This game is a little pleasant surprise... and is surely better than Gray's Anatomy.
Lifesigns: Surgical Unit it is not a perfect game, but a solid gaming experience and an interesting experiment of the potentiality of the stylus control on Nintendo DS.
The game is essentially a graphic adventure and, like the name can suggest, it develop itself in an hospital. After the exhilarating intro you take on control of a young doctor in training in a typical Japanese hospital.
In the beginning, your character have a dumb face. However as doctor you are not so bad, though you are still a rookie. The game presents a plot pretty soft and enjoyable developed talking to other people in the game like, and especially, hospital workers.
The cast of the game is various and every character have his peculiar mind. They're various even in the look thanks to a character design clever and original. Unfortunately the resolution of the drawing is pretty low.
Normally you'll navigate trough various situation, some of them could require a little knowledge of Japanese society for understood entirely (don't worry, nothing that years of mangas, animes and videogames had not gave you yet). In the game you'll face a lot of comical situation, but will be moment surely more dramatic.
Here's the real core of the game… since you are a surgeon you'll deal with operations. Differently from games like the Trauma Center series (definable as Sci-Fi Medicine) in Lifesigns you'll must face situation less far from reality.
Indeed, the first step will be to diagnose the disease for the following operations. Diagnosis can make it examining the patient body with your eyes, hand palpation (where are you putting your hands… you piggy!!!), or auscultations. You'll must find all the symptoms for proceed to next step. Diagnosis are pretty entertaining in the beginning, but often some of the symptoms will be hard to find, making lose patience to players that shall be forced to examine every inches of patients body.
A similar lack trouble even the adventure part of the game. Often you'll don't know what to do, so to unlock the situation will be forced to roam from location to location talking with all characters hoping to make the right move.
After the diagnosis will be time to operate. This is the most trilling part of the game.
The surgeries are various and make an excellent use of the stylus control, in some case even innovative and original. Differently from Trauma Center here are requested calm and concentration instead speed and skill. Yes, you have a limited time for the operation and if you commit too much errors the patients could die (in this case you can attempt a reanimation with heart massage), but we are really far from the adrenalin oriented operations of Trauma Center. You could operate with tranquility, but remember that succeed in a minor time is a requisite for the best endings of every chapter. Moreover, if you press the L button on DS your doctor will concentrate seeing the perfect spot where cut or operate.
Only lack of the operations system is that every move you perform the game will stop a moment for a phrase from your staff. For example… if you have to clamp three arteries: clamped the first the game will stop and Suzu-sensei (or another assistant) will say somethings. Clamped the second and the game will stop again for some other useless sentence... and so on.
Another flaw of this game is the stylus control is poorly implemented in the adventure parts.
Stylus will be required even in the little minigames during adventures; some of them are pretty lame, but some other are interesting and funny (cooking the takoyaki… lol).
Player's behaviour in the adventure part should be not underestimated. Some choices of Tendo of the inability of the player to convince someone to do something can heavily alter the plot (or end in a Game Over screen) often with awful consequences.
The good:
Interesting cast of characters and pleasant plot with various important choice;
Perfect stylus control during surgery; Some good ideas in the game;
The bad:
Adventure sessions can be too long and shady, and the stylus is poorly used; Characters drawing resolution is pretty low;
Final comment
This game was a pleasant surprise, even after the good Trauma Center. In the game there are not real heavy flaws and can be recommended without reserve to the graphic adventures fans or players want to try something different. Some improvement in the adventure part and a better resolution for characters drawing should be this title a little jewel… but is still a good experience.
Final vote: 7,5