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Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus
Release Date: July 1, 2008
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site
0:00 The Wii version of the original game was one of my favorite early games for the system. Here's hoping the controls work as well using the DS stylus.
0:01 Black-and-white scenes of medical offices fly by. Derek Stiles, Angie Thompson, Adel Tulba and Heather Ross are introduced just as quickly. A bird flies over a city. Scenes of incisions, patches and pentagrams. Seems pretty similar to the intro for the original, if I remember correctly.
0:02 I choose the Normal difficulty and am relieved to be told I can change it later. I wish more games had this feature. Then, a warning about this game being a work of fiction. Were there really people who thought this was nonfiction?
0:03 "The Republic of Costigar, Africa... The internal warfare plaguing the people of this country for over a decade has finally come to an end." What a cheery introduction! There are still guerrillas and landmines and such, but the country is finally headed in the right direction. "A doctor named Derek Stiles has come to Zakara, one of Costigar's many refugee camps, to provide medical care to those in need." Hey, that's the guy from the first game!
0:04 Chapter 1: "Doctor in a Foreign Land." Derek is "a surgical prodigy who travels around the world helping patients." Angie is "an elite nurse with an International Nursing License" and "Derek's trusted partner." Insert sexually suggestive interpretation of "trusted partner" here.
0:06 Some guy comes in to tell us about an army dude who was attacked by a wild animal. Derek sends Angie to prep the new patient while he finishes up with another patient.
0:08 A new doctor comes to the camp and is promptly threatened by an armed man in fatigues. She's Adel Tulba, "a young surgeon from Costigar who has just finished medical training." Hmmm... it seems she's actually a he. The long hair and feminine face fooled me.
0:09 Angie finds Adel and rushes her -- sorry, him -- over to the new patient. Dr. Stiles comes, too. There's a lack of medical equipment in the camp, as everyone keeps repeating over and over.
0:10 On to the briefing. The patient is a 28-year-old Caucasian with a fractured left leg and lacerations. He's a "member of a criminal organization that poaches rhinoceroses" who was attacked by crocodile. "I guess what goes around comes around, huh?" So why not just let him die, huh, Dr. Stiles? HUH? Angie reminds the doctors that it's "our obligation" is to help everyone in need. Pfft. Whatever!
0:12 While most of the writing is presented in text, the speakers occasionally pipe up with single words like "Angie!" or "Derek!" It's unsettling.
0:13 Sutures are as easy as drawing a zigzag on the lacerations. I don't know why surgeons get paid so much -- this is easy!
0:14 I find it odd that just injecting some green "stabilizer" directly into a patient's innards seems to be all that's needed to stabilize their "vitals." The patient could be broken and bleeding all over the place, but a bit of green liquid and they're fine, somehow.