Joystiq [Nintendo]

Our fantasies of one day becoming mad scientists never left us, our memories of afternoons spent cooking grotesque creatures and malformed bugs in our Creepy Crawlers oven still fresh in our minds. With our bedroom lights turned off and a Halloween-themed cassette tape playing in the background, we'd pull our aberrant creations out of the Mattel kiln, warbling ghoulishly, "Creeeeeeeepy Crawlers," just like in the commercials.

Publisher Eidos, working to realize our childhood dreams, has lifted the curtain on Monster Lab, an original and interesting IP for the Wii due next June. Backbone Entertainment (Death Jr.) is handling development for the dark, Tim-Burton-styled RPG and will offer up to 150 different kinds of mutants for evil geniuses to experiment with.

Players will have over 300 million variations to customize -- via minigames -- their mechanical, biological, and chemical monsters with before pitting them against other brutes in turn-based battles reminiscent of Pokemon. As far as online support goes, multiplayer battles, creature trading, downloadable content, and photo sharing are in the works. Grab your goggles and scamper past the post break for some Monster Lab screenshots. Don't forget to croon, "Creeeeeeeepy Crawlers," as the page loads up.