As awesome as a sci-fi medical drama sounds, the Trauma Center series has remained firmly in the realm of the niche game. People who played the first game tended to either love it or give up after having trouble with the difficulty. New Blood doesn’t do much to shake up the surgery-simulation franchise. What it does do is refine the gameplay and give us a fantastic co-op mode. The end result? The best Trauma Center game yet.

Ten years after the GUILT outbreak, Valerie Blaylock and Markus Vaughn are doctors out on the cold frontier of Alaska. Soon, their routine is shattered and they find themselves dealing with a new disease called Stigma. It seems that Markus is familiar with the virus, and his past has finally come back to haunt him. The two doctors, who are among the best in their field, will have to investigate Stigma while dealing with a full docket of operations.

Like the previous game, New Blood doesn’t exactly push the Wii to its limits. The pre-surgery story segments are told entirely with still images and text. Atlus did add some fairly good voice-overs, but we aren’t quite to animated cutscenes yet. The art style has also been changed since the last game. I like it, it’s a touch grittier, a little less “generic anime.” The soundtrack is also pretty awesome, if a bit repetitive. I love the theme music that plays each time the game starts.

The Wiimote functions as a pointer with the nunchuck’s analog stick serving as a tool tray. You’ll use a few different motions and certain buttons to operate. The controls have been tweaked a bit since that last game. The pointer doesn’t seem quite so jumpy. You still need to take your time and focus on precision, something that is a bit hard when you have a strict time limit and your patient is bleeding out in front of you.

New Blood’s main addition? An utterly fantastic multiplayer mode. No, you don’t get to have a (patient) deathmatch, you work together to perform operations. It’s pretty clear that the developers designed the entire game around the co-op mode. Why do you think you get your choice of two doctors? Nearly every operation in the game is improved by having a partner. A friend of mine watched me play a few operations and commented that is looked cool, but it also looked too hard. I suggested trying the multiplayer mode. It was a success -– we played the rest of the the game that way. Perhaps that was a bit anecdotal, but I do think that co-op was a brilliant move on Atlus’ part and the best way to get new gamers interested in the franchise.

This is where many of the complaints about the game come in. Our review is coming in a bit late, so you’ve no doubt read a couple of others by now. A major complaint has been the difficulty, a fair criticism given the fact that every game in this series has tended towards the impossible. Surgery isn’t easy. Shocking, isn’t it? As this game was designed with two players in mind, it’s even more difficult. However, what other reviewers haven’t addressed is that you can adjust the difficulty. Most hardcore gamers avoid “easy” modes like the plague. If you are playing New Blood by yourself, play it on easy. That’s the best advice I can give you. No one will judge your gaming phallus because you had to switch to easy mode. Hell, you can change difficulty at any time. There are certain operations that are downright impossible on higher difficulty levels without a second person.

The multiplayer mode doesn’t just make the game easier, it adds an interesting psychological element to the mix. You can’t just plug away at the operation and hope for the best, you actually need to coordinate your efforts to save the patient. Yes, I actually did shout “Scalpal!” at one point. It does add to the fun and tension of the game. It can also lead to hilarity when someone screws up.

Sadly, New Blood isn’t a very long game. There is a fair amount of replayability, but the main game will last only a few hours. There are a total of seven chapters, with five episodes each. Completing chapters will also unlock bonus missions. Because of the length and niche factor, I do think that Atlus should have put this out at $30 or $40. That would have helped them grab a few additional impulse buys. I do think it’s worth fifty clams, but I’m also a fan of the series. It’s a less-certain purchase for Trauma Center neophytes.

Liked the previous Trauma Center games? Have a buddy? New Blood probably won’t do anything for you if you hated the previous games, but if you’re looking for more surgery action or a unique multiplayer experience, this will be right up your alley. Give it a try, I’d love to see more interesting-if-niche experiments on the Wii.

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