Trauma Center: New Blood

By Sam Leitch

The concept of playing as a surgeon isn’t one that comes around often, and when on the shelf next to a WWII game may get lost in the crowd. If you give any of the Trauma Center games a go, though, you’ll find a quirky little game which is fiendishly addictive - and as you may have guessed, quite unlike anything you have played before.

If you have ever played or seen the board game Operation, then you’ll have a rough idea what to expect here. Of course, making use of the Wii’s super motion-whatsits, Trauma Center is a lot more advanced. You’ll have many different patients, each with their own challenges. Instead of sitting calmly around a table, you’ll be waving your virtual knife around over your head stitching people up, cutting people up, removing bone fragments and all the rest of it with the best of them. And to think people usually need to go to medical school for years to learn all this stuff…

The biggest improvement over the last couple of outings is the inclusion of a co-op mode. Playing through this mode, you and a mate will have to work together to save virtual lives. Adding in a second player is bound to make the game a lot more fun; just remember – don’t drink and operate in real life! Of course, Trauma Center still has a comprehensive single-player mode which unfolds like a medical drama to keep you occupied when no-one else is around.

For those of you that haven’t played a Trauma Center game before, this ought to be the best place to start. Fans of the series will dig (or is that cut?) the co-operative mode, but perhaps single-player will have lost its originality the third time through. Either way, it looks like the Wii should have another quality game under its little belt, and one more title to pull out when your mates are over. That can’t be a bad thing.

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