Trauma Center: Under the Knife

I generally like games that are not classed as “normal”, hence I have a Nintendo DS and a Nintendo Wii. So when I saw Trauma Center: Under the Knife at a knock down price I had to pick myself up a copy.

The angle the game comes from is that you are a young doctor fresh out of med school starting work in his first hospital. You then proceed to go to work on progressively more difficult surgical operations. These start easy, clean wound A, drain lump B, remove huge piece of glass imbedded in man’s pumping heart and sew the gaping bloody wound it leaves before he dies from blood loss C.

You know, fairly routine every day stuff. The learning curve is slow to start with and there’s an almost step-by-step walkthrough on how not to kill a man with a piece of surgical equipment. But don’t worry, you will!

The game itself makes very good use of the Nintendo DS touch screen allowing you to clean, drain, slice, remove, laser, bandage, inject and sew your way through mind boggling procedures. I was surprised how quickly I picked up/remembered the controls for each action and how much I cared that the patience on “MY” table defied the grim reaper and live to tell his near death tail.

The story is engrossing if a little slow at times but the story line and procedures kept me entertained for hours. The replay quality in the game once complete had me zooming back to the beginning trying to get an A ranking on all my procedures and re-living those nightmare patients that seem to live by Sod’s Law (what can go wrong will go wrong).

No multi-player action here, but that does not take away from a fantastic game. As far as new ideas go this little gem is easy to pickup and pleasing to the eye. In my opinion one of the best NDS titles (and as Trauma Centre 2 has been released a cheap copy should be easy to pickup).

In Short: Trauma Center: Under the Knife is a new idea executed very well that will keep you entertained, if not a little freaked out, for some time, definitely one of the Nintendo DS top games.