Trauma Center: Under the Knife Review

Trauma Center: Under the Knife

Trauma Center: Under the Knife is yet another unique and intriguing Nintendo DS game, this time brought to us by the good folks at Atlus. I was originally neutral to this title, and never really even thought about getting it. However, as the time rolled around for its release, I decided that I had plenty of money to pick up this odd title. Yet again I found that my split second decisions serve me well, because Trauma Center: Under the Knife is definitely one of the most fun filled and intense Nintendo DS games to date.

Graphics:

Like Trace Memory, Trauma Center follows the path of anime style graphics. All of the characters you meet within the game have the anime look to them, and all of them are excellently animated. However, since this is a surgery game, you won’t be seeing much environments and characters. Instead, you’ll be seeing the insides of people’s bodies. And while the subject matter is a bit dark (organs, blood, intestines, etc.), the game manages to handle the look and feel of the subject matter relatively well. The operations aren’t graphic and bloody, and instead take the route of a more mild and animated look (as opposed to overly realistic blood and gore). The game’s setup is easy to follow, and though the amount of different surgical tools may confuse you at first, you’ll easily get used to where everything is on the screen and what exactly it does. Considering how dark and graphic this game could have been, Atlus managed to handle it with just the right amount of care to warrant a simple Teen rating.

Sound and Music:

The musical selections are very few and far between, which is really depressing because what the game does have, it does well. For the most part, the music generally varies between dramatically intense or simply dramatic. The intense music tends to play while you’re in surgery, whereas the dramatic music tends to play while certain story elements are being presented to you. Along with a small amount of music, the game also includes a small bit of voice acting. During surgery you’ll hear small soundclips such as “What’s that?!?” or “Great job Dr. Stiles”. Though these small soundclips don’t really serve much of a purpose, they at least make you wonder if a Nintendo DS game could support full blown voice acting. The general consensus I have here is that, what the game included was excellently done, but it definitely seems to me that they could have included more of it.

Storyline:

As with the graphical style, the storyline in Trauma Center tends to get its inspiration from anime. You play as Dr. Derek Stiles, a rookie doctor who has just graduated from med school and seems a bit too confident for his own good. After one of his patients nearly dies, Derek begins to realize his true potential. This is where the anime elements begin to seep into the storyline. During an emergency surgery, Derek learns that he has the “healing touch”. The healing touch is an ability in which time itself seems to slow down to the point in which the doctor has an unfounded amount of concentration on the operation at hand. Just as Derek begins to realize his new abilities, a virus known as GUILT begins to spread rapidly. However, GUILT is actually a man made virus and a form of medical terrorism. From here on out, Dr. Derek Stiles and his assistant Angie must travel abroad to help stop the terrorists from creating a worldwide GUILT outbreak. As you would expect from an anime inspired game, the storyline is excellently crafted (though a bit on the ludicrous side), and there are a few plot twists here and there to keep the player on his/her toes. If the gameplay doesn’t keep you interested in Trauma Center, then at least the storyline will.

Gameplay:

When broken down, Trauma Center is basically a puzzle game. Mind you however, this is definitely no Tetris. The gameplay of Trauma Center is entirely touch-screen based, which is what makes this title so perfect for the Nintendo DS. On the touch screen, each of your surgical utensils will be shown as a small icon. During surgery, you will have to quickly and efficiently switch between the correct utensils in order to operate on your patient. Some surgeries (such as the first few) are easy, and only require you to remove broken shards of glass from the patient’s bodies and then stitch up the wounds. However, as the game progresses, surgeries will become increasingly more difficult. Along with that, all of these surgeries tend to have a time limit of five minutes (certain surgeries have varying time limits). So as the surgeries become more difficult, the time limit will continue to remain the same. During surgery, there are multiple things that you will have to pay close attention to. First and foremost are the patient’s vitals. If the vitals of the patient become to low, you will have to inject a serum to help boost them. If the vitals reach zero, your patient dies and you get game over. Also, you have to make sure that you carefully perform your actions. If you perform the wrong action, you will be marked off, and too many wrong actions will result in the patient dying. After enough surgeries, certain actions (such as suturing patients and applying the disinfectant gel) will become second hand nature. Other surgical actions you will perform include removing tumors via scalpel and forceps, using the laser to remove infections, and fighting off the various strains of GUILT that the terrorists spread. My main complaint here is that some surgeries are insanely difficult. At certain points in the game, you’ll jump from a somewhat simple operation to something that feels near impossible. These random shifts in difficulty can be very annoying at times, and I often even found myself simply turning the game off. However, Trauma Center manages to get away with the difficulty on account of one thing: the game is so enjoyable that it’s worth attempting surgeries over and over again. For being a simple puzzle game, Trauma Center manages to make “playing doctor” a very intense and satisfying experience.

Controls:

Unlike many Nintendo DS games, Trauma Center: Under the Knife is controlled exclusively with the stylus. The Nintendo DS stylus will serve as all of your operation tools, whether it is the scalpel, the forceps, or the bottle of antibiotic gel. The only complaint here is that sometimes the magnify tool doesn’t work as well as you want it too. To use it, you’re supposed to draw a small circle around the area you want to magnify, but most of the time the game doesn’t recognize it unless it’s a near-perfect circle. This can be troubling at times, especially when you’re in the middle of an intense surgery and the clock is ticking down against you. Other than this small (yet annoying) problem, the game’s control system works very well.

Replayability:

The main (and only) replay that Trauma Center offers is the ability to replay every surgery you perform. During each surgery, you will be scored and ranked on your performance (ranging from C to the coveted S rank). After you successfully complete a surgery, it will become available to play again in the challenge mode of the game. It is there that you can hone your skills to near perfection in order to achieve the much sought after S-rank. I suppose that you *could* play through the game again, but there’s really no point when you’ve already heard the story and all the surgeries are available on their own. Luckily for us, the surgeries are addicting enough to want to play over and over again in order to achieve the greater rankings.

All in all, Trauma Center: Under the Knife is an excellent example of what the Nintendo DS is capable of. With Trauma Center’s unique gameplay and interesting storyline, Atlus has managed to show us that touch-screen gameplay doesn’t have to be just a gimmick, and that it can in fact be the supporting idea behind an entire form of gameplay. Trauma Center: Under the Knife is exactly the type of game I purchased my Nintendo DS for, and I can only hope more companies decide to be as daring and outgoing with their games as Atlus was.

Graphics: 8.5/10
Sound and Music: 7.5/10
Storyline: 9.5/10
Gameplay: 9.0/10
Controls: 9.0/10
Replayability: 8.0/10

9.1

Out of 10