Trauma Center: Under the Knife is the story of Dr. Derek Stiles. The rookie surgeon works at Hope Hospital saving the lives of various patients. The idea is pretty unique for a video-game, especially considering the game’s control interface.

The hallmark of Trauma Center is that you’ll actually get to operate on patients. The touch screen enables players to cut people up, fiddle around with their insides, and suture them up when finished. There are standard procedures prevalent in all the operations, such as suturing and bandaging up the patient when finished, and some procedures completed in prior operations will eventually become common practice later on.

Operations will utilize various tools including scalpels, forceps, hypodermic needles, and lasers, among other things. The tools operate as one would expect, so you’ll have to cut along an incision line to open a patient up, and sutures require a tight zig-zag pattern to be drawn across wounds. To pull something out of a patient (such as a shard of glass), you’ll have to snag it with the forceps and yank it out in the correct direction (which isn’t always straight up). Pulling in the wrong direction will harm your patient further and could possibly kill them. There is only a set number of mess-ups allowed per operation too, so you’ll have to watch yourself and operate both quickly and carefully to save lives.

Another big feature in Trauma Center is the story. In between operations you’ll spend a lot of time talking to various hospital employees and patients. The narrative quickly fleshes out and takes a decidedly science-fiction turn as you’ll end up fighting a worldwide epidemic involving crazy parasites. You’ll even join a top-secret government medical organization to do so. In addition to the lengthy plot, there are intricate briefings before each operation. These briefings explain what you’ll be doing in the operation and use actual medical terms, adding a sense of realism to the game, even if the operations are simplified compared to their real-world counterparts.

Trauma Center is due out in October and will definitely pique the interest of lots of gamers looking for something new and unique.