Trama Center: New Blood

I picked up a cheap game from Game Stop called Trama Center: New Blood. This game is played through the view point of a surgeon and in my opinion is quite challenging. Corny scripts, and the plot has holes, but I want to primarily talk about user control during the game.

As mentioned above you perform surgery. Each surgery has a time limit, to progress through the game you must complete the surgery within the time allotted. Rankings are given for your performance conducted within each surgery. Each surgery has the same beginning and end. Sterilize the incision point, and use the scalpel to cut into the patient. For each process in the surgery you see on screen the grade given for how well you perform each step (Etc. a straight incision is given a "cool" compared to a zig-zag incision which would be given a "bad"). After playing this game for a while I noticed that the grading system is inaccurate. Often I would be given a 'cool' rating for a hasty stitch job and a fast incision, and vice versa. After a while it seems impossible to obtain an 'A' rating for every surgery as they progressively get harder.

In each surgery the patient's vitals are displayed at the top of the screen. Each surgery has a twist and reduces the vital meter, also the vitals continually decline during the operation. To the vitals go back up you have to select your syringe and draw 'vital fluid' from a jar and inject it into the patient. In easy mode, the vitals drop at a very slow pace, medium difficulty at a medium pace, and hard at a ridiculous rate. On complex surgeries it became impossible to complete the surgery on the medium difficulty. Towards the end of the game I found that I would have to lower my difficulty just to move on. Not that I lack the skill, but that some hemorrhaging would occur so often that it is way to hard to put the patient back together and look after their vitals, while doing all this in a timely manner. I feel that the game (rated T for Teens) is beyond their ability to complete the game on a normal difficulty setting.

Overall I thought the control of the cursor is acceptable. The slower you are (to improve accuracy) the more sensitive the game is to your actions. If you move at a fast pace, like making circle to cut something out and not worrying about where exactly you are cutting, the game does not seem to care and your motion does not affect the patient. I found that even opening up the patient in a hurried manner was more effective then taking your time to make a straight line to cut into the patients chest. Often the hurried process would receive a 'cool' rating. I would recommend this game solely on the 'cool factor' of performing surgery, however the rating system is flawed, and the faster you move your cursor the game compensates because it cannot keep up with your movement. I purchased the Wii Motion Plus, which is an attachment placed on the bottom of the Wii Remote, and provides information to the Wii Console to make the remote in a X, Y, Z axis, instead of the standard X, Y axis. The additional information transmitted to the Wii console pin-points the location of the remote in a space relationship to the Wii Sensor Bar, this allows a more fine-tuned control and the Wii Console does not have to compensate for user control because it can not keep up. In the control of the game, to meet its like going from using a 10ft pole to touch object on a screen, to using a pencil.

However this additional attachment raises the cost of the 'controler' to more than $80.00.
$20 Nun-Chuck
$40 Wii Remote
$20 Wii Motion Plus
+ Tax.

Wii Sports

Wii sports comes with some fun but basic games: Golf, bowling, tennis, boxing, and baseball.

Golf is quite fun, and has the basic principles of the game. It has different clubs, different grass types, wind, and a power meter for your swing. The play must stand in a golf swing stance and hit the ball in the direction of the hole. Its fun and challenging, however moving your wrist for a swing is sufficient and that is the only player interaction. Up to four people can play using 1 remote.

Tennis is more interactive, swinging your wii remote is the same as your racket. Over hand and under hand matters on how you hit the tennis ball. The user plays both the forward and rear positions unless more people play (up to four) and they can play all the positions. While this game is my personal favorite it is limited to only 2 courts. While golf has several courses.

Bowling is a great game, its fun, easy to play for anyone, and mostly realistic. The down side to this game is the spin on the ball. Its almost impossible to make the ball spin, and the user has exaggerate twisting your arm to put spin on the ball. Up to 4 people can play on one remote.

Boxing is extremely fun and by far the most interactive. The user must connect the nun-chuck and the wii remote together and punch just like a real boxer would. This includes blocking, and leaning with the controllers to dodge punches. The rules are the same for real boxing but each player has a health pie chart. This game can be played by up to 2 people, but 2 wii remotes are needed and nun-chucks.

Baseball is very limited. 4 players can play, but it is limited to a hitter and the pitcher. The hitter swings the wii remote as a batter, and the pitcher acts like they are throwing the ball but hold down one of the buttons on the remote. This changes the thrown ball type; fastball, curve ball, and splitter. Its fun but so limited as a game its not very entertaining, this game only requires the wii remote.

Overall the games are fun, and best played with someone else. In each game the more its played, you can unlock extra games in that category. I think Wii Sports is a good foundation as to what to expect in games, although I am hopeful that it improves. I feel like although this game is good for kids, it is overall too limited for adults to continuously play over and over again.

Next week I am going to play a Wii game other than the game that came and I will report back on the controls and interactivity of it. I would like to see if Nintendo has made better games than Wii Sports and increased interactivity.