| Trauma Center: Under the Knife review |
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The initial disclaimer that flashes up on loading the Trauma Center cartridge warns that the quasi-futuristic medical techniques depicted herein are not transferable to real-life situations. Which is perhaps just as well, as your local hospital would be more Six Feet Under than Scrubs. This game is hard.
Cast in the role of rookie resident doctor Derek, the player must perform surgical operations against the clock and, more pressingly, as the patient’s condition worsens amidst your falterings and flounderings. Soaked in anime sensibilities, the early throes of the storyline are layered with the sort of medical terminology that degenerates into technobabble for the layman; it’s hard to get excited about a patient’s inflamed multiple tumours. Later though, and with a gracious nod to Phoenix Wright, the plot veers into a hyperactive science fiction curveball, dragging along the previous comparatively mundane operations with it. Tracking down and curing the fictional GUILT disease weaves the main narrative thread, juxtaposing a sombre reverence towards topics as grim as euthanasia and bio-terrorism against the slapstick cast of characters, with an almost schizophrenic cadence. A strange style, it’s also one that’s easy to like, leaving you consistently bemused by your avatar’s actions and emotionally invested in the friends whose lives he saves.
In arguably the finest DS design-symbiosis of hardware and software yet, each of the ten medical tools is physically enacted by the stylus: Rub the anaesthetic cream onto the skin, slice into the skin with a surgical knife and suture the wound together in a criss-cross pattern. In all, it’s a pleasantly tactile experience that strives to mimic its inspiration as accurately as is possible on the hardware. Not unlike a certain Dr. Dick Van Dyke, Derek also has abilities beyond the range of normal doctors: by drawing a pentagram on screen he can, once per patient, temporarily slow down time whilst continuing to operate at full speed. This becomes something of a necessity during the game’s various difficulty spikes.
Far from the freeform butchery the bevy of tools suggests, there is a certain ‘method’ to each injury that is normally divined from the hints of your sidekick nurse. Using the wrong instrument will result in a ‘miss’ being recorded, to the detriment of both your score and the patient’s health. Rather then, the challenge lies in actually achieving this complex goal. Essentially, it has the elements of a puzzle game with a strict order and speed of conveyance; each organ must be operated on in precisely the correct manner before moving onto the next. With operations lasting as long as ten minutes, great extended feats of memory and speed are required. Occasionally, when multiple blights need to be operated on simultaneously, you have the freedom to either interact between them or adopt a more systematic approach. As the patient’s health is constantly reducing, there’s a pressurised atmosphere of gritted-teeth concentration that enforces the utmost accuracy, lest a panicked snatch at the life-extending green injection becomes necessary.
When Trauma Center plays fair it provides one of the most intense and satisfying gaming sessions you’re likely to encounter. That stipulation though, makes the experience balance on the arbitrary capabilities of the recognition software, which ranges from superb to infuriatingly pathetic. Sporadically (and often repeatedly), the game will decide that the identical shape drawn to use a certain tool is no longer adequate, and will deduct health for the sully. In such a tense and time-critical game, it’s a maddening and almost unforgivable bug that’s met with confusion and a critical analysis of the operation’s procedure for its first few encounters.
Trauma Center provides the total experience of being a doctor without the inconvenience of five years of medical training, nor the guilt at the stack of dead bodies cluttering up the morgue. Its extensive campaign is likely to be played and thoroughly enjoyed at least once, but any replayability has been sabotaged by its own shortcomings: the bugs, the enforced narrative and the lack of rewards. Even in the ranked Challenge mode, the game enforces reliving the narrative drama of each case, to the extent that knowing when to skip dialogue boxes becomes an embedded part of each operation; unnecessary, as the drama of the operating room is sufficiently histrionic.
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System: Nintendo DS
Genre: Action
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus
Players: 1
Version: United States
Reviewed: Dec 2005
Writer: Simon Ward
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Pros:
- Almost unique gameplay
- Tense atmosphere
- Stylish art and story
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Cons:
- Frustrating recognition bugs
- Have to skip through dialogue boxes on replaying levels. All. The. Time
- Occasional difficulty spikes
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Trauma Center: Under the Knife Video: 2.2MB
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