Surgeon Simulator’s a delightfully bizarre game, with the quirky control scheme at the heart of the fun you can find as you battle to save your patient’s life through complicated procedures like kidney transplants, brain transplants and even rudimentary dentistry.
The PS4’s Anniversary Edition simply added more potential nonsense into the mix, with co-operative play, PS Camera motion controls and more. Of course, it all comes down to the core gameplay, and the handful of responses we had were quite evenly split in their verdict.
3shirts, for example, said, “This is one of the most stupidly fun things to do in local co-op. Sure, you can try to get a best time and nail all the operations in all situations but the most fun is just arsing about with a friend. How many games will have you laughing like a drain as you throw lungs out of the back of a moving ambulance or try to secure the ‘alley oop’ trophy for tossing the new brain into the patients open skull from a distance?”
Getting to grips with the esoteric control scheme could be the main hang up for those without patience, as james.warne.jw noted that “The initial difficulty curve is brutal, although the manner of failure never ceases to be entertaining. The vagueness of the controls can be frustrating at times, I won’t deny, but the sense of achievement for actually performing an operation is enormous and well worth the number of poor innocent lives lost in the process.”
Though that’s also the entire point. Colmshan1990 (who owns the game three times) pointed out that it’s “deliberately bad in its controls. You will fumble, you will drop that scalpel right when you need it, you will smash your patient’s skull in will attempting to preform a heart transplant. All the fun stuff.” He also noted the PS4’s wealth of content, above and beyond the other versions, but said that the controls still feel best with a mouse on the PC version.
The controls did seem to be a sticking point for some, though, as TSBonyman found he never returned to the game after getting stuck on the second procedure and without enough instruction, while beeje13 quite damningly said, “the base price is quite high for what it is, a small game made bad on purpose.”
Cam_manutd did his best to sum the game up, when he wrote, “I like the game. It is not a brilliant game nor is it a bad one but it falls somewhere in between as a niche title that is not for everyone. If you like something different, its worth a go in my opinion. If you don’t like games where the learning curve and control is taken away from you, its not for you.”
As the doors swing back and forth and my patient’s body lolls out the back, dangling very close to the tarmac, I drop the syringe I accidentally injected myself with and furrow my brow in concentration as I try to count on my blurred fingers the votes. In the end, it’s a toss up between buying it and getting it on PS+, with three votes for Buy It and three votes for Plus It.
After the general disappointment that we saw with FIFA 15 last week, the next game to be featured in WeView will be particularly interesting, as we’ll see PES 2015 in the hot seat. How will it fare in comparison to its rather dominant rival? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
In the mean time, make sure to vote in the poll for what you’d like to see in WeView next week:
esde84
After reading the comments on this last week, and with the 10% off store purchases this weekend, I decided to buy it.
I found the game fun. My partner normally hates games where you can fail so easily, but in this game the failing is so fun, that she enjoyed playing it. The two player mode is great for this too. Had a couple of friend play it too, who took it in turns to inject each arm with the two different syringes, just because you can.
I think the struggling to understand what to do is part of the fun of this game. I have only tried the second operation once so far and still cannot figure out how to remove intestines. In some games the lack of clarity would send me to an online guide, but here I just experiment.
james.warne.jw
It’s strange, the game changes entirely with a second player. We found a good way of playing was to have one person trying to complete the operation and the other doing everything they can to prevent it (without just killing the patient).
Getting the intestines out took me forever the first time, in the end I just flailed around with the scalpel and hoped. Got the intestines out, patient died, sat there trying to figure out what I had done that removed the intestines.