Trauma Centre: Second Opinion (Hands-On) (Wii) Preview

Well, the first thing that you notice is how there are different difficulty settings available right from the start. Straight away this proves to be a major improvement as the DS game could get so deviously tricky at stages that you would often be left in a state where you probably needed some sort of medical care to calm your nerves! The other significant change is how the Wii controller is your tool of choice, rather than the stylus. To start with, personally it felt like a definite positive change as movement of equipment could be done in a much easier fashion. Sadly, though, there were instances where it lacked as much accuracy as the DS and its stylus, such as in operations using tweezers to pluck things out of a body and place them on a side tray.

The story appears to be exactly the same, with you being in control of a fresh-faced doctor by the name of Derek Stiles and start off in Hope Hospital being led by the hand by a pretty young nurse. Then, as the patients come in and you save the day on each occasion (or fail and then simply retry...), you move on from your humble beginnings and suddenly are left basically on your own for the most part. So you must learn what is required of you as quickly as possible. And despite the option of playing on Easy, Medium and Hard, the easiest setting still cranks up the drama and tension. So those thinking it will be an easy ride will really need to think again. Atlus has really tried to make Trauma Centre more accessible for a wider audience, but it is still definitely not for complete novices to gaming...or the faint-hearted, actually.

es, with the improved technology it means that the visuals have been upped to add more realism to the proceedings. Characters and backdrops are nicely drawn out in a colourful 2D art style, whilst when moving on to the actual operations and poking around inside patients, things move to a more three-dimensional appearance to aid with the realism side of matters. It may not be gruesome in the amount of detail shown, but this is certainly not for the squeamish. Cutting open the patient, cauterising wounds using powerful laser treatment, extracting puss, pulling out shards of glass from deep under the skin, stitching everything back together again and ensuring the appropriate injections have been used; it all makes for an experience that will not appeal to all, but definitely proves immense fun and gives a strong feeling of empowerment as you hold people's lives in the balance.

But the game is not without its hiccoughs, sadly, as some of the actions can feel either overly precise or as if the computer has carried out the action for you. Two complete extremes, I realise, but both are present. To clarify, when it comes to extraction of glass fragments underneath the skin, the initial build up is perfect. You scan the patient's body for the appropriate area to open up, zoom in to get a better view of the action and then get to work on plucking away the offending material using the surgical tweezers. The issue arises when you move the piece of glass away from the open body and try to place it in the side tray, ready to move onto the next shard. Unfortunately, unless you are extremely precise, it will not land on the tray and just magically jumps back into the body where it originally was. This can be highly frustrating, especially when the patient's heart rate is rapidly falling...

On the other hand, though, once you have cleared the area completely and cleaned up after yourself, the stitching of the fresh wound is a piece of cake. Rather than meticulously drawing a neat zig-zag across the wound, you can merely randomly wiggle the Wii controller across the gaping hole and still get a 'cool' from the voice-over and the wound is then perfectly sealed up. But these turn into minor issues in the long-term as everything else is so engrossing thanks to clever scripting and a vast array of operation types on offer (thankfully including new ones for those who have played the DS original).

As for how you actually make use of equipment that is all done via the Nunchuk attachment, with the selection options appearing in the bottom left of the screen and your choices being made by pushing in the appropriate direction. It may seem like the logical step to save time in crucial operations, but you cannot help feel that pointing and clicking on the equipment to select it would have been better. When having to rush through, hastily chopping and changing between pipettes, tweezers, needles and so on, especially the options that require you to push the analogue stick in a diagonal direction, mistakes are all too frequent an occurrence, with the wrong option being chosen. Again, though, it is something that time heals and the more you practice the more dexterous you become, preventing erroneous manoeuvres from arising on a regular basis. So, all-in-all, this Wii version of Trauma Centre leaves a better after-taste than the DS game did and really does deserve a "Second Opinion" (ahem)...