Trauma Center: Under the Knife (DS) Review
One does not own a Nintendo DS without hearing about Trauma Center: Under The Knife in some form or another, but for the longest time the game was not available for purchase in Australia. Fortunately that has changed, abiet with a limited supply. Which is all the more confusing given the game’s status as one of the best games for the Nintendo DS. Never the less, the words “limited supply” should mean “buy this game immediately” to anyone who doesn’t already own Trauma Center.
Trauma Center is an operation “simulator” set in the near future, where your major goal is to use the touch screen to emulate operating procedures and perform life saving operations on characters from the game. Trauma Center is simple in both execution and content.
It is often difficult for a game to be considered the best on a platform when there is so little in the way of unlockable content or options; but that is how it is with Trauma Center. It is the purist of games without a hint of extras and manages to be one of the best games the Nintendo DS has to offer.
There are two modes of play in Trauma Center, which are essentially the same. Story mode, which has you playing the operations with a surrounding story told in text and Challenge mode where you replay operations from Story mode without the dialogue. The only unlockable items in the game are the operations for Challenge mode, which must be completed in Story mode before they can be played in Challenge mode.
The operations take place on the bottom touch screen with the top screen occupied by non-essential information such as the miss limit, mid-operation dialogue and the always-hot Angie Thompson. The Story mode is executed with a very linear formula that jumps from dialogue to operation back to dialogue and so forth. There is the occasional illusion of freedom such as when you must decide the location of your next operation, but there are no repercussions or any serious choices presented in the Story mode.
The experience you get from Trauma Center is divided into two: the operations you perform using the stylus and the story in between each operation. If you skip the all the story and banter between operations you are in fact missing half the game experience.
Starting off rather clich the game pits you in the role of Dr Stiles, a surgeon who has just finished his residency at Hope Hospital. The game starts off with Stiles removing glass from a crash victim under the guidance of Hope’s senior surgical assistant Mary Fulton, who serves as a symbol you are in the tutorial phase of the game (Mary is later replaced by Angie). Unfortunately each of the characters fit perfectly into well-known video game and anime stereotypes, all delivering very clich lines. It is worth pointing out though they are still very strong lines and lines that deliver the story well. You will soon forgive the clich nature of the characters and opening levels however, as they are overshadowed by the sheer originality of the scenarios presented later in Trauma Center.
From saving the world from bio-terrorists and their genetically engineered diseases known as GUILT, defusing bombs, designing DNA (basically puzzles) and performing operations with a special gift called the “Healing Touch” which is said to dramatically change the lives of anyone who has it, you will soon realise the game is anything but unoriginal. That’s if you hadn’t already discovered that during the first few minutes of game play.
At your disposal during operations are surgical tools like the scalpel, syringe, forceps (tweezers), laser and antibiotic gel. Some more like their real world counterparts than others (antibiotic gel is an all purpose gel that plays a number of roles). Each item has its own use, some of them with multiple uses; for example the scanner item which is both an ultrasound and magnifier depending on the operation taking place.
Earlier operations are quite normal, in that you could imagine how the above tools would be used. Forceps to remove glass from a patient, drain to drain the blood from the area, disinfect the wound with the gel and then the stitches to close it all up. Later in the game with the introduction of the GUILT, things begin to change. You must now use the drain to capture a cloud of the GUILT trying to escape from your patient or your scalpel to hack at the GUILT to kill it. The uses for the tools become very unorthodox and begin to require different tools to be used in increasingly different combinations to overcome each obstacle during an operation. It is this process of tool swapping of growing complexity that gives Trauma Center its difficulty.
The game is hard, real hard. You will soon forgive Atlus for implementing short time limits on the operations (normally five minutes), as it keeps the penalties for failure to a minimum. It won’t stop you from considering violence against your Nintendo DS at times though, so it is a situation of buyer beware: this game is hard. The difficulty of successive operations is somewhat erratic too. While the general consensus is the difficulty rises as you progress through the game, you will come by operations significantly easier than the previous and vice-versa from time to time.
My two biggest complaints about the game, like most great games, are highlighted significantly when surrounded by the rest of the game’s brilliant elements. The instructional dialogue during an operation from the Story mode is still present in the Challenge mode. It is a pain when your operation is interrupted each and every attempt to beat your old high score by text you know by heart.
Trauma Center also has a bad habit of not communicating the proper procedure for overcoming an obstacle to the player. Often I found myself using my first attempt at an operation to figure out what a particular line of dialogue was trying to tell me. This ambiguity is very frustrating, but is something gamers have a talent for overcoming.
Another major opinion commonly held on the Internet, but not one I hold myself, is that the game is too short. Indeed the initial Story mode does not last as long as the industry standard but the replay value is intense enough for anyone who enjoys perfecting his or her skills. An operation typically gets more and more enjoyable with increased experience. Trauma Center’s strength lies in replaying the game over and over, a value much more appreciated on a portable machine. There is also a somewhat random element to the operations, but for the most part you are in for the exact same procedure. You will still face the same number of obstacles and they will still be presented in the same order, just in different locations.
Trauma Center might be missing the multi-player, unlockables and raw length that is normally associated with triple A titles, but in the end these missing criteria mean nothing at all to Trauma Center’s overall value. It has original and great game design mixed with top presentation. Moments after beginning an operation everything else in the room begins to disappear and soon it is just you and the game. That and the fantastic use of the touch screen makes Trauma Center a must own for anyone with a Nintendo DS. With its limited release here in Australia, do not wait. Now is your best chance to get this game.
