Trauma Center: Under The Knife Post-Mortem

[Now Experiencing] [Computer Gaming]

Pardon the pun.

It's been four months since I ordered my copy of Trauma Center from the United Kingdom. Four months that this shining gem of a game has sat, alone and unloved, on a games shelf in a country that didn't want it in a world it didn't make. Four long, soul-crushing months.

But now I have played it; and all that I can do is hug it and tell it nice things and hope that it some day forgives me and never leaves.

Trauma Center is a game for the Nintendo DS that casts you in the role of a rookie surgeon. The gameplay takes place over a linear series of missions. In each mission, you use a range of tools available to you to undertake an operation on a patient; if you have a steady hand, a good ability to prioritise, and quick reflexes, your patient will live. Let things get out of hand, and your patient (and your career) are in for a one-way trip to the morgue.

When I tell people Trauma Center is a game about surgery, the first question they always ask is, "Is it gross?" The answer is no. If you're able to watch a relatively non-graphic medical drama without qualms (like, say, Scrubs) then you'll be perfectly at home in the chest cavities of Trauma Center's patients.

As the story starts, you'll be taking on the persona of Dr Derek Stiles, a promising but somewhat immature surgeon. His career is potentially frustrated by a lack of focus and follow-through, until dedicated (and cute) Nurse Angie is partnered up with him in a series of life-or-death operations. Soon Derek discovers that he is in fact a descendant of the Greek god of healing, possessed of near-magical doctoring powers - which is good, because he also finds himself front and center when bio-terrorists unleash a series of terrifying parasitic diseases called GUILT. Only Derek has the skill necessary to stop GUILT and save innocent lives.

Your surgical abilities will be tested in an impressive variety of ways. One moment you'll be picking glass out of the skin of an injured motorcyclist; the next you'll be performing heart surgery at 30,000 feet during turbulence. Or even (in one memorable mission) using your surgical implements to defuse a bomb!

A lot of sites have dubbed Trauma Center a "puzzle game". This couldn't be further from the truth. It requires neither the forward planning of Lemmings or Exit, nor the spatial perception skills of something like Tetris or Meteos. This is a classic action game, pure and simple. The game at every turn pressures you to be faster, twitchier, and yet icy calm as you suture lacerations, laser tumours, and pump your victims patients full of more drugs than you can poke a scalpel at.

If that sounds like it might be hard, then you're on the right track. Trauma Center has at heart an old-school sensibility that sets a steep learning curve, a punishing difficulty, and a commensurate level of satisfaction accruing to victory. Wisely, no single operation requires more than ten minutes to complete (most take five or less) so failing rarely leaves you feeling too frustrated to immediately try again.

On the topic of difficulty, I should mention that what I found to be one of the hands-down hardest missions comes very close to the beginning of the game (I think mission seven-ish - it's the one with the bursting veins). If you're playing Trauma Center and you're stumped at this one, perservere! They get easier again when you're done!

Trauma Center makes clever use of the DS stylus. During the course of the game, you have a range of ten or so tools, which can be selected by tapping the stylus over the appropriate icon on the sides of the bottom screen. Using a tool involves performing a specific motion with the stylus. Using the needle and thread to suture requires running a zig-zag motion down the length of an incision. The scalpel demands long, straight lines. Antiseptic gel can be applied with rubbing motions.

The game demands a high level of precision in using these tools to save lives, and thankfully, the control scheme is up to it. Having finished the game, I've now inserted stitches in apocalyptically large quantities, and injected enough drugs to run international cartels out of business, and despite often having to repeat missions, I've never felt that my failures were in any way attributable to poor controls. (The exception is a somewhat squirrely magnifying tool, but thankfully it's forgotten about early on, and you never look back.)

The graphics of Trauma Center are unexceptional. Operations take place in an abstracted human interior - there's enough there to suggest blood, internal organs and so forth, but not so much as to distract you from the gameplay or make you squeamish. Plot sequences involve static anime character portraits, with text over still backgrounds. There's really not a jot more detail or animation than is needed to make the game work.

Sound is much the same. An overwrought melodramatic score plays behind the story screen. Operations (mostly) take place with only the bare minimum of music - enough to set a serious, focused tone and no more. The sound effects are a combination of swishy liquid sounds, mixed with slicing and zapping noises that would really be more at home in something like SoulCalibur or R-Type. Rather than detracting from the mood, these arcade-style touches really help the action feel satisfying, and make this feel like the sort of surgery game you might have fond memories of from the 80s. (Y'know, if there'd been surgery games in the 80s.)

I can't recommend Trauma Center highly enough. It's not for everyone - don't confuse it with those "casual games" you may have heard the DS has so many of. But if you like a challenge which is tough but always fair, and want a game which is well-designed, satisfying, and completely unique, then you really owe it to yourself to buy a copy.

If you're in Australia, you'll need to import one from another English speaking country (because to the best of my knowledge it wasn't released here). Pick up Phoenix Wright while you're at it (like I did) and you'll be a happy gamer.