"If you want something pleasantly disgusting to do on a train journey," says the 1001 entry, "then Trauma Center: Under the Knife is societies only acceptable answer, really." Who is asking that question in the first place?
Trauma Center is a series of surgery 'simulations', linked together into a visual novel, which kicks off with the first entry, the Nintendo DS's Under the Knife.
Your stylus is the only tool you'll need, doubling as scalpels and syringes where necessary, but do you have a steady enough hand to cut the correct parts? Who does surgery on a train, anyway?
Fun Times
Hope Hospital in the Bay of Angels. Surely the best place on Earth to get medical treatment - or is that name prophetic in some way? As in all who enter need hope to make it out alive?
Oh, no, it's the second one, isn't it? Junior doctors are cutting folks open - no doubt after having practised while on the train into work.
Introducing Derek Stiles, a doctor in training, and Under the Knife's leading man. If you're not a fan of anime, rest assured that this is about as bad as it gets. These still images and single sentences will make up the bulk of the story, and while they're slow to get going, they are at least fairly short. They have to be: we've got a patient to mend.
Ok, that's as bad as the anime gets...
The actual gameplay of Under the Knife is found here, in the operating room. The tools for the job are all ready and waiting, with disinfectants, tweezers, syringes and even an ultrasound device of some sort available for you to use.
Lots of glass to extra from this guy after his motorcycle accident. Having worked on a glass crusher for several years, I'm no stranger to this sight, but if you're squeamish, the only protection you have is the almost cartoony nature of the graphics. They're detailed, but they're not realistic if you get me.
Frustration
The stylus does everything, from cutting and pulling to injecting and stitching, but it was the sewing back together that Trauma Center wasn't happy with. I'm emulating this, and what I thought was a decent job of closing a wound rarely was. I'd have to redo it a couple of times to get it good enough to move on, and you can run out of... thread... halfway through the stitching to make matters even more annoying.
How the hell did you manage to get glass shards embedded in your arm underneath your skin? I don't think this is a simulator. If anything, it's an expansion of Metal Gear Solid 3's little medical mini-game, such that it now actually makes sense. You can't just slap everything together to solve the problem, but you have to do everything in order. Once the glass is removed, clean the wound, stitch it up, then finish off with a bandage.
The job done, we can call ourselves a surgeon. We're scored on our speed and accuracy, but as this is basically a tutorial, I don't care much for how well I did. I just want to move on and see what kind of game Under the Knife is. Is it a string of surgeries, or a visual novel?
Sadly, it seems more like a visual novel, and I start to tire of these characters rather quickly. I wasn't enthusiastic about the game going into it, and it hasn't done anything to change that for me. It is much as I'd expect: use the stylus to play a complicated game of Operation.
This type of game is a natural fit for a stylus - it's a far better input method than a controller for a surgery simulator, for sure, but how varied can you make the inputs, if at all? Drawing a cut is the same as filling a syringe, which is the same as sucking out some gunk, which is the same as stitching a wound...
Yet the actual input is almost ignored because you're drawn into the notion that you're operating. When you select the scalpel, you're suddenly capable of cutting open the patient. When you're using a syringe, you're carefully drawing in the correct liquid - and I'm sure as the game goes on you won't be reminded which liquid is which, so you better learn now.
In between these surgeries that I don't really care about, however, are conversations that I definitely don't care about. Our assistant Mary is off already, she can't stand being here either. We get a hint that there was an 'incident' that stopped one guy from doing any more surgery. Is that enough of a tease to get you to play more?
I highly doubt that, Mary.
Final Word
After three surgeries, I'd seen enough. I knew enough about how Trauma Center played to satisfy myself, and I wasn't interested in seeing any of the story. There's no reason for me to stick around.
If there was an option to just fix some folks, would I still play it? Potentially. I'm not desperately seeking a surgery simulator, but there is no denying that the stylus and the DS is a great input method and device to play this type of game on. You just don't get the same feeling with a mouse, owing to how you hold the mouse, and you definitely don't get the same feedback with a controller - it'd make no sense to play it with one.
It's just occurred to me that I was emulating Under the Knife, so technically I was playing with a mouse. Somehow it was convincing enough to make me think I was playing with a stylus. Clearly, I have no idea what I'm rambling on about.
So is it worth playing at all? Yeah, I suppose. You've probably played a Flash game about surgeries, or a mobile phone game. Maybe you've played Surgeon Simulator and want something a little less graphic. Trauma Center does what it does well - you just have to wade through a story to get there.
Fun Facts
Bizarrely for a visual novel, this game didn't take off in Japan, having better sales in the US and Europe. Must be all the blood and guts. Can't get enough of them.
Trauma Center: Under the Knife, developed by Atlus, first released in 2005.
Version played: Nintendo DS, 2005, via emulation.