things get super fast and your pretty much a goner for sure.

Project-Passoff: Sometimes I found myself stuck passing the same items across the board for well over a minute before anyone scored. It can be stalematish.

Elbonian Airlines: This one was kinda hard/annoying, it takes a while to get the depth perception on your shots down.

Dogbert's CEO Simulator: It's freaking slow, you can speed it up super fast but there is no option to slow it back down again which makes me wonder why allow you to speed it up as its near impossible to give orders in sped-up mode. You can seriously play this game by ignoring it for six minutes at a time and coming back to it to zap your workers, give them some morale boost, and get a consultant to increase their workload.

The Bottom Line
The game features ten mini games seven of which you play to try and collect seven game components so that you can then print out your official Elite Time Waster Plaque which will include your name and exactly how long it took you to win it.

This game would be great for playing at work as it returns you to your desktop quickly with a control-tab. You can get directions for each mini-game by pressing F1 once in the game. Most of the replayability is in the two player mode if you play Techno Raiders and Project Passoff. Though you can have fun making simple messages confusing by using the Jargonator.