There are tons of indie games making their way to PS4 this year with many of them once being PC exclusive games. We’ve seen several unknown titles making appearances as well as a few very popular hits as well. For instance, one of the breakout hits of 2013 was Surgeon Simulator by Bossa Studios. This was a unique game based around surgical procedures. That might not sound fun at first as surgery isn’t exactly a fun subject, but they made it work thanks in part to the whole wackiness of the controls and the simplification of the actual procedures. This made the game super fun and popular and eventually branched to include an iOS and Android tablet version of the game. Now more than a year later, Surgeon Simulator has arrived to the PlayStation 4 in the form of Surgeon Simulator A&E (Anniversary Edition) with all the features from the PC and tablet versions as well as a few extras.

Presentation

For the most part, Surgeon Simulator A&E looks very faithful to the PC game and looks much better than the tablet versions. Everything in the game has a realistic look to it, but it doesn’t have that hyper realistic look to it where you think it’s real life. It still has that “video game” look to it which I think it good because if it was too realistic, the game might actually be too gross to play.

What I think is really neat is how the menu system is set up. You actually start off on what looks like a reception area with you sitting at your desk. There are typical desk items scattered about like a computer, keyboard and mouse, phone, alarm clock, binders, etc. as well as a clipboard with charts on it. This is where you choose the type of operation you want to engage in and launch the mission. These charts even tell you what your fastest time was and how much blood was spilled for each procedure. What else is cool is that this whole desk area is fully interactive and you can play with everything on it, you just have to figure out what does what. There are even little easter eggs scattered about. As you progress through each surgery, more and more little items to play with will get added to your desk.

Operations take place in a small, confined area with just the section of the body you are working on. For instance, if it’s heart surgery, it’s the upper chest that is exposed or if it’s eye or brain surgery, it’s the head and upper torso. Depending on the operation, there will be a variety of different surgical tools at your disposal. Of course there’s always the odd tool that seems out of place, but if you use your imagination, you could probably find a use for it. Again, everything is interactive. You can pick up anything that you see, except for the trays. The surgical tools themselves are very realistic and very good representations of their real life counterparts.

Lastly, like any surgical procedure, there is going to be blood and in this game, it’s a lot of it. It’s mainly confined though so it’s not all over the place. It gets on your hands, your arms, and the patent’s clothing. There so much blood because every cut you make produces blood. Depending on the surgical instrument used, it could just be a few drops of blood or a giant hose of it. Blood does play a crucial role in the game though, but I”ll mention that later.

Gameplay

This is where much of the charm lies with the Surgeon Simulator series. When you think of surgery, you think of something precise and flawless. The last thing you want to do is have a clumsy buffoon of a surgeon operating on you yet that’s what you are when you play this game. You are probably the world’s worst surgeon performing some of the most difficult surgeries  known to man. You perform heart transplants, kidney transplants, and even brain transplants, but instead of performing them with the skill and knowledge of a real professional, you are more like a caveman performing surgery with a rock. And you know what? It totally works for this game.

Your main instrument for performing these surgeries is your hand. Most of the controls require the use of multiple buttons and bumpers as well utilizing the DualShock 4’s motion sensors The motion sensors are used for tilting and rotating of your hand. You can also change this to the right stick, although I think the motion controls are easier. There’s also an option to use the PlayStation Camera, but because I don’t have one, I’m not entirely sure how that works.

As easy as they make the controls sound, actually controlling your hand and making it do what you want it to do is a whole other story. Your hand clumsily moves around the screen, twisting and turning in odd ways making precision quite impossible. Even simple tasks like picking up objects become exercises in futility as it can sometimes take multiple tries before you can even pick something up. Of course that’s what makes this such an amazing game. The fact that this game represents the complete opposite of what actual surgery is supposed to be is pure genius. Watching yourself fumble around an operating table while your patent lies unaware of just how terrible you are is pure hilarity. This game makes surgery fun, although don’t play this in front of anyone who is about to have surgery. They will not thank you for it.

Though this game is all in good fun, you can actually become quite good at it with lots of practice. If you learn all the little nuances with the controls, it is possible to be as accurate as a real surgeon. In fact, there are trophies for those who strive for perfection. There are ones for only losing a specific amount of blood or finishing procedures in “x” amount of time. That means in order to get those trophies, you’ll have to practice a lot and actually get good at it.

Experience

I’ll start this off by saying how much fun I’m having with this game. It is one of the most frustrating games I have ever played but I can’t stop playing it. The biggest issue is learning how to use the controller to play the game, and even when you think you’ve mastered it, a simple surgery can go completely south in seconds. But again, that’s what makes Surgeon Simulator so fun. It’s not supposed to be precise because being precise would make this game a hundred times less fun.

It’s fun flailing around trying to grab your surgical instruments while also knocking over everything else in the process. It’s fun inaccurately removing a rib cage with a huge hammer leaving bits of shattered bone everywhere. It’s fun attempting to precisely make small incisions while completely failing miserably because your hand doesn’t do what you want it to do. That’s basically the experience you’ll have with every surgical procedure in the game because when you do finally grab the right tool and get that right cut and remove the correct organ, it just feel that much more satisfying because of how difficult it was to get there. This is a game where you’ll have to play each level over and over and over again. Even when you do successfully finish a surgical procedure, you’re going to want to go back and improve upon your grade or figure out a different way of doing it that might be more efficient.

I played many of the different surgeries multiple times because I wanted to improve my time as well as unlock all the really difficult trophies. This isn’t a game where trophies are just handed to you. You have to really work at these by practicing and learning all the little aspects of each surgery. Learn which tools work best on which surgeries or which tool is the quickest at performing certain tasks. This helps reduce your time.

Of course there were many times where I just wanted to mess around and get a bit creative with my surgeries. Surgical axe to detach some eyes, did it. Oxygen tank to smash in some goggles, did it. There are actually a lot of way to go about performing these surgeries that you’ll want to get very creative. Most might not be the correct way, but sometimes it’s those incorrect ways that make it the most fun.

Final Thoughts

Surgeon Simulator Anniversary Edition might not be what some call “next gen,” but I don’t care. This game is so darn fun that I don’t even care that the graphics aren’t photo realistic or that this is an indie game. People complain about that stuff all the time but if the game is fun, who cares? Gameplay and having fun should beat the top of your list and not what resolution the game runs at or what the frame rate is. Otherwise what happens is that you end up missing some really awesome games because you care too much about specs instead of just having fun.

Surgeon Simulator A&E is a game that you should just play and not take too seriously. Have fun with it, experiment, and most of all, just enjoy the time you spend with it. It’s one of those unique games that will challenge the heck out of you, but is so fun and ridiculous that you just don’t care how hard it can be at times.

Of course if you do care about specs, just know that this game runs butter smooth, though there is the occasional graphical and detection glitch, but  I almost want to say those are intentional. Also Surgeon Simulator Anniversary Edition is the definitive version of the game which includes everything from the previous games including the eye and teeth transplants, new environments, and the addition of stat tracking. It’s everything you’ve ever loved about Surgeon Simulator and more.

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