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"You are the surgeon!" - The tagline on the game's retail box said it all. I remember picking it up the first time I saw it in a shop and thought "No-o-o... that's really twisted!" but there it was. Obviously a tongue-in-cheek approach to a highly original concept rather than an educational title, 'Life And Death' certainly got my attention (the grotesque picture on the reverse of box depicting a bloody-handed figure stooping to retrieve a disembodied brain from the floor has stuck in my memory for many years).
An interesting disclaimer adorned the title screen, warning players that the game should be taken for its entertainment value only and not as a reference for diagnosis or surgical procedures. Thankfully, there were no reported cases of anyone trying to remove their own appendix or attempting to prescribe medication for their friends.
The player had to sign in before the fun could begin, but even at this stage there was room for sadism. "Good morning Doctor Death, you have a patient in Room 4"...
You then had to choose your team of assistants ranging from the helpful and informative to the aloof and patronising, whose advice would be displayed as text at the bottom of the operating screen.
Patients came in all both male and female varieties and were of varying age, although they all had the same stomach. Attention to detail was not the order of the day as you went poking around the patient's abdomen with your mouse pointer, but the overall effect was sufficiently entertaining. Pelvic X-rays were required to disclose the presence of kidney stones, which weren't exactly difficult to spot despite the distraction caused by discovering that this 'woman' was actually a man.
Once you had successfully diagnosed appendicitis and it was off to the operating theatre, that was where the real fun began. You had to scrub up, set the drape, administer the antibiotics, clean the area, get the blood up on the drip and then get to work with the scalpel - only for your ever so helpful assistant to mention that you'd forgotten to turn the gas on.
Unlike real surgery (we hope), getting it right was very much a case of trial and error as the manual was sketchy to say the least. The will to get through an entire operation and have the patient survive was what gave the game its staying power. I found myself making bigger and bigger incisions each time to give myself room to work, to hell with the scar it would leave behind. I would invariably get bored of cutting through layer after layer of what looked Heinz baked beans and write my name across the patient's stomach with the scalpel (an urban legend suggests that there is someone out there who actually did this!), much to the disgruntlement of the chief of surgery. I always took his advice with a pinch of salt, after all his face was back-to-front for some reason. My friend and I used to refer to the game simply as "Death".
Despite the 16-colour graphics and sparse sound effects, the game had outstanding novelty value and the sicker your sense of humour the better. The whole 'one wrong move and it's all over' scenario proved frustrating but you kept going back to it. On the whole, one of the most wacky original games ever with more blood than a slasher movie and a higher body count than any shoot 'em up. There should be a modern version in the same vein (no pun intended) with realistic blood and 3D-rendered gall bladders.
"Nurse, get me 50 mg of morphine... no, in the patient!"
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Mostly hand drawn and not exactly pretty, but there was sufficient detail to effectively illustrate the game. The screen showing the patient being wheeled into the theatre was particularly poor.
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One sound effect for the diagnosis screen (a simple 'OW!' when you prodded in the right place) that was sped up or slowed down randomly with each click.The heart beat effect was quite good though. No music.
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I found this game to my liking, thousands didn't. If poking around in someone's guts isn't your bag then that's understandable. Joking aside, the game was not realistic enough to be gruesome so you could just enjoy it without feeling sick. There was an incentive to keep trying so you could move on to the next operation.
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| Not for the squeamish but there's much fun to be had from botched operations. Turn the gas up, grab your scalpel and give it a go. Being struck off has never been so gratifying. |
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Get Amiga Forever with pre-installed Workbench, games, applications, and much more.
It also contains the original Amiga ROM-files, 100% legally!
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