Dexter's Laboratory: Mandark's Lab?

The Good
For most of my childhood, I grew up on watching lots of stuff from Cartoon Network, ranging from the antics of the Eds on Ed, Edd and Eddy, the (sometimes) genuinely scary tales of Courage the Cowardly Dog, the poweress of the Powerpuff Girls and the boy genius himself - Dexter's Laboratory, the latter being one of my favorite cartoons at the time, and it still has a dedicated following today. It's no surprise video games, comic books and oodles of figures and merch are still out and about on eBay. As for games, this was the most major foray Dexter's Laboratory had for a console game (despite a cancelled one for the PS2, Xbox and GameCube), and it was one of my first PS1 games.

Where should I start? The audio in this game is top notch. While it has the voice actors from the 2001 version of the show (Candi Milo as Dexter for example), it's a neat touch.

Many of the games themselves are easy to pick up and play, and you can collect upgrades in each hub world to make the games easier. Some of them add for comic twists, others not. Even a couple of the games are really fun (literal computer bug squashing for example). Just bring a friend.

The Bad
It's not that good of a party game. Many of the games don't pack a lot of charm, especially when you take the factor that many of the better elements of Dexter's Lab were often creative and out of this world (like any good cartoon should do in my honest opinion). They're also too easy, even more so with the upgrades. While it is fairly understandable that little children are going to play this, Dexter's Lab also has an adult audience and it would've been nice to have the option for more difficult games.

The games as well can be a little uninspired. Some capture the show's humor (the computer bugs, virus hunting, Dee-Dee dancing game, dodgeball and cootie rail shooting segments) and others not (air hockey?) They end too quickly. Like, they can last half a minute, some 5-10. In this case, the game is very short - clocking in at an hour or two.

Lastly, it feels like a cheap sell. It looks rushed and feels rushed - the graphics are very uninspired, and the cutscenes were sloppily taken from various episodes from the early days of the show and re-dubbed by the newer voice actors. I know, it's a little nitpicky but it's true.

The Bottom Line
There's infinitely better games out there. While I'd recommend this for the nostalgia factor or hardcore collection purposes, there's infinitely better party games out there and that allow for more friends. Just grab your kid a copy of any Mario Party game and that'll suffice.