Trauma Center: Second Opinion

December 11,2006 - The Wii, like the DS, is a system based on giving users new ways to control their games for a more interactive experience. To reinforce this new philosophy, it’s no surprise that a remake of a DS title is one of the first Wii games. In Trauma Center: Second Opinion, the Wii Remote acts as your tool in the war to help the sick and injured. Featuring redrawn artwork, new operations, tools, and a redesigned control scheme, Trauma Center looks to be the launch title that the Wii Remote was built for.
 
Those familiar with Trauma Center: Under the Knife will recognize Dr. Derek Stiles, a young, up-and-coming doctor looking to prove his worth to his peers. Even though he’s the main character, Derek is just one man in a large cast of interesting characters with distinct personalities that add a lot to the story. The story is presented through still images and text dialog, but still manages to be engrossing, while touching on deep, emotional and psychological topics along the way. The main story finds Derek and his assistant Angie wrapped up in a bioterrorist group’s plot to release a plague, called GUILT, upon the world.
 
Between story sequences, you’ll be performing surgery in a first-person view. These surgeries typically consist of making the initial incision, performing the necessary tasks inside the patient, and closing up the incision. After each operation, you’re graded on how well the work was performed and how efficiently it was completed. Couple this with nearly fifty operations and three difficulty settings, and the game has quite a bit of replay value. The difficulty curve progresses smoothly, avoiding many spikes in challenge, but don’t expect to breeze through the game, even on easy. Even so, the five minutes that you’re given to complete the operations makes the game great for short bursts, but inviting enough to keep playing for hours at a time. Most gamers should be able to complete Second Opinion after ten to fifteen hours.
 
The game starts off with a great amount of variety in the operations. Simple tasks like removing tumors, helping accident victims, and mending compound fractures keep the game fresh, but the last two-thirds of the game is spent fighting GUILT in its many forms and tends to drag on. You’re left longing to return to the types of operations you performed early on in the game, instead of fighting the same forms of GUILT you’ve fought for the last few hours, which becomes a chore. Livening up the game are several tense, exciting operations that provide for memorable experiences, like using the defibrillator for the first time in the midst of a frantic operation. Unfortunately, there is some slowdown during the busiest points of the game, but that happens on only one or two operations in the whole game.
 
Saving the repetitive nature of the operations are the intuitive use of the Wii Remote and nunchuck, the Wii Remote acting as your tools while the nunchuck’s analog stick selects a tool from the radial menu. The controls for these tools are cleverly designed; tools like the forceps require the A and B buttons to be pressed to grab objects, mimicking the use of forceps in the real world. The defibrillator, a new tool added in the transition to the Wii, requires pressing forward both the nunchuck and Wii Remote to be pressed against the patient’s chest. The Z and B buttons are used to initiate the shock, the amount of charge needing to be timed with a golf swing-style meter. Little touches like this can be found throughout the game, and add a great deal to the enjoyment to performing these operations.
 
The visuals of Second Opinion fit the game well, but could have been better in certain areas. As mentioned before, the story sequences feature anime-style stills of the characters with simple text filling in for the partial voiceovers. It would have been nice to see more animation in these stills, rather than seeing one still of a character disappear for a few seconds, then reappear with a different emotion.

Those with weak stomachs shouldn’t have any trouble with the in-game surgery, as it’s kept simple enough to avoid being gruesome. The surgery HUD functions very well, giving you the best view of the area you’re working on without interfering or becoming obtrusive. The only problem is at times your assistant blocks the action with her text when dealing with GUILT.
 
Like the visuals, Second Opinion’s audio fits the game, but isn’t all that remarkable. The story sequences rely mostly on text instead of voiceovers, but the brief pieces of voiceover leave you wanting all the sequences fully-voiced. The music behind the game usually works very well to set the mood, with some great music during the tense moments of operating. However, during a majority of the surgeries you perform, most of the music tends to be forgettable. Sound effects during the surgeries work well in representing the typical operating room sounds, with the heart rate monitor setting the tone for the operations.
 
Despite the repetitive nature of the operations by the end of Trauma Center: Second Opinion, it manages to be a worthwhile single-player experience, and more than any other launch title, it’s a great showcase for the Wii Remote. Don’t expect a technical masterpiece, just a game that gets by on functional looks. At least give the game a rental, if not just to see what Nintendo’s little remote can do.

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