Once more unto the theatre, virtual surgeon! Graduating with honours from the DS, Trauma Center makes its debut on the Wii and makes full use of the console's control methods. Derek Stiles is the hot young surgeon whose sterilised shoes you step into, and he's still something of a hotshot operator. Yes, his reputation has followed him from the DS's Under the Knife iteration, regardless of whether you played that particular game or not.
Surgery takes a lot of skill and precision, and you can tell how well you're doing during an operation in Trauma Center: Second Opinion by watching the messages that appear on screen. When you do something wrong, a 'MISS' will flash up. If you do something that can only be done one way, 'OK' will appear instead. For actions that can be evaluated, a message appears rating your performance. Your score depends on how well you do, with points being subtracted for every 'MISS'. Also, you'll need to score an 'OK' in order to proceed with the operation. Remember that 'MISS'es will often have a detrimental effect on the patient's vital signs too. Your score will increase as you chain successful actions together, and your chain count will grow for every move you perform correctly in a row. The higher your chain, the more points you'll earn for each move. However, if you get a 'MISS', your combo will end and your chain count will go back to zero. As you make mistakes, the patient's vitals will drop drastically. You'll need to take care of problems like haemorrhaging quickly before your mistakes stack up and there's no way to overcome them. You'll also need to keep an eye on the time limit: patient expiry means Game Over!