Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2

"There is no drug to cure the addictiveness of this game"

The big titles this generation appear to be based on shooting everything that moves and is not one of your allies. Call of Duty, Halo, Bioshock, Resistance, your objective always seems to be ending people's lives. Atlus, mostly known for its RPGs where you kill a whole bunch of weird demons in the Shin Megami Tensei series, created the Trauma Center franchise back in 2006 for the DS, a surgery simulator on saving lives rather than ending them. It was one of those ideas that doesn't sound like it should work, but the game has gathered a pretty loyal following. Two years and two Wii games later, the series comes back to the DS with Under the Knife 2, which, just like New Blood for the Wii, improves on the first DS game in practically every conceivable way.

Under the Knife 2 takes place three years after the events of the first game. It places our hero, Dr. Derek Stiles, and his lovely assistant Angie Thompson in a fictional African nation known as Costigar. The two are working with a third doctor, Adel Tulba, in an attempt to solve the mystery of a strange fever that has been killing off some the people there, and to make matters worse, there's a civil war going on. After a while, the three of them go back to America only to discover that the GUILT, thought to be destroyed in the first game, has made its triumphant return. Once again, it's up to Stiles and Angie to rid the world of GUILT once and for all. Most of the characters that you remember from the first game are back, including Dr. Kasal and his brother, Victor, and Tyler, as well as some new characters that many fans will find interesting. As is par for the course for the series, the game's story line is pretty good with its interesting characters, but it's still very overdramatic. At least one time, you'll be preparing a routine operation and Dr. Stiles will blurt out some dramatic one liner such as "I WILL save this patient!" or "I won't let you die!". Despite this, the story does more than enough to keep the player at least semi-interested.

Trauma Center hasn't tried to evolve its style in the last two years, but it really hasn't had to. The basic formula works very well; you play through a series of chapters to progress through the game. At the beginning of each operation, you'll be given a back story, followed by a briefing segment to tell you what to do before you begin. Under the Knife 2 does bring back the episodes where there are no operations, unlike New Blood which had every episode with an operation. Some of these are kinda pointless, and could have been replaced with operations. You'll be given a rank for each operation, but unlike New Blood, there are no leaderboards or co-op play, which is a bit disappointing.

The gameplay has not experienced so much of an overhaul as it has a makeover. The interface is much cleaner than in the first game, and the operations play more like the Wii version of the games (though no nunchau to quickly change tools). The controls are, par for the course, fantastic. You'll be performing practically everything in the operation with the stylus, and it all works incredibly well. Those who haven't played Trauma Center on the DS will find that it takes some getting used to, but after a couple operations, you'll be fixing lacerations, removing tumors, and fixing up bones with ease. You have your usual assortment of tools in hand, as well as the Healing Touch, which you perform by selecting the star icon and drawing a star. It's easier for obvious reasons, and the game doesn't punish you too much if your star is a bit deformed.

Operations are varied quite well in Under the Knife 2, although it does seem that they borrowed a bit too much from New Blood. Some of the operations are taken straight from New Blood, and it just seems that they needed something to fill in some operations. That being said, there still is never too much of one thing, unlike before where you were bogged down with GUILT operation after GUILT operation. Speaking of GUILT, their new operations are very nice as well. You'll face three of the original GUILT, except there will be some slight changes to them, but you'll also be facing four brand new strains known as Neo-GUILT. These operations are pretty fun, albeit a bit frustrating at times.

If there has been one major complaint about the Trauma Center series, it has been its brutal difficulty curve. It seems to spike up and down, not being able to find a spot where it's perfect. That is, until this game. The difficulty curve is essentially perfect, with some of the more difficult operations near the end of the game, instead of at the start. Instructions are also much clearer in Under the Knife 2 than they were in New Blood, with helpful arrows on some of the operations in case you don't remember where to put the pacemaker. That's not to say Under the Knife 2 is easy, there are still some very difficult operations, especially near the end, and of course, the extreme missions will test the sanity of even the most skilled pretend surgeons.

The first DS game looked a bit underwhelming visually, with odd character models, and kinda blotchy organs. Under the Knife 2 fixes this by using the Wii versions style of visuals. The characters look more like the models from Second Opinion, and the organs also look like the Wii version, thus a lot cleaner (strange thing to say about a surgery game) and smoother. There's no voice acting (again, disappointing after New Blood) but the voice clips that are there fit the characters well enough, even if some of them are a bit overdramatic and cheesy. The music is excellent, providing perfectly for the mood of the situation. A very sad tune for the depressing scenes, an upbeat tune for a typical day, and epic themes for the GUILT operations meshes perfectly. While it's not going to make some of the bigger soundtracks take notice, it's still a great soundtrack.

One would wonder what Atlus will do next with this series. After four games with the same formula, you now enter "beat a dead horse" mode and your games start to slip. But Trauma Center seems to be one of those games that doesn't need any real drastic changes to it. Under the Knife 2 does a nice job of recreating the addictiveness of the series. There are some minor complications, but otherwise, it looks like Under the Knife 2 is a perfect prescription for the Nintendo DS.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/08

Game Release: Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 (US, 07/02/08)