Trauma Center: Under the Knife was a surgical simulation game that took advantage of the touch sensitive screen on the DS, which enabled you to use a pen to make incisions, extractions, and other surgical stuff by drawing. It is pretty unique as far as games go, and has a very strong anime-touch to it. Here's the review.

Plot: Okay, it is impossible to look into this game without spoilers. The instruction book spoils the plot even. So, before you read ahead, pay attention:

SPOILER ALERT

In the not-so-distant future, mankind has reached it's peak of medical proficiency. Normally incurable diseases such as AIDS have been cured. Awesome huh? But now, a strange man-made virus called GUILT has been killing innocents. It is so powerful, a new term called Medical Terrorism has been created (They forgot about Germ Warfare).

And now for the lighter side. Take control of Derek Styles (Initials DS. Coincidence?), a rookie doctor who must harness his surgical skills to their fullest to treat disease, injuries, and other stuff.

Okay, as far as surgery goes, some of it is by the books. But you deal with no superficial wounds. At all. Even in your first surgery you have to cut into a mans arm to extract glass. And once you get further into the game to take on the GUILT, you can shoot regular procedure right in the face.

Gameplay: You are armed with various tools for the job:

Scalpel: Perform incisions and cut at stuff.
Forceps: Extract foreign objects or pinch shut large wounds.
Suction: Extract fluids, gas, spores, and stuff like that.
Laser: Burn away at tumors or GUILT
Anti-Biotic Gel: Disinfect areas and close wounds too small for sutures
Sutures: Sew shut large wounds
Syringe: Inject stuff into your patient such as medicine to control vitals, or other stuff
Ultrasound: Expose tumors or other stuff that is hiding under flesh, used to indicate where you need to cut. Also acts as the magnifying tool
Hand: Perform heart massage to treat cardiac arrest, or to seal certain types of wounds
Healing Touch: Draw a pentagram on your screen you evil heathen and slow down time
Bandages: Close everything up once you're done

Though initially you perform regular surgeries such as glass extraction, tumors, but then gets tricky with heart surgery. But the big battle of the game is finding the cure for GUILT a virus with seven different strains, named for a day of the week (And, as a personal peeve of mine, none of the GUILT strains are proper viruses, they are all parasites or protozoa). To make surgery easier, you can slow down time with the Healing Touch ability, and also defy logic with the Stabalizer injection, which raises your patients vitals. You have to perform every objective of a surgery without letting your patients vitals drop below zero. Your various tools also wear down with constant use. Though they replenish over time, if you completely drain a tools durability, it will become unusable for a short period of time.

Oh... and one more pet peeve of mine which pops up on the heart surgeries... when your patient suffers cardiac arrest, you perform heart massage to revive them by combining the anti-biotic gel and hand tool. That doesn't work. The point of CPR is to keep the blood and oxygen flow at least partially active until the patients heart can be restarted using electricity and bicarbs.

Music: Some of it is kind of annoying, but some of it is also very good. Though the sound effects lack variety.

Graphics: Well... you really can't be realistic here and keep the T rating. The anatomy on the patients is like that of a doll, so you can't see any proper detail. Some of the organs are also a little strange looking, and some stuff is very strangely colored. Also take note on chest surgeries that it seems like your patients don't have ribs. But it still is pretty decent looking (Especially the nurses)

Difficulty: HOLY !@#$ING s**t!!!!!! You will see the game over screen dozens of times before you are even half-way through the game. The difficulty is not adjustable, and some surgeries will seem near-impossible. Be on your toes, especially on the surgeries around the heart.

Overall: Addicting, but very frustrating. It also lacks some realistic qualities. But it is still fun, and worth buying. You can perform previously completed surgeries over in the Challenge mode to improve your skill, or take on the extra difficult surgeries which don't appear in the main storyline. Despite all the hype though, in my mind, the two most difficult surgeries are the Parasveki surgery and the Triti surgery.

My rating: 8/10

Extra: There is a remake of this game on the Nintendo Wii, Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Once i get a Nintendo Wii, i will write a second review for that game.