I got a brief demo of Trauma Team today, the latest iteration of the Trauma Center series, due out for the Nintendo Wii this spring. Trauma Team will follow a cast of six characters, each with a different specialty and therefore a different type of gameplay: first response paramedics, diagnostics, forensics, surgery, endoscopy, and orthopedics. Atlus showed off the endoscopy, which involves inserting a fiber optic camera someplace uncomfortable for the patient and then using it to look around. You control the camera with the analog stick on the nunchuk and you use to the Wiimote to shine your light. Who knew the inside of a human stomach was going to be so dark? This might sound a little weird, but it reminded me a bit of Descent, the old 3D shooter that busted loose from conventional wisdom about up and down.

In a continuing effort to make the series more accessible - Trauma Center quickly got prohibitively difficult - there seems to be less emphasis on racing the clock. The patient's vitals are represented as a bar across the top of the screen, and they're easily stabilized with a syringe of stabilizing medicine (not available over-the-counter, I presume). During the demo, the camera traveled down someone's intestines, through a perilous sphincter, and into the stomach, where a drain was used to suck up pools of blood and some sort of medical version of a hot poker cauterized little blood geysers. Medicine is pretty gross, after all.

The previous games' more outrageous elements like magical healing touches and terrorist alien viruses are toned down this time in favor of a more straight-up medical drama. Below are screenshots of each of the six different types of gameplay.