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Review: Surgeon Simulator

At a Glance

ESRB Rating: NR - Not Rated
My Rating: Everyone
Genre: Simulation
License: Commercial
Fun-O-Meter:
Release Year: 2013
Review Published On: August 27th, 2016
Played on: Thaddeus

Available on:

Windows
Linux
MacOS

Available from:

Humble Store
Steam

Soundtrack: Available as DLC
Areas of Concern:
  • Blood and mild gore
  • Use of drugs


How to Save and Pause:

The results of each operation are recorded once the operation has successfully been completed. To pause the game, press ESC.

Time needed per session:

Expect to play for about ten to fifteen minutes per operation - longer if youre planning on screwing around rather than actually help the patient.

Does this game pose issues for Christian players?

No - this is a great game for Christians
Although there is some blood and your patients can die, most of the gore is depicted in a very cartoonish and unrealistic style. This is intended to be a silly game, after all.

Screenshots

[view screenshot]
Oops

[view screenshot]
Whoa. Groovy.

[view screenshot]
Thisll work



Game Overview

Sometimes, its not quite enough to make a game on a theme. Sometimes you need to mess with the players while youre at it. Surgeon Simulator is one of those times.

This Indie game rose to fame very quickly thanks to its very bizarre control scheme, the sheer difficulty it presents and the absurdity of the game itself. Its worth a look if you want a different kind of challenge, but dont expect this to be serious or an actual simulator at all. Instead of doing things in a conventional or sane manner, the player controls one of the surgeons arms using the mouse and keyboard. Or to be more specific, you use the keyboard to move each finger individually, and the mouse moves the arm and wrist. Its a complete mess, as youll need to press and hold four or five keys to pick up anything.

This results in a lot of scattered tools, misplaced organs, and botched operations. Making things extra hard are the locations where youll be attempting to do surgery: the hospitals prepped facility is fairly easy, but you could also be working in a speeding ambulance, a random hospital hallway or even in zero gravity.

Note that your patient has a limited amount of blood and will die if he bleeds out. Good luck, youre going to need it.

Points of Interest

So many objects...

Nearly everything you see can be manipulated or interacted with. This includes the everything in the main menu, which is styled after a receptionists desk. Aside from providing atmosphere, this is part of what makes the game challenging. While you have a lot of scalpels or other medical tools handy, your workspace is also cluttered with things like a hammer, a cordless power drill and even a 20oz bottle of soda. Youll either need to avoid them or get really creative during the surgery.

Popular Steam features

There is a set of Steam trading cards and a bunch of achievements to earn in this game. Some of the achievements reflect just how ridiculous this game is. For example, you get the keyhole surgery achievement by removing Bobs entire ribcage.

Great soundtrack

For a few simple variants of a song made using sounds of a hospital setting, the soundtrack is catchy and a good listen. Each of the songs have a punny name too, such as Are you Kidney-ing me and Unidentified Flying Organ.

Additional content available

There is a small package of DLC available that adds a few new surgeries and new environments to the game. The soundtrack is also included in the DLC.

Secrets to find

There are several hidden levels. Getting to them requires some unusual tricks at the reception desk, but there are clues strewn about for the clever to find. The space themed levels are one group of hidden levels, but theres also a level where you can perform surgery on an alien, and another hidden level where you play as the Medic from Team Fortress II and operate on the Heavy.

The controls are a nightmare

Unfortunately, the incredibly difficult and awkward control scheme the game uses is deliberate. Even if you remap the keys to better fit your hand, things are still going to be very hard to manage. Youre much more likely to grab a fistful of things rather than the tool you want, and its also likely that youll wind up holding whatever you get in an awkward or unusable fashion. Setting things down is often just as problematic, and for some players, this is just too much to deal with.

Concerns and Issues

Blood, obviously

Theres nowhere near the amount of blood youd see in a real operation, but there still is some. Basically, the more you make mistakes, the bloodier things get. Of course, youll get a better score if you dont make a mess, but if you do accidentally kill the patient, the game over screen will cheerfully inform you that you were able to achieve brutal murder in X minutes and Y seconds.

Drug trips

One of the needles youre provided with is used to stop or slow any bleeding. The other needle is an antidote for the first needle. Youre going to need it because you can accidentally stick yourself with either needle really easily, resulting in a very psychedelic experience.

Bob is not anatomically correct

Many organs are missing, though the ones that are left tend to really get in the way. Bobs guts resemble those statuettes you can get at some museums or see in science classes more than the innards of an actual human, so as far as simulations go, this one isnt realistic at all.

Sooner or later, the player will make a crude gesture

Players will likely have the doctor flip the bird at some point. Theres also an achievement for doing this, so the developer obviously expects it to happen sooner or later.