MGA Entertainment's Mad Lab Monster Surgery
by Mr. Stinkhead

The folks at MGA Entertainment, the makers of those big head Bratz® dolls, have produced a monster head game. Their forte has been girl toys (man, are those Bratz® things popular), so I applaud their boy-oriented efforts. You can't go wrong with gross, slimy, guts. You know I am a big fan of pulling stuff out of big plastic heads, mainly I speak of Gooey Louie, so I was anxious to check out this one. That and I enjoy playing head games. Oh, and making horribly awful puns.

Overall Execution
To start off, it's a sizeable Frankenstein's Monster esque head with all kinds of pieces you can pull off. The sculpt is great. The quality of plastic is top notch, and they went all the way with paint apps and detail. I especially like how the "seams" or surfaces that are often overlooked in such ventures, were treated. The core of his nose has several colors, there is a ribbed detail to his deep ear canal. No corners were cut putting this one together. The nooks and crannies are so well done, I could not help but consistently think "You put your weed in there, man." over and over.

The Pieces
His eyes, nose, two teeth, tongue, left ear, and scalp all come off. You can pull out the staples holding his brain cap on, his bolts come out, you can remove sections off of the back to find bugs and his pituitary gland (remove that and he'll be singin' soprano forever). You can lift off his brain cap and rip out sections of his brain, and there is of course, a worm burrowing in his right ear. I had a lot of fun playing around finding out what was detachable.

The Games
So I pop in the 3 AA batteries and turn him on. (By doing a sexy little dance... no, flipping his switch silly!) I liked how the switch was remnant of an old horror movie breaker. It just slides though. Anyway, he starts talking in a good cartoony monster voice and you're offered three different games you can play. Each game can be played solo or with a team of players. The first is Monster Emergency. The monster starts aching and complaining about something rotting you have to remove. So start picking pieces, he'll give you clues after you take too long, or you'll make too many wrong choices and he'll yell at you. Scary Surgery has you carefully removing the pieces he tells you to like Operation, but if you pull it out too quickly or roughly, he gets angry. I like Creepy Check-Up. It's kind of like a regular check-up without the turning or coughing. He names a piece you have to remove and put back, and then increases the number of items, ala the classic Simon game. It's fun hearing him talk and quickly dashing around his head trying to find the right piece to remove. Here's the one thing I would improve: if you mess up, it's done. Game over. You then have to listen to his introduction, select the game and select the players all over again. It got a little frustrating going through the process each time I messed up, and on the games, it wasn't always clear what you did wrong. I would recommend they add a "three strikes you're out" type thing instead of "one wrong move."

Well this game is pretty cool. I couldn't find it on Amazon.com or KBKids.com, but you can walk into a Kay Bee toy store right now and find him on sale for $15. He may not hold the adult attention span quite as long, but he's perfect for kids who haven't quite yet used their pituitary gland. (Quick! Remove it while you still can!)

I'm going to give you a ton of pics, because there is a lot to see and explore with this game. Thanks to MGA for letting us try this out. Also thanks to our fearless testers. [Ed note: Fearless? I don't think so, they all bolted when the boss walked by.]

Monster Surgery and his likeness are copyright MGA Entertainment. Article and all images are copyrighted 2003 MillionairePlayboy.com.