There's a slight infection that keeps Trauma Center from being all that it can be: its difficulty in certain sections. There's an aneurysm-removing level that I swear I tried two dozen times. In it, you must magnify, then inject into the aneurysm to shrink the swelling. At that point, you can scalpel it out and remove it. Time is of the essence, as bleeding is heavy. Drain the blood enough so you can use the tweezers to connect the vein again, then suture it up. As I said, suturing can be tricky; it's tough to tell how to properly sew up the vein. Once you do it, though, you end up having to do countless others in rapid succession -- to the point where even your time-stop power isn't enough. Needing to zoom in/out to find them all is a hassle, too. This one level temporarily flat-lined my enjoyment of Trauma Center. Nobody said being a surgeon was easy, but levels like this really need to throw us a bone of some sort. If people can't complete a mission, they won't continue and will toss the game aside like a pile of liposuctioned blubber. Luckily, this game is easily good enough to inspire perseverance.

Production-wise, Trauma Center is in fine standing amongst the DS library. Its graphics are properly realistic, with just enough blood and gore to make your skin crawl a little. The music has a tension-filled edge to it that will keep you on the edge of your seat as you drain a tumor or remove waste buildup in a spleen. The top screen is made of almost strictly anime-like stills that further the quirky story, but also contains the HUD itself. It's so nice to keep all the text and menus away from the touch-screen, and it's something I haven't come to take for granted on DS yet.


I'm someone who loves weird game ideas that come to fruition -- stuff like Gallop Racer 2003 and Everblue 2. Trauma Center reaches a far broader scope than those two titles, however -- enough, I think, to be appealing to just about anybody. You'll likely never see a better utilization of the DS' touch-screen, nor will you play a pseudo-sim this engaging. I know you're jonesing for Castlevania DS, Mario Kart, and the new Mario Bros. game, but don't forget to make an appointment with Trauma Center: Under the Knife.