New Blood picks up ten years after Second Opinion and Under the Knife, and places you in the control of two new characters - doctors Valerie Blaylock and Markus Vaughn. At the start of the game, both find themselves working in a small town hospital in Alaska, but are soon enlisted by Caduceus (are there any other medical organisations in the world?) to battle with a new man-made biological terror, Stigma. The story twists and turns as it does in any other Trauma Center title, with comrades becoming foes and vice versa, and the story does visit many interesting places over the course of its seven chapters. The story does benefit from full voice acting, a first for the series, rather than just the standard voice clips from previous games ("I disagree!" and "I won't let you die!" come to mind).
*sigh* Dreamy, dreamy Markus.
Perhaps the first noticable difference of New Blood to its predecessors is the inclusion of a two-player co-op mode. In fact, while the game can still be played by yourself, much of it is built around the new co-op aspect, from the incusion of two protagonists to the fact that they each receive separate rankings at the end of each operation. Unless you want to play through each operation once with each character, you'd best talk a friend into performing some surgery with you, if you're the completionist type. This mode works surprisingly well and although it is hard to co-ordinate precise surgical manouevres with a pal, you'll still be having a heap of fun while doing it.
The difference between Markus and Valerie is also greater than simply choosing a "boy or girl" surgeon. Each is equipped with their own unique 'Healing Touch' ability, a special move which can only be activated once during an operation. Markus' Healing Touch allows him to slow time to a crawl, much like Derek Stiles in past games, and is the best option for those seeking a familiar experience. As for Valerie, her Healing Touch allows her to stabilise the patient's vitals for a short period of time, preventing them from decreasing. Both abilities are useful at different stages in the game, and give the solo player a reason to flick back and forth between the characters. Our only gripe with the Healing Touch is that it's much harder to activate than on the DS, as a precise star must be drawn with the Wii Remote to activate it. When you're under the gun and the patient is hemorrhaging from twenty different locations, you'll find it hard to be able to take a break and quickly draw a spot-on star.
Bailamos! Let the rhythm take you over, Bailamos!
Of course, the meat of the gameplay lies in the operations, where you'll do battle with a variety of new operations, as well as some old ones. Each operation now starts with an animated pre-op briefing, which shows you exactly which areas you'll be examining. Many operations make return appearances from past games, including bone reconstruction and skin grafts, but there are also some interesting and original ones that we'd prefer not to spoil. Seeing as the game is set even further into the future, you'll also be dealing with some technological procedures on some crazy implants, which also helps add variety. By and large, the number of 'normal' operations dealing with regular injuries outnumber the Stigma operations, which is an improvement over the GUILT-fest that was Under the Knife.
In this game, Stigma are saved for special encounters (although their frequency does pick up significantly towards the end of the game), and they're certainly a different breed to GUILT. The Stigma designs are different and intruiguing, and the critters themselves certainly aren't as difficult or as frustrating as their predecessors. Oh, you'll be throwing your Wii Remote at the TV during a few operations, but the frequency of feelings of uncontrollable rage is significantly less than past games. The cause of most of your frustration will probably come from the nature of the Wii Remote control set-up, as it's not exactly as precise or as tactile as the DS. You'll get the hang of it eventually, but there'll still be the odd occasion where you'll fail an operation because you couldn't draw a straight line with your scalpel.
So that's where I left my toothpick!
Thankfully, Atlus learned from their mistakes with Second Opinion and have further cleaned up New Blood's graphical presentation by introducing 16:9 widescreen and 480p. The art in the game really is very nice, and the technical upgrades give the game a very nice professional sheen. There are a few video cut-scenes thrown in here and there, but nothing that shows characters in action or more exciting off-screen events, which is a little disappointing. In their place, there are some single-shot images which highlight key moments, which break up the endless flow of text boxes and static profile shots nicely. As previously mentioned, the voice acting in the game is a step above past entries in the series, and the music in the game is also superior as well. It certainly seems more fitting, unlike moments in other entries when Jazz music has piped up during a tense confrontation.
So is New Blood worth a look if you're new to the series? We'd argue that it is. The clean presentation, original story and slightly-more forgiving operations make it a fun and addictive Wii outing. While the game definitely still has some of the frustration of its predecessors, it also has the same "just one more go" addictiveness that keeps you coming back to finally beat the hardest operations. You wouldn't want a jumped-up little parasite getting the better of you, now would you? For series' veterens with a Wii, this game should be a no-brainer, as it's a great and refershing entry that should give you more than enough operations to master before Under the Knife 2 hits on DS. So strap on your rubber gloves and prepare for the operation - because you never know when you'll have to deal with parasites shooting X-ray beams out of their radioactive super cores.
I've never played the DS games, so I'll give them a go first. I'm unsure if I'll like this 
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