These hands were made to heal

Surgeon Simulator 2013 was initially realized during a 48-hour game jam, the prompt for which was a heartbeat. Then dubbed Surgeon Simulator 2012, the game featured a single medical operation in a single environment. The 2013 iteration of the game has now been released with updated content and a shiny new look. But is it enough to make me feel like George Clooney in ER?

In Surgeon Simulator 2013 you play as Nigel Burke, amateur surgeon. The goal of the game is to perform various transplants without killing your patient. To accomplish this in the real world you would need nearly a decade of training, a team of dedicated assistants and unrivaled dexterity. Surgeon Simulator 2013 supplies you with none of these things—especially the dexterity thing.

As you play, you will be fighting the purely manual controls. The only control you have over Nigel is a single arm (you can choose between left- and right-handed in the menu). Nigel’s arm can be moved freely around the operating space and any of Nigel’s five fingers can be controlled independently using keys on the keyboard.

To complete your surgeries you will need to manipulate bone saws and drills and grasp organs, and open boxes and administer medicine via syringes without inadvertently dosing yourself. This might all sound unnecessarily complicated—and rightly so. But that’s partly why the game is so fun.

There’s a twisted kind of satisfaction that comes with conquering the game’s scheme and making Nigel’s arm do precisely what you want it to. (Or, more realistically, “approximately but close enough to what you want it to.”) The surgeries you’re tasked with actually aren’t very difficult, but they’re made all the more harrowing by the lack of control.

To add to the challenge, the gravity is, if not wholly realistic, consistent. Move Nigel’s arm too quickly while releasing a scalpel and the scalpel will go flying. Throw an active drill on the operating table and it will skitter around, knocking over other equipment and potentially doing irreparable harm to your patient.

Success at the operating table means meticulous planning and, perhaps more importantly, being able to laugh at the chaos when all your carefully laid plans explode in a torrent of drill bits and large intestine.

What makes Surgeon Simulator enjoyable is also its one downfall. Watching medical equipment and organs get thrown around the interior of an operating room or ambulance is riotous fun, but I encountered numerous situations where items that were critical to my objective were tossed out of my reach by the game’s wonky gravity.

When this happened my only recourse was to restart the mission. Part of the fun of the game is the obfuscation of the control scheme, but watching a transplant kidney roll off the operating table after I’ve spent five minutes removing a ribcage, staunching blood flow and furiously yanking out organs was just frustrating.

On the surface, Surgeon Simulator sounds incredibly disturbing and violent. You are, after all, performing life-threatening surgeries on an inert patient, and in most cases the state you leave him in is less than ideal.

However, the cartoony way in which the game is presented and the underlying sense of humor make it feel less like you’re committing brutal murder (despite the game’s accusations to the contrary after I lost a patient) and more like you’re playing a nuanced version of the enduring board game Operation.

The soundtrack also plays up the game’s inspiration, which is almost unquestionably the emergency room dramas of the ’80s and ’90s. From the moment you hear the synthesizer- and drum-heavy intro playing in time with the beating of a heart, you know what you’re in for.

Surgeon Simulator 2013 is not a game for everyone. The controls are purposely complicated, the strange gravity in the game can sometimes leave you in un-winnable situations and there is a measured though noticeable amount of blood and guts.

But I do believe there’s something to be said for a game that is completely crazy and embraces its craziness. In this regard Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a breath of fresh air.

Sure, you can go into the game wanting to ace all of the surgeries, or you can just sit in reception and whip all of the clutter on your desk into a frenzy with a couple of well-aimed swipes of Nigel’s meaty paw. Personally, I prefer the latter.

Back to the question at the beginning of the review: It was rhetorical—I always feel like George Clooney in ER.