Retro Game Friday: Trauma Center

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m back with another game for the Nintendo DS. It’s Trauma Center: Under the Knife!

Plot Synopsis: Derek Stiles is a doctor at Hope Hospital. After the near-death of a patient due to his negligence, he encounters the scene of a car crash and ends up working on a patient with incredibly severe injuries to the heart. Just as it seems like the patient is done for, a power within Derek is unlocked, and miraculously saves the patient. The power emerges once more, and Derek saves another patient when a seemingly routine operation gets dangerously out of hand. His superiors recognize the ability. They tell him that his power is said to be that of a descendant of the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, and his gift is known by the same name, though is more frequently referred to as the Healing Touch….

Plot: Honestly I forgot that this had a story, as I was never very keen on this whole game. I have a huge fear of needles, so this entire game is more than enough to put me into a panic. Honestly I touched this game like once, before never thinking about it again until I read the title somewhere recently.

Gameplay: You play as Derek, and perform various operations. Doing so quickly and flawlessly is the goal and is measured in points. To be fair the gameplay was tough due to the gimmicky nature of the touch screen controls. But those who could handle that would find that they can play the game very well.

Art: The art is highly aged, and even the 2D portions have aged rather poorly.

Music: I don’t remember a whit of it, sorry.

Overall: A game that is noteworthy for it’s take on the classic board game Operation more than anything else.

For those who like: Performing Surgeries, Touch Screen Gimmicks.

Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above.

Video Game Tuesday: Dual Audio

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a topic that I, and many others, place a lot of value on. It’s all about Dual Audio!

What do you mean Dual Audio?: I mean the ability to switch between two different languages in a Video Games settings to allow for the main spoken word in the game to be one language instead of the localized version, if the player wishes to do so. Tales of Zestiria, still my all time favorite JRPG, had the ability to switch between English and Japanese at any time out of battle through the settings menu and it was wonderful. The emotions and feelings of the characters came through so much better with the original Japanese dub instead of the English dub. This option should be included in every game that gets localized into another language.

Why?: Because even if you don’t understand the words themselves the emotions are very clear in a person’s tone of voice. Plus what is the subtitle option, which you are going to turn on anyway, used for except for just such things? Now if you actually understand the language and the localization is done poorly, looking at you Digimon Cyber Sleuth and SAO: Lost Song, you can get confused by the conflicting messages of the voice and the text. However that is a problem that is becoming less and less prevalent in today’s games. Most games have excellent Localization. Tales of Zestiria for example was wonderfully done, and while there was maybe one or two points that the text didn’t quite match what the voice was actually saying, it was spot on.

What about (Insert language here) to (Insert your native language here)?: Well it doesn’t just have to be Japanese to English, The Ezio set of Assassin’s Creed games had options to allow you to set the language to French or Spanish or Italian. The last in particular was awesome because the game was set in Italy for the most part and you could just read the subtitles to get the specifics while hearing the emotions being spoken in the actual language that the character would use.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday, do you want more Dual Audio in games in the future? Leave a comment below!

Retro Game Friday: Snowboard Kids

Hi all for this week’s Retro Game Friday I’m back with a really obscure game that I loved as a kid! It’s Snowboard Kids!

Plot Synopsis: It’s a racing game, there isn’t any plot.

Gameplay: It plays a lot like Mario Kart games, and that’s not a bad thing. There are a few differences however and that is the ability to get two different items at the same time one for personal use like invisibility or a rock and the other to mess with other racers, provided that you had the coins to pick them up. Coins were earned by performing tricks. There were 6 playable characters, although one was unlockable only after completing all the courses. Each had different talents and the measures were Speed for straight line movement, Corner for turns and trick which determines hangtime in the air which allowed for tricks. Snowboard Kids was quite fun, and I really regret that I forgot about this game until only a week ago.

Art: It’s a Nintendo 64 game, so the art has aged poorly. That said it was pretty great at the time.

Music: Don’t remember a whit of it, sorry.

Overall: If you get the chance to pick this up at a garage sale for cheap, buy it. It’s quite fun if you have a Nintendo 64 to play it on.

For those who like: “Kart style games”, Racing, Fun Gameplay, Unusual Courses.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.