Parents' Guide to

Trauma Team

By Harold Goldberg, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Medical drama with violence, profanity, and moral ambiguity.

Game Nintendo Wii 2010
Trauma Team Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Trauma Team Game: Screenshot #1
  • Trauma Team Game: Screenshot #2
  • Trauma Team Game: Screenshot #3

Community Reviews

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age 14+

Based on 1 parent review

ggal
ggal Parent
January 1, 2011
age 14+

Not recommended for younger kids, iffy for older

My daughter has another game in this series (Trauma Center: Second Opinion), and based on our experience with that game I got her Trauma Team. Unfortunately, Trauma Team is much worse. Profanity is ever-present, including several uses of B-S, G-D, SOB. Sexual references include characters expressing discomfort lifting their shirts or letting the doctor examine them...played for laughs when it's a male doctor and middle-aged business man, but the tone is completely different when it's a male doctor and a blushing, stammering schoolgirl in a school uniform. Another female character is shown talking on the phone, standing in her underwear, no shirt, with a towel around her neck. The ends of the towel barely cover her nipples..the rest of the breasts are shown.

This title has:

Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
See all 1 parent review

What’s It About?

If you're a fan of TV hospital dramas and crime shows, TRAUMA TEAM gives you both the thrill of solving a mystery and the drama of surgery in the ER. Here, you'll work in a half dozen roles, everything from surgeon to medical examiner, as you proceed through various twisting stories. But the most important is one involving a young, imprisoned doctor called CR-SO1. Was he really behind the biological terror attack that got him a 250-year prison sentence -- one in which he he's constantly shackled and wears an iron mask? If he can perform various surgeries, the authorities will take years off his sentence. And he might just discover who really caused that bio-terror attack.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1 ):
Kids say (12 ):

Think of Trauma Team as a very refined version of Milton Bradley's classic Operation game. Surprisingly, the Wii remote and nunchuk work very well as you examine, medicate, cut, and suture patients. Essentially, you have a wheel full of medical equipment on the lower right portion of the screen. Choose one with the nunchuk and perform the procedure with the 'A' and 'B' buttons. While the writing is decent and the graphics are quite beautiful in a manga kind of way, some of the dialogue and cut scenes feel long and cumbersome. Yet the combination of compelling mystery, nuanced characterization, and enjoyable game mechanics make Trauma Center a worthy contender in the action-puzzle game genre.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Most of the violence in Trauma Team is depicted in comic-book panel still-frame images. Does this make the violence easier to handle? Does it seem less realistic that way?

  • How realistic do you think the medical operations in this game are? Does the game make you want to pursue a career as a doctor or as a forensic specialist?

Game Details

  • Platform: Nintendo Wii
  • Available online?: Not available online
  • Publisher: Atlus
  • Release date: May 18, 2010
  • Genre: Puzzle
  • ESRB rating: T for Blood, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Tobacco, Violence
  • Last updated: August 31, 2016

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