Madagascar: Operation Penguin is an average platformer starring (in)famous penguins from Madagascar. The platforming is decent at first, and you unlock many abilities throughout the game that can aid platforming and you can use them to get more medals from previous levels for 100% completion. There's a little bit of variety, like when you play a dance mini-game as melman, and ride Marty and hide in crates, similar to the Madagascar GBA or play as Alex, but for the majority of the game you play as Private. Each level has a set amount of medals, each 100 increases your maximum health, with it capping at 10, however the game isn't very difficult. I mean, you can increase max health a few times, but otherwise it isn't worth going for 100% completion, and there are plenty of healing items in levels. I did actually 100% this game unlike some other licensed games so far, but it doesn't unlock anything, it's just for bragging rights, I guess? I dunno who you would brag about that to though. As I said, the platforming was decent at first, but it became fairly repetetive with later levels, being pretty straightforward levels with little variety.

The graphics go for a pre-rendered style similar to Donkey Kong Country games, which Vicarious Visions did for other DreamWorks movie licensed games as well (and even Disney's The Lion King 1½), and they looks decent, though certain elements can look iffy. The music is also decent, the title screen theme is a jam and I like to put it in the background sometimes, and the level completion jingle is one of my favorite most satisfying jingles ever, but some music tracks can be repetitive, mostly because the levels can drag a bit, especially if you're collecting all medals. Some dialogue lines are also quite humorous.

Overall, this is about what you'd expect from a licensed GBA game, not a bad time but nothing special, really.

Fun fact: This is the only GBA game that I know that features a loading screen, with a blue screen with "PLEASE WAIT". This screen appears before cutscenes that use stills from the movie (this statement isn't true anymore, not that I've played Madagascar GBA and Over The Hedge GBA).