Does anyone remember Life & Death? My fond memories of mouse-driven surgery in glorious Macintosh black-and-white were what drew me to the original Trauma Center for the DS, but from there, the game more than stood on its own. Trauma Center: Under the Knife accelerated rapidly from the realm of suturing lacerations to a bizarre tale where unspeakable injuries can only be treated by drawing pentagrams on your patients, but the core gameplay was solid, and as such, I'm glad to know a sequel is on the way.
Atlus says the new game is going to have an "easy-play" mode, and I think that's going to do a lot for the title. If it's anything like its predecessor, Under the Knife 2 is going to start out simple and get hard as hell. I suppose it's only fair that a game based on surgery be very difficult; surgeons have to go through years of training, whereas you get to just snatch up your controller and start a-slicin'. I remember Life & Death being ridiculously hard, too, but for different reasons. The gameplay was actually quite calm and predictable, and if you had a steady hand, it wasn't too difficult, assuming you knew what you were doing. The game gave you little to no instruction on proper medical procedure, and if you made a single error, you were done. "Whoops, your patient bled to death because you didn't cauterize the incision. What's that? You didn't know there was a cauterizing tool and nobody told you about it? I guess you have no business being a surgeon. Good day, sir." It was actually fairly realistic in this regard; if you're going to pick up a scalpel, maybe you ought to have some idea where it goes--not a terrible lesson, really.
Trauma Center, on the other hand, holds your hand as you go, instructing you carefully on the interface and on your expected procedures. This is very nice of it, and also 100% necessary in order to prepare you for the extremely unforgiving problems your patients will suddenly have. "Drag the stylus across the dotted line. A perfectly smooth incision, you're doing great! Oh--your patient has nine simultaneous tumors which have all hemorrhaged in the span of two seconds and you didn't use your magical lightspeed surgery. Way to be the worst doctor ever."
Surgery is hard. Let's go shopping!
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