Monday, June 28, 2010
Block Test 2. Well, you haven't updated in a long while.Well, yeah, tests upcoming and all...
I can understand... if you were actually putting more effort into studying.
Hey! A half-hearted effort is better than none at all!
So, GP as the first paper, as always. They usually take the longest to mark.
Attempted question was: "Mankind is totally powerless in the face of natural disasters. Discuss." Fairly straightforward, many others attempted it too. After-paper discussion reveals that the term "natural disasters" covers a lot more than the environmental ones - epidemics and the ever-unlikely collisions with extraterrestrial objects count.
A question I considered doing (but eventually ditched) went something among the lines of: "'Carried out in the wrong areas and for the wrong reasons.' What are your opinions on this view on medical research?" Of course, I couldn't quite figure out any other controversial areas of medical research beyond genetic engineering, and eventually ditched it.
It also became a problem when the first few things I began thinking of was among the lines of "GUILT", "Stigma", and "Rosalia".
You really need to cut down on those games...
Paper 2. General topic is about discrimination according to age. Both writers put up good points, but one gaping flaw was that the discrimination brought up was more suited towards jobs that require physical work. The reverse happens in administrations or management. Thus while doing the AQ it felt like...
"Objection!! There appears to be a glaring contradiction in BOTH the writers' arguments!"
Labels: tests
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Posted on 8:15 PM.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Trauma Team Greetings. It has been 31 days since your last blog post.Yeah, I know. Got really lazy with blogging lately.
Holiday mood, I presume?
...Sorta.
So, recently I got the game Trauma Team, and finished it in... about 5 days.
Wow. That's some obsessive effort you're putting in.
Why, thank you.
It wasn't a compliment.
Doesn't matter.
So, after beating Trauma Team and fully experiencing what it has to offer, I believe it would be sufficient to do a review.
Beginning with the overview. What can I say, this game's amazing. The story's engaging, the gameplay is sufficiently challenging, and music really suits the atmosphere.
The main gameplay focuses around 6 characters, each with their own fields of specialty - Surgery, Endoscopy, Orthopedics, First Response, Diagnosis, and Forensics. Each character has their own chapter, and all 6 chapters run concurrently within the main storyline. The result of this is that as you go on to play a different chapter you get to see another perspective on the same issue. That little girl you operated on? Now you get to diagnose her disease. And so on. It's not over after you complete all 6 chapters, though - a final chapter is unlocked where all 6 characters and their fields are rolled up into the climax of the story.
Oh, I've got to comment on the graphics while I'm at it. The gameplay graphics have been pretty fine, though initially the first issue I had was that the blood pools look like gelatinous blobs rather than the circular clouds of blood in previous games. However, I realized that this was so that the blood pools can be visible from different angles while you treat them in Endoscopy. True - it'd be odd to see a cloud of blood from the side.
Oh, and they tweaked the organ design a little bit, giving it some more detail (but not such that it'd be rather graphic like Under the Knife) so that we don't get those unusually glossy organs in New Blood.
Cutscenes have deviated from the visual novel-esque style of swapping character sprites in and out over a background to a comic book style. They still end up using sprites, but at least this improves the storytelling a good bit as you do get to see the different characters positioned across the scene. Dialogue is fully voiced and automated, though this gives a little issue of timing when the dialogue plays. Oh well.
About the story... well, they did say they were going for a little more realism, but I'm assuming they meant realism in the gameplay. You don't have GUILT, Stigma, and the Healing Touch from the previous games, but in the cutscenes you get superheroes, ninjas, ghosts, and phone calls with the deceased's last words. Then again, you don't get a lot of drama if you're going too realistic, right?
...True. Even reality TV shows exercise some "cherry picking" in their footage.
Also, knowing the Trauma Center series, they can't exactly get away without a fictional disease. Well, at least it's not as drastic as battling GUILT or Stigma. It'd be frightening to tackle these things with an endoscope.
Now the individual gameplay segments...
Surgery is more or less the same as the main gameplay element in the previous Trauma Center games. Fortunately, they took out the timer that was the source of pressure to many other gamers. Unfortunately, the surgeries and procedures are a little more complex. Imagine carefully removing an I-beam lodged in a patient's liver (!!!) while taking care of the lacerations and hemorrhages on the organ. The difficulty's still rather merciful at the Resident (medium) difficulty, though.
What about the harder ones?
Oh wow. The Specialist (hard) difficulty. They not only had the vitals plummet like the bonus surgeries in the previous games, but they took the bonus criteria and made them much more stringent. Cleared an operation in under 3 minutes? Good, now do it in under 1 and a half. An operation that I S-ranked on the first try in the Resident difficulty scored a C rank on Specialist. Looks like veterans who mastered the previous games (I know I didn't) will still have something that will challenge them.
First Response. This is where you play a paramedic, juggling multiple patients while giving first aid to them before they are stable enough for transport to a hospital. Treatment of wounds is a lot simpler, but the main challenge here is that you'll need to manage up to 5 life bars at a time. Not an easy task when they're all on the verge of death. You're more or less doing things a first-aider would do - securing splints, giving CPR, and temporarily sealing wounds. The intense music goes well with the fact that you're rushing to stabilize them quickly.
Orthopedics. Rather than speed, you need to be very careful here as you're dealing with the skeletal system. You don't have a life bar, just up to 10 mistakes you can potentially make before getting a game over. Indeed, this is quite relaxed as you have (almost) all the time in the world to carefully make your incisions or secure plates. The music's quite catchy too. Good for work that isn't as intense as surgery or first response, too.
Endoscopy... Ugh, difficult difficult difficult. You advance with the Wiimote, while adjusting the camera angle or using tools with the Nunchuck. Definitely a drastic conflict with the muscle memory cultivated from the other Wiimote-centric fields. In addition to handling the new tools and controls, you can't rush too quickly with the endoscope, or you'd hit an inner wall and damage the patient's vitals. It'll take a while to master this, especially when you're pressed to get the time bonuses for some stages.
Diagnosis relies more on a sharp eye and a keen mind rather than quick reflexes. You've got a stringent 5 mistakes to make, but at least you won't be making mistakes very easily. The main aim is to spot symptoms in the patient either by listening to what they say, spotting unusual abnormalities in their appearance, and examining the results of tests and scans. After which you'll be matching the symptoms with potential diseases to narrow them down. No difficulty or rank for this one - if you're replaying it it's likely you're looking for bonus abnormalities.
Forensics is similar to diagnosis - no lifebar, 10 mistakes, and rather than treating patients you're discovering their causes of death and how they died. How? You collect pieces of evidence by examining the deceased's corpses or personal effects, along with listening to testimonies or checking out crime scenes. You even get to use the tools they sometimes use in forensic dramas, like luminol spray for detecting traces of blood, and powder to detect fingerprints. You might end up spending time pixel hunting, if not for clues, for the bonus quizzes located at each crime scene. Still, it's quite enjoyable as its element of mystery blends the storyline into the gameplay.
What else is left... ah, yes. The music. The composers seem to have outdone themselves again - this time with music that really fits the atmosphere of each separate field as the player first experiences them - moderately intense for surgery, VERY intense for first response, relaxed for orthopedics, curious for endoscopy, really relaxed for diagnosis, and mysterious for forensics. It gets even better as the game approaches the climax as all fields get caught up in a mix of mystery and desparation.
All in all, it's a very good game. The developers have really done quite a lot to simulate the various actions you'd be carrying out in each field using the Wiimote. Some fields are not best for those with slow reflexes, but hey, at least it's better than being pressured by a 5-minute timer at the same time.
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Posted on 8:29 PM.
