Trauma Center: Second Opinion Review

Nobody enjoys going to the doctor. If you aren’t in pain when you leave thanks to the doctor lying about “this isn’t going to hurt,” you leave embarrassed, because he/she made you drop your pants in front of him/her. It’s important work, though, and I’m sure we’ve all dreamed about being a doctor at some point, whether it was for the money or for the satisfaction of saving people’s lives. But if medical school isn’t so inviting, it’s always nice to have a video game equivalent to fall back on.

Trauma Center isn’t exactly like the real thing, though. The graphical style is a constant reminder this is just a game since nothing about it will make you say, “Wow, that looks so realistic!” That doesn’t mean making an incision in a featureless polygonal model isn’t unsettling. Draining blood from a gaping cut or realigning broken bones in an arm will make those with weak stomachs a little queasy. But this mood is lightened by Trauma Center’s anime-inspired character designs. The only problem with this is how they are presented in the numerous cut scenes. They don’t move or animate at all. They’re simply static cutouts against drab backgrounds that take turns talking. You never get to see any of the action that is supposedly happening, and it’s not very interesting as such.

The empty presentation is only worsened by a lack of voice acting. Even though characters will occasionally say, “Let’s start the operation!” or, “Be careful, Doctor!” most of the dialogue is text-only. This makes the atmosphere of an operation very claustrophobic and empty. It would be so much more engrossing to have your assistants talking to you–actually talking to you–while you operate so you don’t have to break your concentration to read their dialogue boxes. It would have also been nice to hear somebody pronounce correctly a lot of these long, complicated medical terms. And for as heavy as this game is on narrative, it’s kind of annoying you have to read the cut scenes like a book.

Despite how lifeless the game comes across in graphics and sound, Trauma Center manages to entertain all the same. This isn’t like Cooking Mama or Rayman Raving Rabbids where the tasks at hand are cute, little mini-games. This is a series of operations, and the sense of urgency is very real. Not only is every operation timed, you have to keep an eye on your patient’s vitals. If cuts aren’t mended right away, or if you miss your target with the scalpel, the vitals will drop. You can do things to bring them back up–like inject the patient with some kind of magical juice–but if the vitals ever reach zero, the operation is a failure. As such, Trauma Center is an incredibly engaging and stressful experience. After making an initial incision, you enter the human body where anything is possible. Tumors. Pieces of glass stuck in the liver. A kidney in need of a transplant. The selection of tools isn’t overbearing, though. You mostly just use a scalpel, stitching, antibiotic gel, fluid drain, and laser. Yet the problems you face are clever, fun, and slightly disturbing.

However, Trauma Center is almost as much story as it is gameplay, and the story delves into some pretty far-out ideas. In only the first few hours of play, you’ll run into an outbreak of a special virus known as GUILT. These viruses are like little aliens/bugs crawling around inside of people’s bodies, and their presence makes the game feel more like a science-fiction melodrama than the everyday struggles of a surgeon… which is what I had hoped for. Trauma Center is at its best when you are treating common ailments, but these operations are few and far between.