The call was made! E3 was upon them, and Atlus needed some N-Philes writers for an interview! "Send Jared and Desiré over, stat!" they boomed over the N-Phone. They were still on a Trauma Center kick, but understandably so; the quirky hospital sim turned out to be such a hit on the DS that it led to the creation of an upcoming sequel on the soon-to-be launched Wii, called Second Opinion.On the second day of E3, we made our way to Atlus' grand hall to meet Tomm Hulett, Project Lead on Second Opinion and Contact, for cigars and casual conversation.
N-Philes: Last year we talked about Trauma Center, and we thought, "Wow this is a pretty cool game." It showed innovative and intuitive use of the DS, using the touch screen in ways that no other game was, so with Second Opinion what can you tell us about how the Wii controller is used to basically take what Trauma Center did for the DS and bring that to the Wii?
Tomm: Well, the way you control it––which I suggested so I'm proud of––is you use the nunchuk analog stick to select your tool (there's a menu in the bottom corner) and then you operate with the Wii remote on the screen. You can reach in and out of the patient, which is grotesque if you think about it, and then cut, and you've got the rumble feature.
Another big suggestion is you get to use it like a defibrillator paddle, so you can be like, "Clear! *TSHSHCHCHKK!!*" and feel the rumble. They [Nunchuk and Wiimote] both have the motion sensing, so as soon as I found that out I was like, "Medical game, two hands, come on guys."
So that'll be cool and I can't wait to have people play that, but what do you think of the name? Second Opinion? We had some office turmoil about what to call it.
N-Philes: I like it. I think it's clever. At first it seems to suggest kind of a "redux" or an add-on, but it's on a completely different console, so I like "Second Opinion".
Tomm: To go with that concept, there's actually another doctor who isn't pictured here because I don't think he's been designed yet, but there's like a second doctor with a different storyline and different operations. So as you're going through the game you can switch from Derek to the other doctor back and forth, or you can just play all of Derek and then all the other person and when you play through both their storylines it unlocks a bonus last chapter. And how Derek has the "Healing Touch" this new doctor will have some other power, so it'll be a different experience playing with each doctor.
And I know they're adding organ transplant operations and also setting broken bones, so there's different types of operations as well. So it's bigger, better, and on the Wii, and we're aiming for launch.
N-Philes: Fantastic. Now there's also this Yggdra Union, from the makers of Riviera, Sting. Now is this in the spirit of Riviera or are they trying to go in a different direction here?
Tomm: Well, it's more tactical than Riviera was; it's a strategy game basically. You have your units on the map and when you get into a fight it switches to a side-view Advance Wars style. You have this huge force, kind of like Dragon Force for the Saturn, and so your guys clash and you see all the soldiers jump in and attack you, and you get your spell effects.
And you'll see they have really good animation for a GBA game. Playing the DS, you forget about it because GBA doesn't look like that, and so you get a game like this which is kind of DS-esque, and it's just really well animated, isn't it?
There's this Tarot Card system––and it's not like collectable cards because I hate those and I want to make sure no one thinks it's collectable cards––but the cards factor in to the battle system. It kind of reminds me of the Ogre Battle games, because it's strategic and then has these Tarot cards, and you have to move your units. It's by the Riviera team, people who've played Riviera should like it's storyline, but the gameplay is different.
