Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Mike Repella

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is the fourth Trauma Center game released in North America and the second installment for the Nintendo DS. The first game was a ground breaking mix of a story driven arcade style game that utilized the stylus better than most games released for the DS. Trauma Center 2 continues the first game’s style and brings with it a whole new storyline and a new cast of characters, as well as the return of many of the series' previous characters.

This time around the series maintains its anime look and feel and you are once again taking on the role of Derek Stiles, world renowned surgeon and all around nice guy. You follow Derek’s latest adventure which begins in a war torn African country and perform various surgeries using the stylus, while under the pressure of limited time and the patient's ever-decreasing pulse. The end result is a game that can be very intense and extremely difficult.

The visuals in Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 continues the young adult anime look with most of the characters. The females in the game are all attractive, perky women and the men are drawn very efiminately as is common with some japanese anime. All of them are very detailed, well drawn and vibrant.

The story mode is presented using various still backgrounds and each character is shown using a still picture when they speak. Don’t come into this game expecting cutting edge 3-D graphics because you won’t find any. Instead you are given well drawn 2-D characters and backgrounds.

The surgery graphics are slightly more detailed than the previous DS version. During each surgery you are usually presented with a close up view on the touch screen of the area of the patient that needs the work done. The game does a good job of detailing the various wounds, tumors, bullet holes and other various traumas and you are never really left guessing which part of the body needs surgery.

The top part of the DS screen is used to display the patient's health as well as the time limit for the surgery and will often times display hints from your nurse or co-surgeons. Overall the graphics in Under the Knife 2 do a fine job of both telling a story and presenting the surgeries.

I found the sound in the game to be quite surprising. To me sound in a video game can go a long way toward setting the mood and atmosphere that a game is trying to establish. In that regard Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 doesn’t fail. The story mode usually has some soft music playing in the back ground as well as various sound effects like gun fire, explosions or ambulance sirens that all play on queue with the storyline. These sounds may seem little but they go a long way to help convey the mood of the game and its story.

The story itself is not voiced and but it is presented through text. However, many of the characters will chime in every once in a while with a one or two word spoken phrase that will basically sum up what the text is saying. It’s an effective way to give the characters a voice and still work within the limited space provided by the game’s cartridge.

Trauma Center 2 is one of the few DS titles in which you do not have to use any of the DS’s buttons if you do not want to. The entire game can be played with the use of the stylus. In fact, while playing the game I realized that a person with the use of just one hand could easily play Trauma Center 2 and not be hindered at all.

The stylus controls themselves are pretty accurate. During surgery you are presented with various tools which you must select and then use on the screen with the stylus. For instance in order to sew up a cut you have to select the needle and thread and then move the stylus back and forth in a zig zag pattern on the cut to sew it up. The game in essence tries to mimic the real life use of each tool using the stylus and touch screen.

Overall the controls work extremely well and I never really had any trouble getting each tool to do what I wanted it do.

I consider myself to be a very good gamer. Heck I started gaming back in the 2600 days. At one time I beat the original NES Ninja Gaiden without dying, I conquered the latest so called tough games of the day like the Ninja Gaiden remake and Devil May Cry. None of those games hold a candle to Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2. This game is HARD. At first I thought "maybe I'm just doing something wrong, truly the game can’t be that unforgiving"? But no, it really does require precision, expert timing, trial and error and a lot of skill to perform and pass many of the surgeries.

Some people may be put off by the difficulty level, but many gamers will actually find the challenge to be addictive. In this way the game is very much like an arcade game. You might die, but  you can’t help to put another quarter in the machine to take one more stab at beating the level. Thankfully the game is cartridge based and if you fail at any given surgery you can simply start the surgery over without the hassle of waiting for a load time.

The surgeries themselves are never repeated and start off with the basic cuts and bullet wounds and quickly ramp up to having to remove tumors in the stomach and fighting the return of a deadly virus. Each surgery is intense because of the time and health constraints and I often found myself very tense trying to finish a close surgery. To put it simply the surgeries are intense and fun.

 The game itself is separated into chapters with several levels within each chapter. Each level starts out with a narrative to continue the story and inevitably ends with Derek having to save another patient’s life. I won’t lie during this review and say that I finished the game, the difficulty level allowed me to get through five of the game's chapters. All of which told a continuous and compelling story.

This DS installment lacks some of the things found in the Wii versions, most importantly online play, so this time around the single player campaign is all you will get. However the single player campaign is not short, I suspect that I was about halfway through the game after five chapters and ten hours of gameplay.

With a price of $29.99 fans of the series will certainly find their money's worth. Those people who haven’t played the series before but who aren’t afraid of a challenge will also be pleased.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is a very addictive and fun game. Its difficulty may turn some gamers off, but those who stick with it and enjoy a challenge are in for a great time. The storyline is interesting and the cast of characters are likable. The surgeries themselves are the star of the show and provide intense and addictive portable gaming. This version does lack any form of multiplayer mode but given that the single player game is so solid it doesn't hurt the game that much. The bottom line is that if you like a challenging game, with tight controls and a solid storyline then you can’t go wrong with Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2.

Gaming Trend Score

84

1. Graphics: 80
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 95
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 80
6. OVERALL:84