Features we wish were in Trauma Center: New Blood

Since we at QJ had enjoyed playing Atlus‘ Trauma Center: Under the Knife and Trauma Center: Second Opinion, the recent release of Atlus’ Trauma Center: New Blood for the Nintendo Wii got our blood pumping once again.  In hindsight, though, we couldn’t help but wish that certain things (and people) had been included in Atlus’ new medical sim, so we’ve compiled a short list of them.

What we think should have been in Trauma Center: New Blood after the jump!

 

SPOILER ALERT: The following article may contain spoilers for those who haven’t played through Atlus‘ Trauma Center: Under the Knife and Trauma Center: Second Opinion.

Now and again, a sleeper hit like Atlus’ Trauma Center comes along and captures our imagination like no other game before it has done. While medical simulations have been done before, there is a noticeable dearth in the amount of games in the genre-especially when they involve the pulse-pounding action that the games in the Trauma Center series have been known for.

Since Atlus has already released Trauma Center: New Blood for the Nintendo Wii, we’re extremely delighted to try out one of the things that we’d been hoping for ever since:  two-player cooperative play.

In spite of what Atlus had already programmed into this new installment in the series, we at QJ have our own ideas as to what Atlus could have included in New Blood to further spice up this release. Feasibility aside, here is our wish list of Trauma Center: New Blood features, in no particular order:

 

1. Non-surgery-related mini-games

Second Opinion had a couple of short jigsaw puzzle games in Chapter 5 that helped break up the tension between operations. While more puzzle games are always good, we were specifically thinking of sponge bath mini-games involving a pretty nurse-preferably the easy-on-the-eyes Nurse Angie.

We figured it’s about time that the attractive nurse used her own brand of “Healing Touch” on Dr. Stiles after a long, hard day in the operating room. (Yes, we know that the spotlight’s on Dr. Vaughn and Dr. Blaylock now, but remember, this is a wish list.)

 

2. Other operations not involving artificially-created viruses or human patients

While the missions in the first two Trauma Center games were riveting enough, it wouldn’t have hurt to see our new doctors tackle other kinds of operations, just for variety’s sake. One good example of this was the bomb-defusing mission in Chapter 3 of Second Opinion. Granted, it took a huge suspension of disbelief on the players’ part to have a surgeon “operate” on a bomb, but keep in mind that this in a video game, anything is possible if your imagination can conceive it.

Some other possible operations we would’ve liked to have seen in New Blood include surgery on animals (Hmm…Pepita?), amputations, neurosurgery (possibly with the assistance of an actual in-game specialist), delivering babies (via C-section, perhaps), or if you really want to be controversial, abortions for fetuses of female patients suffering from ectopic pregnancies. Then again, the very nature of the abortion itself, coupled with close-ups of women’s birth canals would likely have attracted the righteous indignation of people like Jack Thompson and Leland Yee.

3. Other ways to end a mission (story-branching)

In any Trauma Center game, you either pass a mission or fail it, period. There are no in-betweens. What about multiple degrees of success or failure? Instead of just having it in black and white, Atlus could have inserted possible gray area “story” branches in New Blood depending on what a player did or how a player performed during certain operations.

For example, if the player wasn’t able fix the problem or get a high enough ranking within a specified period of time, he or she would’ve been forced to amputate the patient’s limb.

4. Dr. Derek Stiles and Dr. Naomi Kimishima as playable characters

   

In Second Opinion, Atlus introduced us to a sexy lady doctor by the name of Dr. Nozomi Weaver aka Dr. Naomi Kimishima. Dr. Kimishima is probably best remembered as the sultry-voiced surgeon who saved Dr. Stiles life in Chapter 6 of the story missions. She also has an interesting variation of the Healing Touch-especially useful keep up for keeping up with the mutant Savato strain as it does its laceration zergling rush on poor Dr. Hoffman.

  

And of course, it’s only fair that Derek Stiles, as another descendant of Asclepius and main doctor for most of the series, should’ve been included as well. We’re also curious as to how Dr. Stiles’ relationship with his trusted assistant has developed over the past ten years. Speaking of whom…

5. Nurse Angie Thompson (aka Angie Blackwell) as an alternative assistant (and as a patient)

While nurse Elena Salazar is a comely new addition to the Trauma Center world, in our humble opinion, she doesn’t seem to have that same stunning “ooh-la-la” factor that Angie Blackwell had for us. Admittedly, Ms. Blackwell has been an attractive Trauma Center nurse since her Under the Knife days, but the visual makeover that Atlus gave her in Second Opinion effectively increased her “hawtness” status tenfold, as shown below:

      

As an interesting side note, Ms. Blackwell is one of the few important supporting characters who never went under the knife herself in either of Atlus’ first two Trauma Center games. Furthermore, if you had failed Dr. Kimishima’s Second Opinion mission in Chapter 6 and allow Dr Stiles to die, you would have elicited an interesting reaction from Angie.  It would have been intriguing to see how Dr. Stiles would’ve reacted had we intentionally failed a mission that involved her as his patient.

In any case, we maybe we just need to give ourselves some time to get to know Elena better, so we’re trying to keep an open mind about her. Who knows? She may very well surprise us. Her last name still bothers us, though. At the back of our minds, we’re wondering if she may be related to Ramon Salazar from Resident Evil 4:

 

In any case, what’s done is done.

While we remain hopeful that some of our beloved characters from Second Opinion are unlockable somewhere down the New Blood road, we aren’t really holding our breath either.  Nevertheless, we’re happy that Atlus’ latest installment in the Trauma Center saga is turning out to be a bloody good sequel.

Thanks to rmz, vklomskule and Windy Kun for clarifying the exact chapters in Second Opinion where certain events took place, and to Ryan C. for the insights.