Don't Play Doctor, Play Surgeon

GameCore is CBSNews.com's gaming column written by William Vitka and Chad Chamberlain. This column was written by Nintendo correspondent Lyndsey Hahn.

It is the year 2018 and all diseases have been cured except for a new outbreak of a man-made virus called GUILT (Gangliated Utrophin Immuno Latency Toxin); it is top-secret and might be the beginning stages of "Medical Terrorism".

In Atlus's Trauma Center: Under The Knife for Nintendo DS, you are a 26-year-old surgeon named Derek Stiles who has recently completed his residency at Hope Hospital in Angeles Bay. Though, none of this matters right now. You are here to operate.

Choose "New Game" on the main screen to begin story mode where you will learn about your character and others working with you while you tackle increasingly complex surgeries. There are three slots available to save after every successful surgery; each displaying the total time you've spent on your game -- but be careful. It is very easy to save over an existing game.

You, Derek Stiles, are thrown into Hope Hospital's Operating Room, briefed on the patients' condition, and are guided by the surgeons' assistant during the first surgery. Another patient comes in and you must excise a tumor in the distal stomach. The operations only get more demanding from here on out. Touch the appropriate box on the screen with your handy stylus to use the various surgical tools you will need to save your patient: the scalpel to make incisions, the stitches to secure a transplant, the ultrasound to search for anticipated tumors or GUILT Kyriaki bodies, the forceps to extract foreign objects such as glass ... it is endless.

The top screen of the DS displays all characters and conversations while the bottom touchscreen primarily shows the patient's affected area and all surgical tools. Though much of your focus needs to be on the bottom screen, the top shows your assistant and her advice, your score, the miss limit (times you are allocated to mess up single parts of the procedure), and the most important variable: your time limit.

Yes, time limit. Didn't think you had all day to complete an operation, did you?

At higher levels, the most frustrating element of this game are the seemingly impossible time limits. But with patience and your healing touch, it can be done. Your total operation score depends on, obviously, how well you operate. After you have successfully completed a surgery, you may practice or challenge that score in "Challenge" on the main screen.

Trauma Center: Under The Knife is intense. Though the soundtrack is a bit cheesy and the characters tend to ramble (which can be solved by pressing "select" to skip through), it is a fantastic and original game, which should be near the top of your wish list.

The ESRB has rated Trauma Center: Under The Knife "T" for "Teen" because of the blood, mild language, mild violence, and partial nudity (apparently, though we didn't see any).

By Lyndsey Hahn