Trauma Center: Under The Knife 2

Platform: Nintendo DS
Release Date: TBA
Price: £15-20 (Import)

Good Points: Retains the charm, innovativeness and challenge of its DS predecessor – Fantastic and gripping plot – Plenty of new operations to try your hand at.

Bad Points: Some levels are hard enough to make you tear your hair out – One level has you breaking a mechanical lock with surgical equipment.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is the sequel of the surgical sim which hit the stores in April 2006. In a nutshell, Trauma Center puts you in the role of Dr. Derek Stiles – a genius surgeon who leads the fight against the outbreak of bioterrorism. In this second instalment you must once again face the deadly man-made disease GUILT and solve the mystery of who is behind it all. This game, whilst simplifying the complicated art of surgery to a near absurd level is probably one of the most addictive and well made games for the DS, and uses the handheld console to the maximum of its capabilities.

The story this time begins in the African Republic of Costigar, where a war is being waged and Dr. Stiles and his faithful assistant Nurse Angie Thompson are volunteer medical staff helping to treat casualties of war. Soon you meet a new and (later) significant character, Dr. Adel Tulba who is a rookie surgeon sent help Dr. Stiles and Nurse Thompson. After various war-related surgeries, the main plot kicks in and we see the return of GUILT, and thus the stage is set for a thrilling battle which will no doubt keep you hooked throughout.

For those unfamiliar with the gameplay of Trauma Center, it is basically a medical themed puzzle game where you must use a variety of tools to combat different afflictions. It is not “gory” or graphic in any way and at times (especially when fighting GUILT) you almost forget it is a virtual human body you are operating on. The primary objective, quite obviously, is to keep your patient alive and this is done by keeping the “vitals” which is a numerical representation of the patient’s condition, above 0. There is also a time limit on every level (normally 5 minutes) in which you must complete the surgery. Let your patients vitals hit 0 or run out of time and you will get the most depressing game over screen ever (trust me, you WILL see this at some point and you WILL cry). One of the main features of Trauma Center’s surgeries is the “Healing Touch” the divine gift that Dr. Stiles possesses which allows him to slow down time and perform surgeries at incredible speeds. In Trauma Center this is done by selecting the Healing Touch from the game’s interface and drawing a star on screen, and while this does not make the time limit go down any slower, the patient’s vitals will decrease slower and whatever is causing the patient harm will be slowed in its attack.

For fans of the previous game (and perhaps the Wii counterparts) you will pleased to hear that while new features have been added, the surgeries play out in much the same way as before. Before each surgery you get a briefing of the patient’s condition and an objective and then you must get to work. A lot of the same tools return as well as a few new ones such as the defibrillator (the electric shock thingies they shove on your chest) which is used to resuscitate patients who go into cardiac arrest. But you can still inject stabiliser to raise your patient’s vitals, stitch up wounds with a small scribble and burn off nasty tumours with a laser. There is also a fair amount of new types of surgery to perform, such as putting broken bones back together as well as various new strains of GUILT to deal with. The token “fluff level” returns (if you recall the bomb disposal of Trauma Center 1) and this time you must disable a mechanical lock using your surgical skills and tools – as ridiculous and needlessly hard as ever.

Trauma Center 2 is still devilishly difficult at times but unlike the original you can change the difficulty of each surgery, and there is an “easy” option this time (however I never resorted to this and neither should you). The X missions also make a return once you have finished the main plot, in which you replay all the forms of GUILT at “extreme” difficulty – not for the faint of heart.

The game’s design is very similar to the original – reasonably realistic 3D organs in the operation screen and 2D anime backgrounds and characters in dialogue screens (of which there are a lot). The plot is one of the major parts of Trauma Center and these screens are well animated and even include the occasional bit of voice acting for emphasis. The characters have been slightly toned down from the somewhat wacky style of the first game, but you will recognise all your old friends easily.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 takes what made its predecessor so addictive and fun and expands on it, resulting in a much better game. The difficulty has been calmed down (somewhat) making it far more accessible to the casual gamer, but it still has the difficulty options for it to pose a serious challenge to more hardened gamers. The plot is more exciting and deeper than the previous game and will keep you thoroughly entertained for the good 12-15 hours it should take you to finish – and for those of you flying through the first few levels thinking you’ll be done in an hour or two, trust me you’ll find one operation that will have you tearing chunks out your hair soon enough. Overall Trauma Center 2 is one of the best uses of the touch screen you will ever see, and unless you instantly hate it you will get completely addicted to this game and enjoy every second of it. For the time being there is no European release date, so if you can’t wait to see if it ever hits our shores then you can import it, but if not you might have a long wait to play this fantastic game.

Score: 4.5/5