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Whenever
the NintendoDS is mentioned, it is almost always coupled with
another word; innovative. OK Nintendo, we get the picture, but the
novelty has gone now: we are just interested in the games.
Innovation is good, but just because a game does something that no
other has ever done before it  does not necessarily mean that it is
going to be a great game. Wholly original games such Project Rub
and WarioWare
Touched! are examples of how innovation can work, but how
far can the system divert from classic gaming formulas before
people start to wonder if they are still having fun? However, like
some gaming Radiohead, the NintendoDS is still striving to push the
boundaries even further and with promising results so far, it seems
that Nintendo are succeeding. The most recent game to earn the
possibly overused title of innovative is Atlus’ Trauma Center:
Under the Knife. Originally titled Caduceus, Trauma
Center: Under the Knife is possibly the worlds first Surgery
game. Predictably, Trauma Center: Under the Knife is a
NintendoDS exclusive, another title that is not going to be going
to PlayStation2 because you simply couldn’t play it with a
Control Pad! So can one of the most stressful jobs in the world
make a great videogame? We are sceptical, but then who thought Animal
Crossing would be fun?
Trauma
Center: Under the Knife follows the exploits of a rookie doctor
named Dr. Derek Stiles. Dr. Stiles is a little reckless for a
surgeon and for the first few Missions everybody thinks he’s a
loser. Predictably this all changes when a patient nearly dies
because Dr. Stiles goes home without checking them over. He then
changes his ways and starts to behave a little more like you would
expect a surgeon, and indeed a games protagonist, to be. As you
might expect, the game  revolves mostly, although not exclusively,
around medical operations. The game features ten different medical
instruments - including Scalpels, Lasers and Forceps - used for a
variety of different procedures and there is a good amount of
variety in the operations, from cuts and grazes to battling the
GUILT Super Virus. Each item is used in a different way, for
example, the Laser is a simple case of pointing where to shoot,
stitching is performed by drawing a zig-zag pattern over a wound
and bandages are applied by pointing and dragging the bandage
across the wound. Touch Screen implementation is good for the most
part, however, the Magnification Tool can cause some problems. In
order to zoom-in, a small circle must be drawn on screen. Simple
you might think, however this circle must be drawn relatively
slowly in order to register. Not a problem you say? Try it when the
patient is going into cardiac-arrest. Although at the start it may
seem like a glitch, once you have realised that patience is the
best approach here, the procedure becomes a lot less frustrating.
There
are three ways to fail each operation. The first is to run out of
time, although on the earlier Missions this is rarely a concern due
to liberal Time Limits, later multiple-operation Missions are very
difficult. The second is exhausting the Miss Limit Gauge which is
depleted by missing with injections, removing objects the wrong
way, getting a little crazy with a Scalpel and other less than
accurate surgical procedures. This again is quite easy to avoid
unless you set out to fail. The third and most obvious way is if
the patient dies, although the game does a good job of explaining
away the actual death as a cue for another team to operate or that
the patient is simply now very ill. This occurs when the patients
vital-signs decrease to zero and is by far and away the most common
cause of Mission
failure. The patient’s vitals can be boosted to a certain level
by the use of the Syringe, but if they have multiple injuries
it’s very  difficult to keep them alive, and you will have to cure
these to have any chance of succeeding. Early in the game Dr.
Stiles learns he has a special ability known as the Healing Touch.
This can be initiated once in each Mission by drawing a star on the screen in Healing Touch Mode, and
basically slows time to allow you a little breathing space. This
does make the Missions a little easier but make no mistake, there
is a reason doctors go to Medical School for six years, Trauma
Center: Under the Knife is a hard game - sometimes seemingly
unreasonably so, and it suffers from a less than forgiving
Difficulty Curve. Although casual gamers may find this off-putting,
those who relish a challenge will find that perseverance will
prevail and will find that completing the harder Missions is very
rewarding.
Trauma
Center: Under the Knife uses anime characters in Cut-Scenes to
explain the story on the top screen. The characters are not
animated but regardless are well drawn and fulfil their role
adequately. The Touch Screen is used for displaying the patient and
although not as ground breaking as Nintendogs, Resident
Evil: Deadly Silence or Metroid Prime: Hunters, the 3D
graphics are clear and perfectly acceptable for the game. Although Trauma
Center: Under the Knife is a Surgery game, it is not a gory as
you might think. There are some interestingly coloured fluids for
you extract, tumours to remove and a fair amount of blood, but due
to the nature of the game, it feels a lot more like a hospital
television programme than a violent film and is surprisingly
educational, so, thank God, no reason for angry mothers to start
campaigning over it’s age-rating. There is a little too much
on-screen text that you cannot skip during operations, this can
become annoying during replays of the Mission, but is not severe enough to seriously disrupt gameplay. There are
not a lot of sound effects in Trauma Center: Under the Knife,
but all the squelches are about as realistic as you would want them
to be. There is also a small amount of Voice Acting, mostly just
simple words such as “Doctor!” and the occasional “What are
you doing?!” which serve to warn you of complications
sufficiently. The music is good enough to keep the tension
believable, but nothing overly impressive.
Once
you have completed a operation you receive a Rank, it is then
available to replay in Challenge Mode. This serves as a way of
upping the longevity of the title but the games difficulty and
reasonable Campaign length mean that you should be in for a good
ten to fifteen hours anyway. However, aside from the Campaign,
there is nothing else to do. A
few Bonus Missions would have been nice, but as it stands Trauma
Center: Under the Knife is still a very worthwhile purchase for
challenge-hungry NintendoDS owners. Trauma Center: Under the
Knife’s greatest strength is it’s originality and, perhaps
more importantly so, the fact that it has also made an interesting
and fun game out of it. So, if you are looking for a game that is
radically different from anything you have ever played before, yet
still fun - and let’s face it, if you bought a NintendoDS, you
should be - you should definitely consider buying Trauma Center:
Under the Knife.
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