Trauma Centre: Under the Knife

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Trauma Centre: Under the Knife; review
Topic Started: Sunday Sep 17 2006, 02:27 PM (357 Views)
Acerlyte	Sunday Sep 17 2006, 02:27 PM Post #1
It's SuperCalaFreakinAwesome! Posts: 1,266 Group: Members Member #177 Joined: August 16, 2005 PSN ID Acerlyte	[doHTML]<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <title>TCreview</title> </head> <body> <table id="AutoNumber1" bordercolorlight="#000000" bordercolordark="#000000" style="border-collapse: collapse;" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" height="201"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="796" height="201"> <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; height: 204;" id="AutoNumber2" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td height="62" width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Trauma Centre: Under the Knife</font></b></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="1" width="100%"> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber2" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" height="154" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td height="23" width="100%"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>Developer:</b> Atlus</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="23" width="100%"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>Publisher: </b>Atlus</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="23" width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2">Genre</font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>:</b> Simulation</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="23" width="100%"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>Players: </b>1</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="23" width="100%"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b> Classification: </b>Teen (PG for Aus)</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="23" width="100%"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>Release Date: </b> 04/10/2005</font></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> <td width="186" height="201"> <p align="center"> <a href="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/index_trauma_box.jpg"><img style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 220px;" alt="" src="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/index_trauma_box.jpg"></a><br> </p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p align="center"> </p> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber3" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#111111" cellspacing="1" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Introduction...</font></b></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><font face="Tahoma" size="2">"Doctor! The patient has suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of a car accident, multiple lacerations and several shards of glass are lodged in the chest. His heart rate has stopped and my attempts to revive him have failed!" <br> <br> "You must DO something Doctor!"<br> <br> This is one of many scenarios Trauma Center: Under the Knife (referred to as TC:UTK from now on) will throw you into, pitting your skills against life and death situations to save the lives of your patients on the operating table. As the rookie Doctor, Derek Stiles, you'll be facing ever increasing odds with each operation you're thrown into. You will extract tumors, get close up and personal when treating aneurisms and even take on delicate heart surgery all to face an unknown and potentially world threatening virus, find out where it came from and put a stop to it. Heck you even put your precise surgery skills to the test attempting to disarm a bomb! Now that's going beyond the call of duty!</font></p> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber4" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#111111" cellspacing="1" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Gameplay...</font></b></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">With all of these complicated operations to undertake, it's nice to know that TC:UTK starts off with a gentle learning curve. The entire game is played via the DS' touch screen with nary a button pressed beyond pausing and, if you're so inclined, skipping dialogue. When you turn on the game you are presented with three menu options: start a new game, load a new game and an option to replay operations you've previously completed in the game's main story. Start a new game puts you into the story mode, which is played out in chapters and follows Dr. Stiles' career. At the beginning of a story scene the bottom screen displays a world map of sorts in the city of Angeles Bay. The top screen displays scenes with a background picture of the where you are at the time and also plays out the story in text accompanied with nicely drawn character art to show who's talking, and frequently changes to match the emotions they are conveying in the dialogue. Simply progess through the dialog by tapping the touch screen or if you want to get right into the gameplay, fast forward through scenes with the select button.<br> </font></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><img style="width: 256px; height: 384px;" alt="" src="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/chara-02_03b.gif"><br> <small style="font-weight: bold;">You get scolded a lot.</small><br> </font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><br> </font> <div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">The game doesn't muck around getting into the action quickly, with your first operation being the simple extraction glass shards from some wounds and to suture them up. After a short briefing the operation screen comes up and it's time to play doctor! Operations are time limited, meaning you must solve all the problems a patient is suffering from and have them stiched up before the time runs out or it's off to the game over screen you go. There is also a certain amount of mistakes you can make before you're thrown out of the operating room and once again shown the game over screen. These mistakes can consist of things like not pulling out foreign objects in the correct manner, making an incision too fast or even injecting the wrong medicine in the wrong area. If that wasn't enough, you also have the patient's vital signs to keep track of displayed at the top of the screen; if they hit zero you've failed your operation. You might be thinking the odds against you as it is, but you haven't even lifted a scapel yet! Thankfully you have quite an arsenal of surgical equipment at your disposal, complete from the bandages to syringes, forceps to even you own hands. These tools are arranged in lists on both sides of the touch screen and are selected by tapping them, though some tools such as the syringe require further action before use. Once you have selected your tool, it must then be used on the patient in varying ways from sliding the stylus across the screen to make an incision with the scapel, tapping the screen to activate the ultrasound and find hidden tumors or zig-zagging across wounds to suture them up, as well as "click and dragging" foreign objects across the screen into the surgical tray.</font><br> </div> <font face="Tahoma" size="2"> <br> </font></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><img style="width: 256px; height: 384px;" alt="" src="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/system-02_00.gif"></font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><br> <small style="font-weight: bold;">No, you won't find any House look-alikes</small><br> <br> </font> <div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">Initially, remembering where all the tools are may seem quite daunting, but it doesn't take long before you start automatically reaching for tools without a second thought. Though the first few operations could be thought of as tutorials, the challenge increases quick pace and you will not only need to be fast and accurate, to avoid making any mistakes, but also make use of micro management; all to avoid decreasing your patient's vitals further. This often results in some rather frantic moments as you watch your patient's life start slipping away as you're desperately trying to suture up wounds and attend to other complications all at the same time. The assistant nurse will pipe up on occasion to tell you what to do next during an operation, incase you've forgotten what you need to doing. Though in later operations when you know exactly what has to be done she becomes more trouble than she's worth, as every time she has something to say you need to tap a button to go through her dialogue before you can get back to operating. Thankfully the operation is paused whenever this happens, but it does have a tendancy to throw your concentration off or worse yet make you impatient and potentially make mistakes you wouldn't have normally. It would have been more convenient if they put the DS' microphone to use, instead. </font><br> <font face="Tahoma" size="2"></font></div> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <p><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><img style="width: 256px; height: 384px;" alt="" src="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/scene-02_04.gif"><br> <small style="font-weight: bold;">Yep, and I have my copy of TC to thank for it!</small><br> <br> </font></p> <div style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"> The challenge of Trauma Center rises quickly after a certain plot twist comes into play and you take on some very difficult viruses toward the end of the game. It can be be quite challenging, but if you keep your cool and take breaks now and then, you won't be driven to the point of frustration. Chances are even after failing time and again you'll be determined enough to press on and complete the operation successfully. The story is quite interesting and keeps you motivated to press on even during the most difficult operations.<br> </font></div> </div> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber5" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#111111" cellspacing="1" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Graphics...</font></b></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><img style="width: 256px; height: 384px;" alt="" src="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/system-02_02-%28use-bottom%29.gif"><br> <small style="font-weight: bold;">Open heart surgery, oh and you are getting yelled at.</small><br> </font></div> <p style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">As mentioned earlier, the story scenes are limited to character art, although it's nice and clean with a style that fans of anime or manga are sure to find appealing. If you are worried about seeing buckets of blood and gore with mutilated organs during operations, then worry not! The operation scene's graphics are quite clean looking and although you can definately make out the shape of a heart from a lung and a laceration from inflamed tissue, there's not enough detail to make you feel queezy. This is actually one game where the lack of detail is actually a saving grace! Animation is fluid with slowdown occuring very rarely. Overall it does a fine job graphically despite not being earth shattering, though you wouldn't have time to enjoy the graphics even if they were stunning!</font></p> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber6" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#111111" cellspacing="1" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Sound...</font></b></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">As with the graphics, the sound is rather simple but ever so effective. The sound effects during the operation clearly convey the actions you take. When a wound opens it makes a very distinct "sword slash" noise and you know instantly what has just occured. With most actions you take, you're graded on your accuracy with a high pitched chime for doing it great, a low pitched chime for doing it poorly and the previously mentioned slash sound for messing it up entirely. There are some voices from the nurses that are limited to one liners, such as 'Doctor!' when they have something to tell you or if you are about to do something stupid. The background music is great and really suits the various moments in the game. There isn't a lot of variety but what there is sets the mood of each event perfectly and in the operations the music will heighten as the stakes become higher. </font></p> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber7" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#111111" cellspacing="1" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Replayability...</font></b></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p style="text-align: left;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">Unfortunately the story mode is all over too quickly for my liking and while almost everything is wrapped up story-wise, you still feel as though it ended rather abruptly. However, once the game is finished you can replay all of the operations again in the challenge mode. You are given a rank based on your score for each operation, which means you can replay them over and over again until you achieve the top rank for each of them - S rank. This is actually quite a bit harder than you would think, as you need to perform operations almost perfectly and complete them as fast as possible at the same time - much more difficult than merely completing an operation successfully. Additionally, after the story mode is completed you're given an entirely new set of 'X' operations which are demonically harder versions of certain viruses during the story that you can try and beat. There isn't a lot you get as a reward to completing these other than personal satisfaction, bragging rights and a little bit more storyline. They are ridiculously difficult and if you struggled your way through the main story you may want to steer clear of the 'X' operations until you've scored a few S-ranks, unless you're a glutton for punishment. Unfortunately there's no multiplayer, which could have made for an interesting setup, here's hoping the pseudo-sequel for Nintendo Wii changes that!<br> </font></p> <table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber8" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" border="1" bordercolor="#111111" cellspacing="1" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="100%"><b><font face="Tahoma" size="4">Conclusion...</font></b></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><img style="width: 256px; height: 384px;" alt="" src="http://www.users.on.net/Acerlyte/pictures/scene-01_05-%28use-top%29.gif"><br> </font><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><small style="font-weight: bold;">This can't be good...</small></font><br> </div> <p><font face="Tahoma" size="2">While this game is getting on a bit now, having been released nearly a year ago, it's still highly enjoyable each time you pick it up. It's easy to become captivated by the intensity of the operations and figuring out new and better ways to approach them. Some people have even gone so far as to use two styluses to increase their effectiveness, which is quite a sight to behold. The way Trauma Center is presented isn't terribly ground breaking, no one will marvel at it's graphics or sound, but they will be drawn in by the sheer originality of being a surgeon in a game. The use of the touch screen is incredibly creative and goes to show that it is much more than a mere "gimmick". Some might complain of it being a tad too difficult but since it is still a rather short experience that perhaps that is a good thing. All in all an addictive and challenging game, well worth the money if you can find it. No DS collection is complete without it!<br> You will not find another gaming experience like it, until at least the new addition to the series is released for the Wii!<br> <br> Written by Acerlyte<br> Edited by Demaar<br> Pictures c/o Atlus. Co</font></p> <p><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"></font></font></p> </body> </html> [/doHTML]
	Recently finished: Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank:TOD, Bionic Commando Rearmed Playing: LittleBigPlanet, Rockband!!!111 Yes. In under 3 months I went from being a 360 owner to a PS3 owner. Idiotic? Maybe. Financial Stupidity? Definately. Do I care? No bloody way!


Demaar	Sunday Sep 17 2006, 04:03 PM Post #2
Sometimes I think I was born backwards Posts: 9,694 Group: Moderators Member #195 Joined: August 24, 2005 XBL Gamer Tag EssThree	If I didn't already own the game I would have rushed out and bought it! :lol: Seriously though, it was a good review before I got anywhere near it. All I did really was tighten it up a little. Nice work man.
	My DSA Blog, Twitter


Ingram	Sunday Sep 17 2006, 05:01 PM Post #3
WHY SO SERIOUS! Posts: 8,830 Group: Administrators Member #1 Joined: February 9, 2005 XBL Gamer Tag Master Ingram	Nice review. Though I had to fixup your HTML coding it was screwed up :P



Acerlyte	Sunday Sep 17 2006, 05:19 PM Post #4
It's SuperCalaFreakinAwesome! Posts: 1,266 Group: Members Member #177 Joined: August 16, 2005 PSN ID Acerlyte	Yeah?? How so dude so I can make sure it doesn't happen again.
	Recently finished: Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank:TOD, Bionic Commando Rearmed Playing: LittleBigPlanet, Rockband!!!111 Yes. In under 3 months I went from being a 360 owner to a PS3 owner. Idiotic? Maybe. Financial Stupidity? Definately. Do I care? No bloody way!


Chiasmata	Sunday Sep 17 2006, 05:19 PM Post #5
Sense is not common. Posts: 2,144 Group: Moderators Member #486 Joined: November 25, 2005	Great review! Very nicely written. :) If I didn't know this was coming out on the Wii I'd get it.
	I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.- Robert McCloskey


Eagle Boy	Sunday Sep 17 2006, 09:03 PM Post #6
Unregistered	Rating? Great review Spelling mistake 3rd line of Graphics. You spelt Queasy Queezy :D
Unregistered


Demaar	Monday Sep 18 2006, 12:14 AM Post #7
Sometimes I think I was born backwards Posts: 9,694 Group: Moderators Member #195 Joined: August 24, 2005 XBL Gamer Tag EssThree	ellisxanthis Sep 17 2006, 08:03 PM Spelling mistake 3rd line of Graphics. You spelt Queasy Queezy :D That was my fault. I made a combination mistake of going with the US spelling (queazy) and typoing... oops. Quote: Rating? Ace and I both agreed that ratings are kind of stupid. Even though "5" is an average game (not what I'd give TC by the way, not by a long shot), people think 5 is bad. The rating I would honestly give Trauma Center would be misleading to people, they'd think I find the game worse than it is. Thus, I find the perception of ratings is flawed which in turn makes ratings flawed. Acerlyte has different reasons, and I'll let him say them if he wants.
	My DSA Blog, Twitter


Eagle Boy	Monday Sep 18 2006, 12:23 AM Post #8
Unregistered	JUST TELL ME HOW YOU KNOW ACERLYTE!!! ffs.
Unregistered


Demaar	Monday Sep 18 2006, 12:26 AM Post #9
Sometimes I think I was born backwards Posts: 9,694 Group: Moderators Member #195 Joined: August 24, 2005 XBL Gamer Tag EssThree	I met him in... uh... hmmm. I forget how, but I was in grade 6 at the time. He introduced me to DSAU.
	My DSA Blog, Twitter


Eagle Boy	Monday Sep 18 2006, 12:57 AM Post #10
Unregistered	Ohh so a long time ago hmm.... How old are you?
Unregistered


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