DAY 115 / GAME 115
Surgeon Simulator 2013
With the advent of the Steam digital delivery service and other ways of now publishing and purchasing independently created video games, more and more experimental games have had the opportunity to become available.
The upside to this is that developers can now circumvent the typical big-budget release process, selling their games for less. Cheaper indie games means that people are more likely to purchase something silly. Something silly like Surgeon Simulator 2013. Silly, and a TON of fun.
Surgeon Simulator 2013 is absolutely ridiculous. The game itself is borderline broken. The controls are terrible on purpose and yet the goal is still to complete various surgeries, including a heart transplant, double kidney transplant and brain transplant. Built for the PC, this game uses a combination of mouse and keyboard for controls. The QWERTY keys each control the grasping of each individual finger on your hand while your mouse moves your hand around on the X/Y axis and a click of the right mouse button controls wrist motion while the left mouse button raises and lowers your hand. So basically it's like doing surgery via a marionette.
The very fact that you can complete these surgeries, even with the ridiculous controls, makes the game challengingly intense. Especially in my case, since I was playing this game on a laptop with only a trackpad instead of a proper mouse which is much slower to use. When your patient is bleeding out because you nick'd his aorta with a bonesaw, you really need to be able to address the situation quickly. Thankfully I discovered that there are two syringes on your table and one of them stops the bleeding. Though, if you stab yourself with it, (and you will) your vision goes to hell and good luck trying to complete surgery with a marionette's hands while looking through a kaleidoscope.
So, initially there are three surgeries to complete. It's pretty damn tough, as I previously described. I played this game on the couch nightly while Denise watched TV and every once in a while she'd look over and exclaim 'I hope no one thinks to preform real surgery after playing this.' She's also come out from the kitchen only to find me hunkered over her laptop, trying to complete a double kidney transplant and asked why I was sweating profusely. My forehead was seriously dripping with sweat as I tried so hard to yank out that last kidney from deep inside my patient.
So then, you complete the first three surgeries and a new list of the same 3 open up. You load it up and realize you now have to preform the same 3, only inside a moving ambulance. At one point I watched in horror as the back doors swung open and my replacement heart flew out into the street behind us. This was an all new kind of hard. I completed the first heart transplant, even after the alarm clock flew up and into the open chest cavity, blocking my way. But after this, I've yet to complete any more. I've heard that the next chapter of surgeries takes place in outer space in zero g.
I think I payed a total of about $2.50 for this game on a Steam sale. Heck, I bought an extra copy to gift away because it's so much fun. This brings me back to the start, I payed $2.50, the price of a coffee and had a hilariously good time playing the kind of game that wouldn't have existed in the same capacity years ago. Developers may have had something like this published for full retail release, but it would have been $60 and I highly doubt I would have purchased it. (Then again, I did buy Seaman..) If this is ever on sale again, I highly recommend picking it up, even if you only plug a few hours into it. Who knows, maybe one day you'll have to perform brain surgery.
Surgeon Simulator 2013
The upside to this is that developers can now circumvent the typical big-budget release process, selling their games for less. Cheaper indie games means that people are more likely to purchase something silly. Something silly like Surgeon Simulator 2013. Silly, and a TON of fun.
Surgeon Simulator 2013 is absolutely ridiculous. The game itself is borderline broken. The controls are terrible on purpose and yet the goal is still to complete various surgeries, including a heart transplant, double kidney transplant and brain transplant. Built for the PC, this game uses a combination of mouse and keyboard for controls. The QWERTY keys each control the grasping of each individual finger on your hand while your mouse moves your hand around on the X/Y axis and a click of the right mouse button controls wrist motion while the left mouse button raises and lowers your hand. So basically it's like doing surgery via a marionette.
The very fact that you can complete these surgeries, even with the ridiculous controls, makes the game challengingly intense. Especially in my case, since I was playing this game on a laptop with only a trackpad instead of a proper mouse which is much slower to use. When your patient is bleeding out because you nick'd his aorta with a bonesaw, you really need to be able to address the situation quickly. Thankfully I discovered that there are two syringes on your table and one of them stops the bleeding. Though, if you stab yourself with it, (and you will) your vision goes to hell and good luck trying to complete surgery with a marionette's hands while looking through a kaleidoscope.
So, initially there are three surgeries to complete. It's pretty damn tough, as I previously described. I played this game on the couch nightly while Denise watched TV and every once in a while she'd look over and exclaim 'I hope no one thinks to preform real surgery after playing this.' She's also come out from the kitchen only to find me hunkered over her laptop, trying to complete a double kidney transplant and asked why I was sweating profusely. My forehead was seriously dripping with sweat as I tried so hard to yank out that last kidney from deep inside my patient.
So then, you complete the first three surgeries and a new list of the same 3 open up. You load it up and realize you now have to preform the same 3, only inside a moving ambulance. At one point I watched in horror as the back doors swung open and my replacement heart flew out into the street behind us. This was an all new kind of hard. I completed the first heart transplant, even after the alarm clock flew up and into the open chest cavity, blocking my way. But after this, I've yet to complete any more. I've heard that the next chapter of surgeries takes place in outer space in zero g.
I think I payed a total of about $2.50 for this game on a Steam sale. Heck, I bought an extra copy to gift away because it's so much fun. This brings me back to the start, I payed $2.50, the price of a coffee and had a hilariously good time playing the kind of game that wouldn't have existed in the same capacity years ago. Developers may have had something like this published for full retail release, but it would have been $60 and I highly doubt I would have purchased it. (Then again, I did buy Seaman..) If this is ever on sale again, I highly recommend picking it up, even if you only plug a few hours into it. Who knows, maybe one day you'll have to perform brain surgery.
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