Vookcast Episode #103 – VCR Tape #006: Trauma Center Under The Knife / Second Opinion

Our first Vooks Critical Review (VCR) since our mid year break is the flavour of the fortnight. In case you didn’t know, the Vooks Critical Review is a special kind of podcast episode where the team discusses and dissects a game in Nintendo’s past, whether it be third or first party, and talk about how it holds up today.

The game for this VCR tape is Trauma Center: Under The Knife and the Wii remake, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, the surgical drama game developed by Atlus. As per usual with these episodes, the team delves into the game’s development history, looks at the reactions to the Wii remake of the game being announced so soon after the DS version as well as the game’s writing and story itself.

We get into the nitty gritty once again, discussing the game design. The fundamental gameplay, the flow and pacing of the surgeries and the key differences between the two versions are discussed in great detail. Of course, this means we’ll  decide between us which tools work best with which control schemes, and whether the game is better suited to touch or motion pointer controls. Additionally, we speak about how the series would fare today in modern markets and if we would be willing to play another game like this today, in 2014.

We close with a discussion on the game’s presentation, evaluating it on it’s own merit and when compared to other Trauma Center games too.

So sit back and enjoy this episode! We hope you like this new, alternate format for the episode and we’ll return with a traditional episode next fortnight to discuss our team picks

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The cast can be reached for any questions or comments on their Twitter profiles: –

James – @Nemesis556
Steven – @StevenImpson
Daniel – @flamecondor

This episode was produced by Steven and features the following music in order of appearance: –

Second Opinion (from Trauma Center: Second Opinion)
by Shoji Meguro

Code Blue (from Trauma Center: Second Opinion)
by Shoji Meguro

Savato (from Trauma Center: Second Opinion)
by Shoji Meguro

Caduceus Europe (from Trauma Center: Second Opinion)
by Shoji Meguro