PixlBit

To describe Trauma Team in one word, I'd have to say it's "inconsistent." Parts of the game, I felt were incredible, top-notch video game experiences, while at other points, the game's story and gameplay felt clumsy and cumbersome. Trauma Team falls in line with prior Trauma Center titles in most gameplay, adding two investigative modes, Diagnostics and Forensics. Each mode focuses on a different practice of medicine, and including the aforementioned two, there's also a Surgery, Emergency Response, Endoscopy, and Orthopedics section, creating a diverse selection of game play modes.

Perhaps the largest issue with Trauma Team is that it fails to create characters as exciting or interesting as those found in the current medical dramas, though, not for lack of trying. Animated comic book-styled cutscenes accompany each chapter of the game, and each cutscene is complete with word bubbles and voice-overs. Unfortunately, the voice-overs are hit and miss, with some voice actors sounding perfect, as though they're living the role played, while others over-act and give a forced performance. The lack of consistency isn't helped by the fact that each line of dialog has a silent pause in-between, unfortunately making some of the more word-heavy scenes drag on for extended amounts of time, and causing conversations to sound entirely disconnected, as though each character is speaking a list of one-liners.

While, this, alone isn't all that bad, often, throughout the first half of the game, characters exhibit erratic behavior, and at times, act the opposite as one might expect from prior experiences. To be fair, the second half of the game, which is clearly defined, does a much better job with character and pacing. It tells a single, cohesive story based on all six of the main characters, rather than trying to tell part of a jumbled event in different ways, one character at a time, then contradicting minor parts and character actions of the same event at a different point.

One of the most interesting and developed modes, Diagnostics, premiers in Trauma Team. In diagnostics, players will pinpoint symptoms and diagnose disease, cancer, and various illness in a few patients, who often have more than one health issue to determine. Players talk to the patient, examine their body for visible signs of illness, check their vitals, compare diagnostic lab results, and even compare MRIs, CT scans, and other major tests in order to narrow down and identify whatever might be the cause of the patient's ailments. The mode, for the most part, felt relatively authentic. Though not perfect, the mode gives enough tools and information to guide players through difficult sections with obscure symptoms. The only real issue I had through the entire set of Diagnostics chapters was finding irregularities on patients' scans, a practice made much more difficult by a brief loading screen between the sample scan and the patient's scan. Other than this, Diagnostics was one of the best new modes found in the game, but unfortunately, the mode only had a small part in the second half of the game, when the game's story picks up.

Fans of Phoenix Wright and other modern point-and-click mystery titles would probably find themselves enjoying the Forensics mode. Often the mode most related to the game's over-arching plot, Forensics allows players to solve the "How," "Who," and "Why" of a few select deaths. Unfortunately, as the mode is like other point-and-click mystery titles, it suffers from the same drawbacks, mainly disallowing most jumps in logic the player might have made while the plot trudges along, as well as an occasional lapse of goal and purpose to advance the investigation.

The first case of the mode was exceptionally difficult, confusing, and, I'll be honest, unbelievable and pointless. Fortunately, later Forensics missions were much more entertaining, featuring a few puzzles, more to investigate, and even a complete two-part story that felt equally as compelling as modern crime-solving drama, while still managing to tie in well with other parts of the game. The mode is hindered by constant, repetitive, and redundant questions for the player to answer, multiple choice style, that test both reading comprehension and basic logic skills. I found that asking the player to draw conclusions with questions is a clever, engrossing idea, but it's hindered when Kimishima, the mode's character, hammers the player over the head with the very similar and obvious questions approximately half of the time. While the mentioned issues with the mode and the confusing and desultory introductory chapter left me with a bad taste in my mouth for many of the later episodes, Forensics proved to be interesting and enjoyable enough in the end, especially since most of the game's story is told throughout this mode's chapters.

The staple mode of the Trauma Center series, Surgery, made its way into Trauma Team, and is just as strong as ever. Gone are time-limits to most stages, though story-driven timers will appear, allowing players to move through the mode as their own pace. Once again, the patients vitals do slowly tick down, albeit they tick faster when a patient is injured, and like before, an antibiotic injection magically pumps the vitals back up, so there's little surprise for Trauma Center veterans there. The Wii-Remote & Nunchuk combination, once more, work flawlessly, assuming no pointer errors or jumps, and the mode remains an enjoyable romp through video game surgery, with a few twists and turns that seems to acknowledge the rules of reality don't apply, but in all the right ways. Since there's no timer, experienced Trauma Center players might find the mode easier than in previous titles, but regardless, it's still a lot of fun. Beginning players shouldn't have too much difficulty, especially since several of the first chapters are geared towards learning how to play.

Emergency Response is a new twist on the classic Trauma Center gameplay, allowing players a chance to be the first on the scene of a dramatic and traumatic accident. This time, rather than completely cure patients of all wounds, tumors, and... uhh... steel beams, the goal is to treat one or more victims' injuries enough so that they are stable and can be moved to the hospital. This mode is slightly less refined than the surgical mode, but none-the-less, is a lot of adrenaline-injecting fun. Tasked with juggling up to five victims, monitoring, prioritizing, and treating injuries works smoothly, except, in my experience, when resetting broken body parts. The gameplay is compelling, and I found myself trying to complete chapters without allowing any patient to die, something easier said than done. Emergency Response is most certainly a welcome new addition into the game.

Of all the new modes related to surgical and medical procedure and treatment, the Endoscopic mode is the most unique, but unfortunately, is the least functional. In this mode, players will push an endoscope down a patient's throat and through digestive and lung pathways, finding and treating tumors, pools of blood, and even removing articles that could cause choking. The method for exploring passageways inside the patient revolves around aiming the endoscope's direction with the Nunchuk and literally pushing the Wii-Remote forward, toward the screen. Progression through the endoscopic procedures is often very slow, and sometimes sporadic. Utilizing any of the tools feels awkward and clumsy, since in this mode alone, tools are controlled by the Nunchuk entirely. Unless the player has an incredibly steady hand, it's possible for the endoscope to suddenly rush forward straight into the wall of the whatever part of the patient the endoscope is inside, and even worse, there are sections designed with natural body fluid flow to make navigating a patient's "tunnels" even more difficult and cumbersome. I would consider endoscopy to more or less be the "Black Sheep" of the surgical modes, weighing down much of the game's potential, unfortunately.

Of course, I saved the best for last, with a new surgical mode, and, in my opinion, the most creative mode in the game: Orthopedics. Throughout Orthopedics, the gamer is tasked with removing, shaping, crafting, and placing damaged or lost bone. While one might expect Orthopedics to play much like Surgery does, to the contrary, the game played like the video game version of "Operation" and similar games of skill. Most of the controls in Orthopedics revolve around either pointing the Wii Remote down a long, narrow, curving pathway, or use the accelerometers in the Wii Remote or Nunchuk to provide unique, simple, and accurate controls through a surgical procedure. The Orthopedics chapters felt fresh and fun, revolving around accuracy to score points, rather than monitoring a patient's vitals, quite unlike the other three surgical modes. While the gameplay is very different from other surgical modes, it fits Trauma Team's design well, and feels like a natural addition to the series.

Trauma Team is an original title, adapting gameplay and story ideas used in prior Trauma Center titles to provide a varied, enjoyable experience for anyone willing to play. Since most of the first half of the game feels more like an extended introduction to each character's background and gameplay mode, initially, the story is erratic, piecemeal, and doesn't pick up the gravity one might expect having experienced other, similar titles until deep into the game. While most characters seem pretty shallow or just plain wacky, a few are a little more complex and a little less two dimensional. In the end, for the most part, the gameplay is a lot of fun, but is brought down by a couple flaws a bit too glaring to pass over. Despite its problems, Trauma Team makes for a fun and entertaining adventure through the world of video game medicine practice.