Trauma Center: Under the Knife

The Nintendo DS has proven through games like Nintendogs, Meteos, and Kirby: Canvas Curse that with new and intuitive hardware, new and innovative ways of play can be realized. Whether it’s the touch screen, the use of dual screens, or the microphone, the DS has proven that gaming can be made better with different and innovative technology.

Since day one, my initial impression of Trauma Center was instant; I had to own this game. The idea of being able to cut people open and operate on them was astonishing to me. This idea isn’t new, however; games such as Mindscape's Life and Death on the PC and Imagic's Microsurgeon, which has been around forever, claim the title. Don’t get the wrong impression though: the idea is not the selling point; it’s the game play and the story behind the game that makes Trauma Center stand out. To put quite simply, Trauma Center definitely follows Nintendogs, Meteos, and Kirby: Canvas Curse in proving Nintendo’s belief in innovative hardware and software.

Trauma Center puts you under the knife... Dr. Stiles’s knife, that is. As Derek Stiles you are set to operate on some ill and troubled patients who are in need of surgery to remedy their problems. The game simulates simplified trials and tribulations of a real surgeon, and although the trials in Trauma Center don’t come close in comparison to those of real surgeons, the trials aren't very easy; and even still you will be doing a wide variety of procedures like blasting tumors off a man’s lower intestine with a surgical laser and learning words and terms like carcinoma, a malignant tumor in the epithelial cells which may metastasize to other areas of the body, and cyanosis, a condition in which a person’s skin turns blue due to loss of oxygen in the blood.

Don’t agonize; you won’t need a PhD to beat Trauma Center. The game may seem very complicated, but it's not. It basically takes elements of real surgeon life and applies them to a compelling story, and so everything is explained and set up to make it easier for you to learn the game mechanics. Throughout the beginning your assistant nurse basically holds your hand through each surgery. She’ll teach you everything from how and when to use the ten different tools to specifics on how to go about a new procedure. The bottom screen houses the ten different tools and your subject, while the top screen shows your miss limit, how many times you are allowed to make a mistake during the surgery; the time limit, the amount of time you have to complete the surgery; and comments from your assistant used to assist you during surgery.

Trauma Center strictly requires players to keep a constant and persistent focus on both screens to complete a surgical procedure. You will be required to carry out quick but careful incisions on the bottom screen while watching the time limit and miss limit for your current operation. Atlus definitely constructed Trauma Center with a constant focus on game play. The procedures are so intense that you will need a break after each operation, which is made possible thanks to the ability to save after each successful operation.

The conversations and dialogue unfolding the story are anime character stills. The plot may be missed by or unimportant to players because of the game's effortless presentation. Had the game had voice acting or even 3-D models of the characters as opposed to the anime art, the story may have been conceived better by the player. The anime style takes away from the game because the heart of the game is game play, which takes place during operations only, where all the subjects are 3-D. Having the 3-D models, which look pretty dang good, make you feel like the conversations could have been done a lot better.

Do not let the story presentation scare you away though; Atlus has included a "challenge mode" in the game. Basically the challenge mode allows you to do procedures again without the climatic story. Since the game ranks your operation, showing you how well you did based on speed and accuracy, it’s a lot of fun to do operations again and try to rack up higher scores; there is a lot of replay value here. It is also a very good way to keep players hooked even after they complete the entire game.

In the end, Trauma Center is definitely a worthy DS purchase and a very original and fun approach to the boring reality of medical life. Although Trauma Center is in no way a perfect title, it is still a very good game and a worthy addition to the DS’s already outstanding game library. I would recommend Trauma Center: Under the Knife to just about any DS owner in search of a new and fun experience.