ER:The Game

By Legacy Interactive; price £24.99;

For Windows 98,Windows NT, Windows XP, and Windows Me platformswww.ergame.com

Rating: **

It's 3 am; only two hours of your shift to go and you need to treat five cardiology patients, capture an escaped ninja, and simultaneously maintain your hygiene, composure, and energy. Do you think you could do it? Well, now you can prove your skills in ER: The Game. Test your intern skills while walking through the halls of the infamous Chicago hospital. Fans will be pleased that Carter, Lewis, and Pratt, characters from the well known television series, have lent their voices to the script.

The game is based around you, the intern, treating patients and completing challenges. Patients are treated simply by moving them from the waiting room to a bed in the emergency room. Challenges vary from supervising a group of new medical students to tracking down problematic patients and calling security when disaster strikes.

The key concept of the game is to complete tasks set by other people in the emergency room. You may be required to successfully treat five cardiology patients before the end of your shift or to ensure that fights don't break out in the waiting room. The tasks are timed, and for some, if you fail you are fired, and the game ends.

ER: The Game is similar to the popular simulation game The Sims. You can personalise your character and then you start in a tutorial led by Carter. As you progress through the game you collect stars to allocate, which improve your skills, helping you to better treat your patients.

One disadvantage is that characters can move at only one speed. This is not helpful if you are rushing to complete a task. And although the game lacks interaction, it is still addictive. The game does not give a choice of treatments for patients, depending on their condition, but you can order a non-specific laboratory test. To treat a patient, you simply click on them.

I enjoyed ER: The Game, but I did begin to lose interest due to the overall lack of interaction. I was expecting to interact with patients more and to be able to choose treatments. The challenges do keep you on your toes, however, and break the monotony of clicking on the patients to treat them.

One especially interesting and interactive part of the game is the ability to start a conversation with almost anybody in the hospital and to form relationships. It is even possible to start a romantic relationship with a colleague.

If you enjoyed The Sims, you'll love this game. If you are buying this game as an avid ER fan, however, you may be disappointed and crave more medical action. This game is great as a break from all those hours of studying. But remember not to play until the small hours of the morning.