Trauma Center: Second Opinion

Starting the operation! So I got this game, along with Super Paper Mario and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, when I purchased my Wii bundle back in 2007. That makes it my oldest Wii game in the backlog. Well, at least it was until this afternoon when I beat its ass. The game is an upgraded port of a DS game called Trauma Center: Under the Knife. The original game featured 5 worlds and one bonus world; this Wii version has a sixth world and seventh bonus world. Whatever. I considered the game finished when I had beaten the main (DS) story. Now, the whole point of the game is that you are a doctor who must treat patients in a careful and timely manner. Set broken bones. Remove broken glass and stitch up wounds. A story kind of evolves in which some new man-made disease called GUILT (I don't think it stands for anything, unlike AIDS) is running rampant and infecting people. Let me get my big gripe out of the way first: the controls. As this game is on the Wii, and the Wii remote just lacks the very precision it claims to offer, you simply cannot be as careful a doctor as you'd like to be when it comes to sutures and scalpel work. And your score suffers for it. Fortunately, it's no huge deal. All the levels were still very beatable and none were exceptionally frustrating due to sloppy controls. Still, I imagine the game is a far superior experience on the Nintendo DS, where your stylus is as steady as your hand. I have to say, I wasn't looking forward to returning this game for backlog removal purposes, but I really did genuinely enjoy each and every mission. It was definitely one of those pleasant surprises that backlog-busting is all about. Some of the most memorable missions were the inspired ones. Save a guy on a plane - but watch out for the turbulence! Save a car crash victim on site - with a flashlight, because it's dark out! Help a guy research some GUILT strains - by solving jigsaw puzzles! My favorite? Disarm a bomb! (Yes, using your medical equipment.) All in all, it was a fun game and I'm glad I took the time - and it really wasn't that much time at all - to finish it off today. Totally worth it. But I'd recommend the DS version.